Backroom Deals in Our Backyards:
How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities—and the Local Heroes Fighting Back
A groundbreaking look at how ordinary people are fighting back against their local and state governments to keep their communities safe, by an award-winning journalist
Coming on May 6, 2025 from The New Press
Miranda Spivack
Miranda is a veteran reporter and editor who specializes in stories about government accountability and secrecy, and urban development.
Miranda's book, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards, about the underreported rise in secret deal-making between local governments and corporations and how this threatens our health, safety, and democracy, is scheduled to be published in 2025 by New Press. Preorder here: https://thenewpress.com/books/backroom-deals-our-backyards
Latest Stories
Articles on data center expansion across the U.S. and tech growth in Salt Lake City for The New York Times, an op-ed on Montgomery County planning department problems for The Washington Post, and articles about the challenges to police transparency when criminal records are expunged and police discipline records remain secret.
An Evolving Salt Lake City Hopes to Be ‘Just Like Austin’
New York Times
Montgomery County should be transparent about planning department problems
Washington Post
‘Clean slate’ laws would erase criminal records. Do they make America more equitable?
McClatchy Papers
States look to help people with criminal records find jobs, housing. What they’re doing
McClatchy Papers
Warehouse Space Is the Latest Thing Being Hoarded
New York Times
More Data in the Cloud Means More Centers on the Ground to Move It
New York Times
To Expand, Arts Centers Seek to Build Their Own Community
New York Times
Can ‘clean slate’ laws really erase criminal records from public view? It’s complicated
McClatchy Papers
Police personnel records routinely kept secret, erased. How that hurts accountability
McClatchy Papers
Implementation of Anton’s Law Varies, and Some Police Agencies Seek Huge Fees to Release Public Documents
Maryland Matters
Secrecy
Miranda's stories—about the penchant for secrecy over transparency by state and local governments and other public institutions—are a groundbreaking body of work that has unearthed major problems in how these little scrutinized public institutions are spending public money. Her "State Secrets" series for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting won the Society for Professional Journalists 2017 Sunshine Award.
Public colleges hide donors who seek to influence students. Will COVID-19 make it worse?
An early casualty of the coronavirus pandemic has been the loss of easy access to public information.
State Secrets: How state and local governments hide public information
Immigration
Miranda's work on immigration was one of the first in the United States to identify a major, unreported backlog in the immigration system that has led to years of delays for people seeking to become U.S. citizens.
Development
While at The Washington Post, Miranda unearthed several major stories about problems in local government oversight of development, leading to change in the way some jurisdictions worked with developers. She has continued to write about development trends and issues as a freelancer for The New York Times.
Strapped local governments are turning to private developers to finance their projects.
New York Times
‘Time Is Always Money’: Pandemic Lockdowns Hasten Infrastructure Work
Second Act for Shuttered Mills Revitalizes New England Towns
Other Writing
Miranda's recent piece for The Crisis Magazine on the need to make the Internet a public utility won a first place award from the Washington, D.C. branch of the Society for Professional Journalists. While her general focus is on state and local government accountability, she has written a wide variety of other pieces, including feature stories about people who make a difference in their communities.
Digital Redlining
Against Tough Odds, a High School Arts Program Fosters Success
Pence Has a History with ‘Voter Fraud’
Newsday
