Case Study: Philip Merrill College of Journalism achieves comprehensive, time-saving investigative reporting on human trafficking with FiscalNote

Maryland Journalism Students Use Fiscalnote as Investigative Research Tool

The University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, through its student-run Capital News Service, needed a better way to research state legislation while covering the Maryland General Assembly and investigating the growing sex and labor trafficking market. Students were tasked with finding and tracking human trafficking bills across multiple states, comparing those laws to Maryland’s statutes, and reporting on dozens of other policy areas—work that was slow and error-prone using disparate, inconsistent state websites.

By adopting FiscalNote’s legislative tracking and predictive analytics, students quickly compared laws and penalties across states, identified that Maryland’s definition of human trafficking was more restrictive while penalties were relatively light, and used pre-floor and floor scores to focus on the most consequential bills. The tool’s intuitive interface and tracking capabilities enabled a month‑and‑a‑half investigation that produced a comprehensive, authoritative report readers and faculty praised as unlikely without FiscalNote.

Philip Merrill College of Journalism

Sean Mussenden

Co-Director