by John Darer® CLU ChFC MSSC CeFT RSP CLTC
A searing Washington Post expose on the financial predators in the structured settlement secondary market has earned the 2016 Heywood Broun Award of journalistic distinction for investigative reporter Terrence McCoy.
Who Was Heywood Broun?
Heywood Campbell Broun (1888-1939), was a Brooklyn, New York born newspaper columnist, author, and one of the founders of the American Newspaper Guild. While at the New York World, he began a syndicated column, “It Seems to Me,” which he wrote until his death. In his column, the first of its kind to disagree with the policies of the newspapers that carried it, Broun championed the underdog, criticized social injustice, and supported labor unions–all issues of intense concern to Eleanor Roosevelt. He also publicly backed ER’s efforts to retain her own identity after becoming first lady, writing that “she has a right to her own individual career regardless of the prominence of her husband.” Joseph Lash. World of Love: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends, 1943-1962. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984, p131.
How did Terence McCoy reveal the exploitative practices targeting Baltimore’s predominantly Black lead paint victims?
McCoy’s work included several nationally syndicated front page stories which exposed settlement purchasers such as Access Funding, its lawyer, Anuj Sud from College Park and those who allegedly colluded with it, like Derwood MD lawyer Charles E Smith and CES Law Group, to purportedly provide “independent professional advice” to Baltimore City lead paint victims with structured settlements, but apparently didn’t.
According to the Washington Post, the Heywood Broun panel judges said McCoy’s reporting was very much in the tradition of Broun, as the reporter peeled back “the layers of the institutional racism that plagued not only Freddie Gray’s short life, but of those who have grown up in Baltimore’s poor black communities.”
Terrence McCoy “was Harassed and Threatened” when Investigating the Seedy Underbelly of the Structured Settlement Secondary Market
The NewsGuild-CWA judges noted that McCoy was harassed and threatened as he pursued the story, but ultimately produced a series that got the attention of the Maryland judiciary and members of Congress and quickly led to substantial judicial and regulatory reforms aimed at protecting the Maryland’s most vulnerable citizens.
McCoy’s Work Led to Maryland Attorney General Investigation and Law Suit and a Civil Class Action Law Suit
Maryland Class Action Slams Structured Settlement Buyers and Lawyers Who Victimized Baltimore City Blacks
Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger , the tiger will become a vegetarian -Heywood Broun 1888-1939
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How companies make millions of lead-poisoned poor blacks August 25, 2015