Home Truths

In a three-part investigative series, "The hard truth in lending," Binyamin Applebaum and Ted Mellnik of the Charlotte Observer looked at 2.2 million mortgage records of the 25 biggest lenders in the country. They found that blacks are four times more likely than whites to get socked with high interest rates. With the 10 biggest lenders, blacks were twice as likely to have their loan applications denied. These trends, they learned, hold true even when income levels are taken into account.
www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/special_packages/lending

Heroic reporting

Covering a disaster is never easy, but the staff of the New Orleans Times-Picayune has made a truly heroic effort to bring residents of their city the news they need in the extremely difficult and dangerous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They have given readers a thorough report of the devastation, rescue efforts, looting and despair while having to evacuate their own offices and worrying about their own families and friends. The nola.com Web site deserves special credit for creating forums where readers can trade messages about missing loved ones and the fate of their homes and neighborhoods. My hat also goes off to all the other journalists who are covering this story under trying circumstances.
http://www.nola.com