Lizzie Presser

Reporter

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Lizzie Presser covers health, inequality and how policy is experienced at ProPublica. She was previously a contributing writer for The California Sunday Magazine, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, This American Life and others. Her story “The Dispossessed,” published in partnership with The New Yorker, won the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting and the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism in 2020. She is a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award and the National Magazine Award.

New Legislation Would Expand Access to Disaster Relief, Provide Help With Titles for Large Number of Black Landowners

The bills come after ProPublica’s reporting on land passed down informally within families, known as heirs’ property. Representing about one-third of Black-owned land in the South, it can be ineligible for aid and vulnerable to forced sales.

We’re Investigating Mental Health Care Access. Share Your Insights.

ProPublica’s reporters want to talk to mental health providers, health insurance insiders and patients as we examine the U.S. mental health care system. If that’s you, reach out.

“I Want the Anger to Be Your Anger”: Bringing a ProPublica Investigation From Page to Screen

For his new documentary, “Silver Dollar Road,” Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck spent years building on ProPublica’s coverage of how Black families are dispossessed of their land. “These were people I knew, these were situations that I knew.”

New Legislation Takes Aim at Hidden Foster Care

A ProPublica-New York Times Magazine story exposed a system with few legal protections for families. A first-of-its-kind bill aims to provide parents with free counsel when child protection workers try to move their kids without going to court.

She Wanted an Abortion. A Judge Said She Wasn’t Mature Enough to Decide.

As abortion access dwindles, America’s “parental-involvement” laws place further restrictions on teenagers — who may need to ask judges for permission to end their pregnancies.

Child Advocates Sue New York Over Proposed Shadow Foster Care System

Child advocates are suing New York for a program they say would create an unlawful shadow foster system that deprives families of their rights, saying a ProPublica investigation made the dangers “abundantly clear.”

A Multimillion-Dollar Settlement for a Young Woman Once Lost in the Shadow Foster System

Days after ProPublica featured Molly Cordell in a story about how a North Carolina county illegally tore her from her family and made her homeless, she got a $4 million settlement.

“They Took Us Away From Each Other”: Lost Inside America’s Shadow Foster System

Across the country, unregulated “shadow” foster care is severing parents from children — who often wind up abandoned by the system that’s supposed to protect them.

The Child Care Industry Was Collapsing. Mrs. Jackie Bet Everything on an Impossible Dream to Save It.

Jackie Thomas was $29,134 in debt and in trouble with state regulators. She hadn’t slept in days. If a judge ruled against her, she’d fail the mothers who could only keep their jobs thanks to the 24-hour child care she offered.

For Years, JaMarcus Crews Tried to Get a New Kidney, but Corporate Healthcare Stood in the Way

He needed dialysis to stay alive. He couldn't miss a session, not even during a pandemic.

Dr. Foluso Fakorede speaks with a patient.

New Bill Aims to End Racial Disparities in Amputations

Informed by a ProPublica article investigating why Black Americans were three times more likely to undergo diabetic amputations, five members of congress are working to fund screening and enhance diagnostics in an effort to save limbs.

Black Landowners Will Benefit From New Funding to Prevent Land Loss

A year after a ProPublica story highlighted problems for landowners who passed down “heirs’ property” without wills, a reformer won a MacArthur “genius” award and a nonprofit organization has received a flood of donations.

Black Diabetics Lose Limbs at Triple the Rate of Others. Here’s How Health Care Leaders Are Starting to Act.

The American Diabetes Association is creating an initiative to fight unnecessary amputations, which a ProPublica investigation found disproportionately affect Black diabetics. Congress, doctors and the public are finally taking notice, too.

The Black American Amputation Epidemic

Black patients were losing limbs at triple the rate of others. The doctor put up billboards in the Mississippi Delta. Amputation Prevention Institute, they read. He could save their limbs, if it wasn’t too late.

Rationing Protective Gear Means Checking on Coronavirus Patients Less Often. This Can Be Deadly.

Low on essential supplies and fearing they’ll get sick, doctors and nurses told ProPublica in-person care for coronavirus patients has been scaled back. In some cases, it’s causing serious harm.

Un empleado de servicios médicos describe las terribles consecuencias de la insuficiencia pulmonar causada por el COVID-19, incluso en sus pacientes jóvenes

“Caí por primera vez en la cuenta de lo diferente que es cuando vi deteriorarse a mi primer paciente de coronavirus. Pensé ‘Maldita sea, esto no es una gripa’, mientras veía a este hombre relativamente joven que se esforzaba por respirar y expulsaba secreciones espumosas de color rosa por su tubo”.

A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients

“It first struck me how different it was when I saw my first coronavirus patient go bad. I was like, Holy shit, this is not the flu. Watching this relatively young guy, gasping for air, pink frothy secretions coming out of his tube.”

Has the Price of Diabetes Care Affected You? Tell Us About It.

ProPublica is investigating the potentially dangerous impacts of costly Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes care. Help us report by filling out our form.

U.S. Senate Greenlights Funding to Help Prevent Families From Losing Their Land

A ProPublica-New Yorker story about black land loss was cited by the legislation’s sponsor before the near-unanimous vote.

When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested

Welcome to Coffeyville, Kansas, where the judge has no law degree, debt collectors get a cut of the bail and Americans are watching their lives — and liberty — disappear in the pursuit of medical debt collection.

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