August 19, 2018

Mitt Romney Covers Breaking News!

The Senate candidate took a break from the campaign trail to take some photos.

June 26, 2018 - Orem, UT, USA - Mitt Romney and Ann Romney celebrate onstage after Mitt was declared the winner of the 2018 Utah Republican Senate Primary on June 26, 2018, in Orem, Utah. Brian Cahn/TNS via ZUMA Wire

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Mitt Romney has been busy shaking hands and knocking on doors for the past six months, while he runs to replace Orrin Hatch as the new senator from Utah. But he apparently took a few minutes off the campaign trail Friday night to take some video and still photos of an unfolding disaster in his Holladay, Utah, neighborhood:

Romney is famous as a very wealthy guy who still pumps his own gas, shovels his own walk, and takes a hands-on approach to home improvements. So perhaps it’s no surprise that he was on the scene to capture footage of a garage and camper going up in flames at a house just a 10-minute walk from his own.

At least 20 firefighters responded to the blaze; no one was injured. Romney’s photos suggest, though, that he recognized the news value of the neighborhood disaster. His campaign sent the video and photos to the local Sinclair News Broadcast station in Salt Lake City, KJZZ, which published them without fanfare—just a modest photo credit reading “Courtesy Mitt Romney.” 

KJZZ confirmed that the photographer was indeed the former GOP presidential nominee and now Senate candidate Mitt Romney. 

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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