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| Candidates for the IRE Board of Directors | ||
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My name is Wendell Cochran. I am director of the journalism division at American University in Washington and I am seeking re-election to the IRE Board of Directors. I am completing my first term on the board. The past two years have been important ones in the continuing growth and development of IRE; they have been rewarding but challenging years to be a board member, and I think that I have been able to use my experience and skills to help us as a board and as an organization. We have conducted a successful search that led to the appointment of a new executive director who is off to a great start. We have worked hard on fundraising and other initiatives to place IRE on a firmer financial footing, and we are continuing to develop new content and approaches to our core business of training for investigative reporters. I would like the opportunity to continue to serve you as we complete the transition to a new executive director, as we continue the important work of building the IRE endowment and as we deal with the continuing challenges of serving an industry undergoing historic changes.
More than ever, I believe in the mission of IRE. I have become even more committed personally to doing and teaching investigative journalism. As evidence of that, Chuck Lewis and I have founded the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a new nonprofit organization at American University dedicated to doing high-impact investigative reporting. I am serving as senior editor of this organization. IRE of course needs to work with and support our traditional constituencies in print and broadcast newsrooms. But we must also continue to reach out to new groups. I think it is vital that IRE build partnerships with the array of nonprofit entities that are emerging to fill part of the gap created by the cutbacks too many mainstream news outlets have made. It is more important than ever that IRE have a board member from an academic institution as one way to connect to a new generation of journalists and IRE members. We must continue to build our presence in the online newsrooms, which is why I have helped build ties between IRE and the Online News Association. Finally, we must continue to look beyond our borders and build strong associations with investigative journalists from around the world, including such things as the annual luncheon for international journalists that AU has funded the past six years. We may well also find ourselves called on more and more to advocate for investigative journalism, both inside and outside news organizations.
In other words, we have a lot of work to do to assure that IRE remains the vibrant force for excellence in journalism and I would like to be involved. I would be honored to have your support.
Dear fellow IRE members,
How time flies. It's been two years since I joined the IRE Board, which has been a great honor. And now I am running for re-election. Once again, I would be honored to receive your vote.
During my time, I have focused on developing the next generation of investigative reporters. A lot of individuals took the time to feed my journalistic spirit when I attended my first IRE conference in 1997, and I have made it my duty to give back. I routinely travel the country, mentoring and helping to do Better Watchdog Workshops at newspapers and conferences in English and Spanish.
I teach about investigative reporting at universities, colleges, even high schools. I recruit new members. This year I have even played fundraiser - despite these tough economic times, I secured some good coin from my company and others for the Miami Conference. It isn't hard to make a sales pitch for IRE: there is no other organization so committed to our professional growth and diversity, regardless of the medium, television, online or print.
If re-elected, my focus will remain on growing the membership, especially at the collegiate and small paper level, training, diversity, fundraising. This profession is truly a calling, and I am living proof of what IRE can do for you. Thank you.
Manny Garcia
I am seeking re-election to the IRE board because I want to continue working to spread IRE's passion and knowledge for investigative reporting to journalists in large and small newsrooms throughout the world.
IRE turned a corner this year. We made a smooth transition to a new executive director after 10 years of leadership from Brant Houston, we completed a massive effort to build and fund an endowment to ensure the organization's future, and we have continued to provide important training and workshops even as newsroom budgets shrink.
And we are looking ahead: to new opportunities for investigative reporting online, to yet one more endowment push after receiving an extension on a matching grant, to find new ways to help journalists in a multi-media environment, and to continue to reach out to journalists beyond the U.S. borders.
I continue to be inspired and energized by IRE. Our industry may be changing around us, but IRE's core mission remains as timely and important as ever. I would like your support to continue working on behalf of the organization and its efforts to spread the word about quality investigative reporting.
Bio: Dianna Hunt is an assistant business editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a former member of the newspaper's investigative team. She previously worked at The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle, where she spent seven of 13 years as a projects reporter. She also worked at the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times.
In more than 20 years of reporting, she investigated racial profiling throughout Texas, charity fraud, criminal teachers, failure of disaster-aid programs and other topics. As an editor for the past seven years, she has helped guide beat and enterprise reporters through projects large and small. She has won numerous national, state and local awards for investigative reporting, freedom of information, feature writing and spot news coverage.
