Lee Zurik
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As the city of New Orleans's most honored investigative reporter, Lee has been uncovering and reporting impactful stories on WVUE since 2009. Following up his tenacious inquiries with detailed analysis and powerful storytelling, Lee delivers unprecedented accountability of government officials, private citizens and corporations. Lee has been honored with journalism’s top honors including two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont Silver Batons, twelve National Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal. In addition to his work at WVUE, Lee is Gray Television’s Vice President of Investigations. In that role for WVUE’s parent company, he oversees Gray Television’s National Investigative Team – InvestigateTV. Lee is a New Orleans native and a graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Permission to Practice: Doctors, patients say insurance prior-authorizations put profits over people
Updated: Mar. 20, 2023 at 3:53 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston, Jamie Grey, Lee Zurik, Bailey Williams and Payton Romans
Insurance companies say these reviews lower costs and protect patients, but what requires advance permission varies plan to plan, and critics argue the policies get between a patient and their doctor.
Updated: Feb. 27, 2023 at 4:00 PM EST
|By Lee Zurik
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to an attorney, but there’s a public defender shortage. The problem means delayed justice for victims and prolonged jail time for the accused not convicted of crimes. In some areas, vacancies are at an all-time high. It’s leaving both defendants and victims waiting for months, sometimes even years, for justice.
Updated: Jan. 30, 2023 at 2:22 PM EST
|By InvestigateTV staff and Lee Zurik
In a pair of investigations Andy Pierrotti looks at flawed forensics and wrongful convictions.
Updated: Jan. 23, 2023 at 3:45 PM EST
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Lee Zurik and Conner Hendricks
More than two decades ago, the death of a toddler in a recalled portable crib prompted Congress to pass a new consumer protection law. Yet today, children still are dying in unsafe products, recalls remain largely ineffective at ridding homes of dangerous products, and the CPSC website that was supposed to help creates a false sense of security, an InvestigateTV analysis of federal records shows.
Updated: Jan. 18, 2023 at 4:19 PM EST
|By Lee Zurik
For decades, service members and their families were essentially barred from suing the military for medical malpractice.
Updated: Jan. 17, 2023 at 5:02 PM EST
|By Lee Zurik and Dannah Sauer
New details of a divorce petition obtained by Fox 8 imply New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was involved in an extramarital affair with Officer Jeffrey Vappie.
Updated: Jan. 9, 2023 at 5:06 PM EST
|By Lee Zurik
Joce Sterman exposes how the system meant to keep doctors in check is letting physicians keep their licenses even when they come to work impaired. Plus, non-profit hospitals claim they charge privately insured patients more to make up for losses on Medicare reimbursements, but a new report says some hospitals are making money off Medicare
Updated: Nov. 14, 2022 at 12:13 PM EST
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
When a company learns a product it sells could be defective and dangerous, it has 24 hours to let the federal government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission know about it. But it could take months or years for the public to find out about the company’s possible concerns, if they even come to light at all. InvestigateTV has been battling CPSC and companies to disclose information about the products companies have sounded the alarm on – an alarm that remains relatively silent.
Updated: Sep. 19, 2022 at 5:03 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff and Lee Zurik
For many college coaches, it pays to get fired. Over a 17-year period beginning in 2005, public universities have shelled out more than $1.1 billion in buying out the contracts of college coaches, according to an InvestigateTV analysis of NCAA financial data collected by Syracuse University. Most of that money was spent on football coaches who play at the highest level of Division I athletics. As football coaches' annual compensation now stretches into seven digits, massive severance payments also grow bigger and bigger.
Updated: Aug. 15, 2022 at 5:19 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
After the deaths of 13 children over the last 12 years, this summer, Fisher-Price and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warned parents not to let their children sleep in certain rockers the company has made since the 1990s. Now, InvestigateTV has discovered that during a 2021 Congressional hearing, the company dodged questions about whether it currently had products on the market linked to children’s deaths.
Updated: May. 23, 2022 at 6:34 PM EDT
|By Jamie Grey, Lee Zurik and Payton Romans
Sometimes a surgeon is the salesman. Across the country, there are physician-owned distributorships where doctors own part of a medical device company and then buy (or have their hospital buy) that hardware to use in their own surgeries.
