The Franklin Center’s Watchdog.org has reporters on the ground nation-wide. Their Texas chapter is to thank for some of the best ongoing coverage of the University of Texas’ admissions practices.

From the Franklin Center:

Texas Watchdog’s “bullet-proof” coverage of the UT admissions scandal

It’s not often that a center-left news outlet calls out a major newspaper for misconstruing a story first reported by a nonprofit competitor, but that’s what happened recently when the Dallas Observer ran an article about the latest developments in the ongoing University of Texas admissions scandal. The day before, the Dallas Morning News had reported that influential Texans such as lawmakers, donors, and regents had written letters of recommendation that helped underqualified students gain admittance to UT. It pointed to the Kroll Report, an outside investigation into the admissions process that found that from 2009 to 2014, 73 students had been admitted to the premier school even though they had low high school GPAs (less than 2.9) and weak SAT scores (less than 1100).

“OK, this is one of those stop, do not pass go moments,” wrote Jim Schutze in The Observer. “That is not what this story is about. At the very least, even if you strip away all the larger implications, the UT admissions scandal involves 10 times that many students.”

Ten times as many? Yes, 764 to be exact, Schutze wrote, pointing to a recent report by Texas Watchdog bureau chief Jon Cassidy, who “has done most of the real digging on this story.”

The Morning News story went on to note that the students were specifically admitted by then-president Bill Powers, and said the Kroll report “suggested that political or personal connections may have influenced the decisions.” But as Schutze pointed out, it entirely ignored Cassidy’s reporting – dozens of stories that date back almost two years. Therein lay the problem.