A longtime member of IRE, Hunt has served on the IRE board since 2002 and as IRE treasurer for the past two years. She worked intensely this past year to recruit and hire the new executive director and to continue to build the IRE endowment.
Hunt and her husband, Evan Moore, also own a weekly newspaper. Hunt, 49, is a member of the Native American Journalists Association and the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
Elvis has not left the building.
While I have retired from The New York Times, I have not retired from journalism and more to the point, my commitment to IRE. I'd like your support for another term on the board.
IRE has entered a new phase. With a new executive director and the challenges of an industry in turmoil, the core mission of IRE is even more important. We need to increase our efforts to make investigative journalism the cornerstone in this new media age. We need new ideas to accommodate the new landscape of journalism. I bring that to the board as one who has always been at the forefront of new forms of journalism. I was blogging before it had a name. Before I discovered IRE, I taught myself many of the techniques we now take for granted.
I've been a supporter of our international expansion and cross-border journalism before it was accepted. I've conducted seminars on investigative techniques in more than a dozen international cities, including those in China and Africa. With my retirement, I will have more time to devote to raising the profile and influence of IRE around the world.
While I like to think of myself at the cutting edge, I'm still very old-school about our profession. I believe in our fundamental principles and feel it is our responsibility to pass those values on to the next and succeeding generations. It's been my habit to gather a group of our new members and mentor them. I was gratified to see that several of "my kids" are becoming the new leaders of IRE and credit me with making them feel part of the family.
My goals, if I am reelected, are to bring institutional memory to the board and keep us moving to the future. I believe in the truism that if you don't know where you've been, you can't know where you going.
Update 6/4/08: Rhonda Schwartz has withdrawn her candidacy for the IRE Board of Directors. In my 30 years as a network news producer, I have investigated national security issues, terrorism, political and corporate corruption, and human rights abuses. As head of the Brian Ross Investigation Unit at ABC News, I have helped to break many exclusive reports, including last year's IRE award winner, "The Mark Foley Investigation" on ABCNews.com which exposed the Congressional page scandal. I have received numerous other honors including: Peabody Awards, an Alfred DuPont-Columbia Award, George Polk Awards, an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award, Emmy Awards, and others. Before joining ABC News, I spent more than 20 years at NBC News working on a variety of news magazine and documentary programs, including "First Tuesday," "Chronolog," "Weekend," "Dateline" and the NBC News "White Papers" series. I'm particularly interested in the development of investigative reporting on the web.
When I discovered the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization, I discovered magic. I was a cops/courts reporter working for a small newspaper in Oklahoma in the late 90s when I joined IRE. At IRE, I found mentors, teachers and friends willing to listen, share and mentor me. They have become nothing less than a family. And I firmly believe that IRE computer-assisted reporting training changed my career. It opened doors to a new world where I could work on great stories that had an impact. At a time when newsroom's budgets are shrinking and the industry is changing, training is imperative if we are to survive journalistically. We need to evolve with technology and use those tools to serve our readers and our communities. I want to make sure that IRE continues to provide training and mentoring to young and minority journalists. I've made this my personal mission. IRE is a unique organization that strives to keep investigative journalism alive. I wish to ensure that it remains active and revered. This is why I'm running for the Board of Directors - to give back to the organization that has helped so much.
Bio: Mc Nelly Torres is a consumer/watchdog reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel where she writes about consumer issues. Previously she was assigned to the Miami bureau where she covered Miami-Dade County and its massive $5.6 billion bureaucracy and the home of more than 2 million people. She was an education reporter for the San Antonio Express-News where she wrote about corruption in school construction. Her work contributed to the conviction of an architect. At the Morning News in South Carolina, she garnered local and state awards for her investigative work on the state's hog farm permit filling process. In Oklahoma, she wrote a three-part series illustrating the sheriff's inability to solve homicides while showing the similarities between them. She worked for small newspapers in Texas where she covered regional news. Mc Nelly holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Colorado State University-Pueblo, formerly known as the University of Southern Colorado. Her current work as a consumer reporter has led to the conviction of a businessman with a history of defrauding consumers and an attorney general investigation and subsequent lawsuit of a foreclosure rescue firm. Mc Nelly was born and raised in Puerto Rico but has lived around the world while following a military husband who retired in 2005. Mc Nelly can be reached at .
