Tom Shephard, a political consultant for Bob Filner, a Democrat running for mayor of San Diego, noticed a lot of full page newspaper ads attacking his client; ads that he was quoted $8,000 for.

"Amita Sharma and Ryann Growchowski, with inewsource and KPBS, audited ads in the San Diego Union-Tribune every day between Labor Day and Election Day 2012 and compared the list with campaign finance records. The results show varied payments for ads, indicating the U-T may have offered bargains to the anti-Filner campaign and to other candidates and issues the newspaper endorsed."

Update: California's Fair Political ...

Time
Bitter Pill: Why medical bills are killing us
“Breaking these trillions down into real bills going to real patients cuts through the ideological debate over health care policy. By dissecting the bills that people like Sean Recchi face, we can see exactly how and why we are overspending, where the money is going and how to get it back. We just have to follow the money.”

New York Times Magazine
The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
“Inside the hyperengineered, savagely marketed, addiction-creating battle for American ‘stomach share.’”

Columbia Journalism Review
Immigration reform and private prison cash
“Key lawmakers ...

"Within 2½ weeks, 2,552 online requests arrived from voters who had not applied for absentee ballots. They streamed in much too quickly for real people to be filling them out. They originated from only a handful of Internet Protocol addresses. And they were not random. It had all the appearances of a political dirty trick, a high-tech effort by an unknown hacker to sway three key Aug. 14 primary elections, a Miami Herald investigation has found.”

"Now that Tuesday's election is over, CaliforniaWatch did an analysis to find out how much money was pumped into the political battles over California's eleven propositions."

"The total they found was $363 million or $20 in political spending for each of California’s 18.2 million registered voters."

"Peter Costello, a felon convicted of racketeering and fraud in 1998, has no right to vote because his civil rights never have been restored.But that didn’t stop the registered Republican from casting a ballot in the Aug. 14 primary, and, he said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post, submitting an absentee ballot for Tuesday’s election."

A total of 31 people out of 870,000 registered in Palm Beach County to vote in the presidential election, were born in the 1800s, the Palm Beach Post's investigation found.

Welcome to IRE's roundup of the weekend’s many enterprise stories from around the country. We’ll highlight the document digging, field work and data
analysis that made their way into centerpieces in print, broadcast and online from coast to coast.

Did we miss some? Let us know.  Send us an email at web@ire.org or tweet to @IRE_NICAR. We’ll add it to the list and spread the word.

The Investigative News Network
Big Political Donors Give Far and Wide, Influence Out-of-State Races and Issues
The focus on billionaires’ and corporations’ contributions to Super PACs this year ...

Working with Ipsos, Reuters has created such a database–the American Mosaic Polling Explorer –which can easily be searched by following the directions below."

"Want to know what white men in the South think about immigration policy? How African-American women older than 50 view gay marriage? Whether veterans and their families ...

IRE is introducing a roundup of the weekend’s many enterprise stories from around the country. We’ll highlight the document digging, field work and data analysis that made their way into centerpieces in print, broadcast and online from coast to coast.

Did we miss some? Let us know.  Send us an email at web@ire.org or tweet to @IRE_NICAR. We’ll add it to the list and spread the word.

Dayton Daily News
OSU president expenses in the millions

Daily News reporter Laura A. Bischoff fought a year-long FOIA battle to get hold of Ohio State University President ...

"WTSP-Tampa has found, through federal filings, that the Republican & Democratic national conventions promise economic windfalls to host cities but most of the money spent comes from the U.S. Treasury, including money spent on alcohol and parties."

"The Associated Press has compiled a list of U.S. political terms, phrases and definitions to assist in coverage of the 2012 national elections. The guidance encompasses the Democratic and Republican conventions to nominate presidential candidates; terminology for presidential races; campaign rhetoric; and elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Many of the terms are from the AP Stylebook. Others include writing with context and avoiding clichés."