Access to news and information from a trustworthy source is more important than ever.
At Spotlight PA State College, we’re committed to delivering impactful accountability and investigative journalism about Centre County and north-central Pennsylvania.
Our neighbors deserve to know what’s happening in their communities, and not just if they can afford it. We make our essential journalism available at no cost to everyone through Spotlight PA and more than 125 news outlets across Pennsylvania — including the Centre Daily Times, WPSU, StateCollege.com, and the Centre County Gazette.
But we need your support to continue this vital effort.
We’re grateful to participate for the fourth year in Centre Gives, a 36-hour online fundraiser hosted by Centre Foundation on May 6-7, to continue our public service mission. Make a gift in support of Spotlight PA State College right now at spotlightpa.org/centre.
Your donation powers journalism that gets results right here in central Pennsylvania. Here are a few examples from the past year:
Penn State Cancer Institute: A November 2025 investigation by Spotlight PA reporters Charlotte Keith and Wyatt Massey found that Raymond Hohl, who was then the director of the Penn State Cancer Institute, was the subject of a series of damning internal reviews between early 2022 and mid-2023. The reviews found a series of problems with Hohl’s care of at least 10 patients. His sloppy recordkeeping caused multiple errors. Several of Hohl’s patients received extra doses of chemotherapy by accident. Others faced unexplained delays in changing their treatment, or having scans done to check whether their cancer had progressed, according to documents obtained by the newsroom. Hohl resigned the day after the investigation was published.
For this work, Keith and Massey have been named finalists for the Livingston Award in Local Reporting — which is likened to the Pulitzer Prize for journalists younger than 35.
Missing Rapes: Over nearly a decade, the State College Police Department underreported hundreds of rapes in public data, masking the true extent of the crime in the community surrounding Penn State. Spotlight PA’s Min Xian and freelance reporter Mark Fazlollah found that, from 2013 to 2021, State College police reported a total of 67 rapes in crime submissions to Pennsylvania State Police, when in fact there had been 321 — a 254-case difference.
The department had never acknowledged the longstanding error or disclosed it to the public until approached by Spotlight PA about potential data discrepancies.
Penn State Lawsuit: Spotlight PA scored a major transparency win involving Penn State’s Board of Trustees. In December 2023, Spotlight PA and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued the trustees for alleged violations of the state’s open meetings law. In June 2025, the board agreed to complete a training on the Sunshine Act and disclose more information about closed-door meetings as part of a settlement agreement with Spotlight PA. This was the most significant outcome from public meetings act litigation in recent state history.
Court Win: The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in October 2025 ruled that some internal Penn State trustee documents sought by Spotlight PA should be made public. It disagreed with the university’s argument that the secretaries of state agencies who sit on the board don’t possess the records because they’re housed on a cloud-based, file-sharing service. The court wrote in its decision that siding with Penn State’s argument would “perversely incentivize Commonwealth agencies, local agencies, and affected third parties like Penn State to utilize remote servers and/or cloud-based services, in order to ensure that they would no longer need to disclose what would otherwise constitute public records.”
“This decision is a major victory for government transparency and accountability,” Devin Brader-Araje, a Cornell Law School student who argued the case, told Spotlight PA in a statement in the fall. “The Court made clear that government officials cannot use technology to hide public information from the public. The ruling reaffirms that Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law will continue to serve its intended purpose of ensuring open access to government records.”
In April, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied requests by Penn State and the state Department of Education to overturn the lower court’s decision.
Help us ensure that we can continue digging deeper into the issues that matter to you. This crucial public service relies on the generosity of our donors. Visit spotlightpa.org/centre to make your donation.
And join us at our Centre Gives Party tonight from 5-8 p.m. at University Wine Company, 540 Misty Hill Drive. We can’t wait to see you there!