Description: "A work of investigative reporting on five "accidental activists" who fight back against local and state governments to keep their communities safe"--
Brief description:
Miranda S. Spivack is a veteran reporter and editor who specializes in stories about government accountability and secrecy. She spent twenty years as an award-winning editor and reporter for the Washington Post. A former Fulbright Scholar and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at DePauw University and the author of Backroom Deals in Our Backyards (The New Press), she lives in Maryland.
Review Quotes: Praise for Backroom Deals in Our Backyards:
"An enraging exposéeacute; of a nationwide culture of corruption."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
--Linda Greenhouse, Yale Law School
"In Backroom Deals in our Backyards, Miranda Spivack shows that there's no real democracy without accountability, no real accountability without government transparency and no real government transparency without a fight. This book celebrates the fighters, American democracy's life-size heroes like my constituent Richard Boltuck, who demanded nothing more--and nothing less--than public information about River Road in Bethesda so we could protect the safety of young pedestrians in a school zone. Bravo to Miranda Spivack for shining a positive light on the people determined to shine a positive light."
--Congressman Jamie Raskin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
"Miranda S. Spivack has written the Unsafe At Any Speed of our time, highlighting the corrosive secrecy of increasingly powerful local governments. Beyond identifying an under-covered problem, to her enormous credit, she offers a deeply reported look at accidental activists who became Davids that beat Goliath. Based on their experiences, she offers a playbook for how citizens can effectively fight back against abuses of power in their own communities. With local reporting in decline, and more power being delegated to states, we'll depend increasingly on individual watchdogs like those featured here to expose wrongdoing and force change."
--James Hohmann, The Washington Post
"An urgent exposé, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards not only uncovers the dangers of government secrecy but highlights the unsung heroes fighting it. Miranda's dogged reporting, combined with her empathetic and powerful prose, make this as easy to read as it is important."
--Sara Ganim, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
"When governments and corporations collude, the public suffers--but that doesn't have to be the end of the story. Spivack shares incredible true tales of ordinary people who fought injustice against incredible odds. It's a book that will inspire and equip readers with the tools they need to ask their own questions--and get them answered."
--Michael Morisy, founder and chief executive of MuckRock