Updated: May. 9, 2022 at 2:13 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Conner Hendricks and Lee Zurik
A new federal law takes effect in July that aims to clean up thoroughbred horseracing, which for years has been plagued by scandals, drugs and equine fatalities. Racing insiders have pushed for decades for such a measure and they welcome the new oversight.
Updated: Apr. 25, 2022 at 6:18 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston and Lee Zurik
Diabetes patients say they're being priced out of being able to afford live-saving insulin. Who's to blame is a matter of who you ask.
Updated: Feb. 14, 2022 at 6:18 PM EST
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Lee Zurik and Jamie Grey
It takes years for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to remove dangerous products from the market because of its cumbersome rule-making process and ineffective recalls that don’t incentivize consumers to return or destroy dangerous items.
Updated: Feb. 14, 2022 at 6:09 PM EST
|By Jill Riepenhoff and Lee Zurik
The federal agency created to watchdog consumer products - from crock pots to xylophones - is muzzled by its governing law, which gives all the power to manufacturers, including those with dangerous toys, appliances and other items on the market. The Fisher-Price Rock N Play – an inclined sleep product that defied the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for safe infant sleeping – exposed all that is wrong with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Updated: Jan. 31, 2022 at 6:08 PM EST
|By Emily Featherston, Lee Zurik and Jamie Grey
Programs bridging public schools and homeschooling are growing fast, but critics worry about what that means for the future of education.
Updated: Jan. 24, 2022 at 5:02 PM EST
|By Jamie Grey, Emily Featherston, Lee Zurik, Jon Decker and Cory Johnson
Foreign entities have bought 13 million more U.S. farm acres in 10 years, but agriculture policy scholars say the total could be far more.
Updated: Oct. 18, 2021 at 6:17 PM EDT
|By Daniela Molina, Jill Riepenhoff and Lee Zurik
The lack of access to dental care plagues many parts of rural America.
Updated: Aug. 10, 2021 at 3:05 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston, Lee Zurik, Jon Decker and Jamie Grey
As lawmakers debate including female drivers in more crash test standards, the agency in charge is staying quiet.
Updated: Aug. 5, 2021 at 2:47 PM EDT
|By Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
Updated daily, this COVID-19 hotspot map illustrates where the largest number of new cases (relative to population) have been reported in the last seven days.
Updated: Aug. 4, 2021 at 5:56 PM EDT
|By Lee Zurik, Jamie Grey, Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina and Owen Hornstein
Bridging the Great Health Divide explores issues in rural America through the lens of residents, doctors and other health care providers.
Updated: Jul. 28, 2021 at 1:17 PM EDT
|By Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
Gray Television stations will air a documentary about disparities in rural health care and the people working to bridge the great health divide.
Updated: Jul. 19, 2021 at 6:24 PM EDT
|By Jamie Grey, Lee Zurik and Daniela Molina
The purpose of the food stamp program is to help low-income families access healthy foods, but in rural America, that can be difficult.
Updated: Jun. 30, 2021 at 1:28 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston, Jon Decker, Lee Zurik and Jamie Grey
Bills in both the U.S. House and Senate look to update crash test dummies and testing procedures to make sure drivers are equally protected.
Updated: Jun. 14, 2021 at 5:05 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
Before last year food insecurity impacted about 10% of all U.S. residents. Experts estimate that number has at least doubled since the pandemic.
Updated: Jun. 14, 2021 at 5:01 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
Antes del año pasado, la inseguridad alimentaria afectó a aproximadamente el 10,5% de los residentes de EE. UU. Una vez que la pandemia cerró en gran medida la economía, los expertos estiman que el porcentaje de personas que sufren de inseguridad alimentaria al menos se duplicó.
Updated: May. 17, 2021 at 4:01 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston, Lee Zurik, Jackson Hicks and Jamie Grey
The federal government gives out subsidies to help farms through tough times, but much of the information about these taxpayer-funded payments is kept secret.
Updated: May. 10, 2021 at 2:47 PM EDT
|By Emily Featherston, Lee Zurik, Jon Decker and Jamie Grey
Experts say one of the most advertised safety standards largely doesn't account for more than half of all licensed drivers.
