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Polk Award Winners: Jesse Coburn

Overview

Shownote

Highlights

Transcript

Chapters

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Polk Award Winners: Jesse Coburn

Longform

2024/04/16
Longform

Longform

2024/04/16
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Jesse Coburn is an investigative reporter at Streetsblog. He won the Polk Award for Local Reporting for "Ghost Tags," his series on the black market for temporary license plates. “You can imagine this having never become a problem, because it’s so weird. W...

Highlights

This episode features investigative reporter Jesse Coburn, whose 'Ghost Tags' series uncovered a shocking, low-tech yet highly profitable black market in temporary license plates—exploiting regulatory loopholes across multiple states.
06:29
MTA loses $11 million a year due to fraudulent temporary license plates
14:36
Abdul, an honest used car dealer, exposed the temp tag scam due to his disgust for others in the industry
20:34
The Ghost Tags scam is alarmingly easy in New Jersey and Georgia due to weak regulatory checks
29:55
After the story came out, New Jersey investigated a car dealership and shut it down for illegal temp tag issuance
33:10
Jesse Coburn won the Polk Award for his investigative reporting

Chapters

How a Paper Plate Scam Took Over the Roads
00:00
Who’s Printing These Fake Tags—and Why Did One Dealer Talk?
12:00
What Happens When You Get Caught with a Ghost Tag?
17:31
Why Did States Let This Loophole Fester for Over a Decade?
23:40
What Changed After the Story Broke?
33:10

Transcript

Max Linsky: Recommendations can be great. Maybe someone recommended this podcast, and here you are. But home projects are a little different. If the podcast isn't your thing, you might lose a few minutes from your day. But if you hire your cousin's neighbo...