Robert Benincasa
Robert Benincasa is a computer-assisted reporting producer in NPR's Investigations Unit.
Since joining NPR in 2008, Benincasa has been reporting on NPR Investigations stories, analyzing data for investigations, and developing data visualizations and interactive applications for NPR.org. He has worked on numerous groundbreaking stories, including data-driven investigations of the inequities of federal disaster aid and coal miners' exposures to deadly silica dust.
Prior to NPR, Benincasa served as the database editor for the Gannett News Service Washington Bureau for a decade.
Benincasa's work at NPR has been recognized by many of journalism's top honors. In 2014, he was part of a team that won an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award, and he shared Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards with Investigations Unit colleagues in 2016 and 2011.
Also in 2011, he received numerous accolades for his contributions to several investigative stories, including an Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, an Investigative Reporters & Editors Radio Award, the White House News Photographers Association's Eyes of History Award for multimedia innovation, and George Polk and George Foster Peabody awards.
Benincasa served on the faculty of Georgetown University's Master of Professional Studies program in journalism from 2008 to 2016.
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A new study links the epidemic of severe lung disease among coal miners to toxic silica dust. The findings echo a 2018 investigation by NPR and the PBS show Frontline. -
Investors and companies are swooping in to buy mobile home parks. They raise fees and rents, and evict people who can't pay — using billions of dollars' worth of low interest, government-backed loans.
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Heat has killed hundreds of workers in the U.S., many in construction or agriculture, an investigation by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations found. Federal standards might have prevented them.
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Landfills are among the nation's largest sources of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. But accurately measuring methane is a major challenge to reducing it.
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On March 13, President Trump promised to mobilize private and public resources to respond to the coronavirus. NPR followed up on each promise and found little action had been taken.
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An international endangered species treaty that placed trade restrictions on rosewood is poised to exempt musical instruments from the regulations.
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A Labor Department audit found no correlation between the federal system that fines mining companies for unsafe conditions and safety in mining operations.
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The federal government spends billions of dollars each year helping communities rebuild after disasters and to prevent future damage. But that money isn't always allocated to those who need it most.
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Complex regulations around the material, including a confusing permit process for musicians, may be much easier to navigate after a meeting today in Geneva.
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This year, new international regulations on rosewood have reverberated through the music industry, costing tens of millions in lost sales and extra administrative costs.