Times are tough across the board in the field of journalism. Whether it's print or broadcast, the landscape of journalism has changed drastically and continues to change each day before our very eyes.
I believe that IRE has been and continues to be the beacon that helps journalists find their way in the good times and the changing times, but most importantly it helps us all to stay focused on why we became journalists in the first place.
I've been attending the IRE Conference since I got into this business, and I don't think I've missed a conference yet - even if I had to pay out of my own pocket. Each year I attend, I come back recharged and full of new ideas and inspirations that keep me going through the next year. By far, IRE offers more tools that journalists can use than any other journalism organization out there.
I believe in IRE and its members, and I would like the opportunity to give back to both because of all that's been given to me through the years.
A little about me ... I'm not the traditional journalist - graduating from journalism school and entering the business right out of college. I took a different route by serving in the U.S. military and then working for the Coca-Cola Company for almost 10 years before pursuing my dream to become a journalist.
I started as a news trainee at WSB in Atlanta. It was a great opportunity that sold me on investigative reporting. Going to IRE, I discovered my corporate computer skills would come in handy in Journalism - so I diligently studied CAR. I worked as a consumer investigative producer at WFTV in Orlando, Fla. From there I moved to Phoenix to join the ABC 15 Investigators at KNXV, where I was able to do some extraordinary work with some extraordinary journalists.
Currently, I work as the executive producer for investigations and special projects at KSHB in Kansas City.
I welcome the opportunity to serve and give something back.
Twenty years ago, as a young reporter just out of college, I attended my first Investigative Reporters and Editors National Conference. It was love at first sight. After all that IRE has given me, it's time to give back.
That's why I'm seeking election to the IRE board.
My own career path reflects the diversity of IRE's members. Beginning as a print journalist, I later moved to television. These days, I spend a lot of my time preparing material for the web. In my current position as chief investigative reporter for WTVF-TV in Nashville, I've had the opportunity to mentor and manage other investigative journalists. That's also the role that the IRE board plays for our profession.
Frankly, I cannot imagine my career without the incredible insights that I have gained through IRE. But, first, I was inspired by the nobility of what this organization had accomplished through the Arizona Project. Personally, that spirit sustained me during an excruciating investigation in which the subjects of a police-corruption investigation threatened to kill me and do whatever it took to destroy me and my family. When that project was recognized with an IRE Medal in 2000, I felt the pain had been worth it.
Over the years, I've been honored to received many national awards - a finalist for the Pulitzer, two George Foster Peabody Awards, a duPont Award, a George Polk Award, to name a few. I know good investigative journalism when I see it, and I want to do whatever I can to help develop other journalists looking for guidance and inspiration.
What we do is important to journalism. It's important to our communities. In these tough economic times, I'd like to lead an effort to convince newsroom leaders that it's also good for business.
I'd appreciate your vote.
Hi. Duff Wilson here. Thanks for caring about IRE. Three reasons to return me for a second term on the board:
First: follow-up. We did a lot in the last two years and need to follow through. We hired a great new executive director. Kept membership above 4,000. Raised another $800,000 toward our $4 million endowment to assure IRE's future. I co-chaired the fundraising development committee with Cheryl Phillips and led a new fundraiser called the $25 Club. Hundreds of IRE members joined the $25 Club to raise $85,000 - a great show of grassroots support. Thank you to all who gave. Personally, I've received so much from IRE, I'm honored to be able to give back.
Second: credentials. For anyone who doesn't know me, I have worked as an investigative reporter in Seattle and now New York. My parents were weekly newspaper editors. And I enjoy good TV investigations. I've been fortunate to be a three-time Pulitzer finalist, in public service, investigative (with David Heath) and breaking news (with staff), and won two Goldsmiths, two Polks, and an IRE book award. I've also web-mastered the "Reporter's Desktop" . And I've usually had a great time doing it.
Third: forgot the third reason. "D'oh!" (Obligatory Duff Beer joke.)
If you're not coming to the conference, please vote now.
Thanks,
Duff Wilson
