Before sunrise, a line of passenger vans heads to job sites across Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They carry squads of unpaid laborers.
Laura Starecheski
Senior Radio Editor
Laura Starecheski is a former senior radio editor for Reveal. Their radio work at Reveal has won a national Edward R. Murrow, a duPont-Columbia, and a Peabody, among other awards. Previously, they reported on health for NPR’s science desk and traveled the United States with host Al Letson for the Peabody Award-winning show “State of the Re:Union.” Their Radiolab story “Goat on a Cow” won a silver award for best documentary from the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and SOTRU's “The Hospital Always Wins” won a national Murrow Award. They have been a Rosalynn Carter fellow for mental health journalism and a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan. Starecheski is based in Philadelphia.
American Rehab Chapter 5: Reagan with the Snap
Cenikor rises from the ashes, thanks to an inventor of NFL football pads, the war on drugs and the endorsement of an American president.
American Rehab Chapter 4: Cowboy Conman
He’s a liar, a killer and a wannabe country singer. Luke Austin creates Cenikor in the image of a cult. But graft and violence nearly destroy it.
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American Rehab Chapter 3: A Venomous Snake
After building a small fortune, Synanon’s megalomaniac leader turns the revolutionary rehab into a violent cult.
American Rehab Chapter 2: Miracle on the Beach
Reveal’s American Rehab exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid shadow workforce.
American Rehab Chapter 1: A Desperate Call
Penny Rawlings is relieved to finally get her brother into rehab at a place called Cenikor. She doesn’t realize that getting him out of treatment is going to be the bigger problem.
Listen to American Rehab, a podcast series from Reveal
Reveal exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid, shadow workforce.
Pizzagate: A slice of fake news
This week, Reveal teams up with The Investigative Fund and Rolling Stone to dissect Pizzagate and the violence it inspired.
The red line: Racial disparities in lending
In dozens of cities across the country, lenders are more likely to deny mortgage loans to applicants of color than white ones.
Five years on Nauru
Children refuse to eat, talk or drink water. A mental illness strikes families in an Australian immigrant detention camp on a tiny island nation.