Updated: Apr. 8, 2021 at 10:03 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
In 207 counties in 2018, there wasn’t a family, general or internal medicine doctor – the primary care doctors mainly for adults, according to an InvestigateTV analysis of federal data.
Updated: Feb. 15, 2021 at 4:37 PM EST
|By Daniela Molina and Lee Zurik
DNA paternity labs are not regulated by the FDA; rather, there is a voluntary accreditation process. The records about those labs are kept largely under wraps.
Updated: Nov. 11, 2020 at 6:15 PM EST
|By Jamie Grey, Lee Zurik, Lauren Davis and Brianna Lanham
Families of those injured or killed by police say union contracts are protecting "bad apples" and stop police leadership from being able to have oversight. Union officials say police are highly scrutinized and need collective bargaining agreements.
Updated: Nov. 4, 2020 at 6:59 PM EST
|By Megan Luther and Lee Zurik
Nurse practitioners are questioning their own education at some colleges. There’s no national standard on how to educate nurse practitioners, while medical education for doctors was standardized more than 100 years ago.
Penalties at Play: Millions of dollars flow to nursing homes from fines they have paid for poor care
Updated: Oct. 28, 2020 at 8:20 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina, Jamie Grey and Lee Zurik
Every year millions of dollars flow to nursing homes from a fund that is padded with fines collected from long-term care facilities that inspections show have put the health and safety of residents in jeopardy.
Updated: Oct. 22, 2020 at 3:07 PM EDT
|By Megan Luther and Lee Zurik
The federal government allocated nearly half a billion in CARES Act funds to colleges the government considered not financially responsible. Some colleges received money after announcing their plans to close for good.
Updated: Oct. 2, 2020 at 4:30 PM EDT
|By Megan Luther, Jill Riepenhoff and Lee Zurik
Officials have known about a top opioid prescriber for at least five years. This week the Tennessee and Alabama doctor was federally indicted for illegally distributing opioids, kickbacks and more.
Updated: Sep. 24, 2020 at 10:17 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff and Lee Zurik
For three months, InvestigateTV has tracked federal government data on nursing home COVID-19 cases and deaths. For three months, those numbers have been wrong.
Updated: Sep. 17, 2020 at 7:35 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Lee Zurik and Jamie Grey
Only around a quarter of the nation's largest universities publicly release active COVID-19 case information. Public health experts say the more data available, the better.
Updated: Sep. 2, 2020 at 6:24 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina and Lee Zurik
Hundreds of nursing homes with poor ratings are waiting to get into a program intended to improve care.
Updated: Sep. 2, 2020 at 5:33 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina and Lee Zurik
Residents have been abused, neglected and ignored under the government’s watch. Oversight weakened because of COVID-19.
Updated: Aug. 20, 2020 at 4:03 PM EDT
|By Jamie Grey, Lee Zurik and Peter Buffo
More than 200 companies that paid the federal government for fraud related accusations in the last decade received billions of dollars in unsolicited relief money as part of the coronavirus bailout package.
Updated: Aug. 7, 2020 at 6:18 AM EDT
|By Megan Luther and Lee Zurik
Employees say they were exposed to coworkers who tested positive for COVID-19 but were never informed by their employers. In most states, companies don't have to disclose cases.
Updated: Jul. 21, 2020 at 6:36 PM EDT
|By Rose Wagner, Megan Luther and Lee Zurik
For-profit colleges received more than $1 billion from the CARES Act, money that was intended to help at-need institutions and students. Some of these schools are owned by billion-dollar companies, while community colleges received proportionally less support.
Updated: Jul. 9, 2020 at 8:52 PM EDT
|By Jill Riepenhoff, Daniela Molina and Lee Zurik
Federal nursing home coronavirus case data remains flawed, and some members of Congress say that needs to change.
Updated: Jul. 6, 2020 at 4:25 PM EDT
|By Lee Zurik, Jamie Grey, Cody Lillich, Jill Riepenhoff and Megan Luther
InvestigateTV is monitoring coronavirus COVID-19 cases around the country and updating information here frequently.
Updated: Jun. 23, 2020 at 10:23 PM EDT
|By Daniela Molina, Lee Zurik and Jamie Grey
Since 2008, the U.S. military has sent more than 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles to local police departments at their request. Now, some are questioning the optics.
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