Investigative reporting resources for high school journalism teachers and students

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IRE Resources

  • IRE Resource Center Story Database
    • This is a searchable index to a collection of more than 19,000 investigative stories. It is a good place for story ideas or for finding stories on the same topic you are writing about so you can get some tips on reporting the same or similar topic. There is a fee for purchasing the stories.
  • IRE Resource Center Tipsheet Database
    • This is a searchable index to a collection of more than 1,900 tipsheets from IRE and NICAR conferences.  Tipsheets are the handouts speakers gave to the session attendees.  Tipsheet topics range from downloading data to Excel to better writing tips to reporting on high school or college athletics  to managing projects.  Learn from some of the best investigative journalists in the country.  IRE members can download most of the tipsheets at no charge. Nonmembers are charged for tipsheets.
  • The IRE Journal and Uplink Index
    • Available only to IRE members, this is a searchable index to The IRE Journal and Uplink, a newsletter published by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.  Journalists write about how they got the story or used data for a story.  This is a good resource for tips and advice on reporting certain topics or using data.
  • IRE Resource Center Bookstore
    IRE Beat books can be helpful when covering certain topics.  Also, for those math-impaired journalists, Numbers in the Newsroom is a great resource.  The Investigative Reporter's Handbook is a handy book to have in a newsroom library for quick tips on reporting different topics.   Interested in learning how to use a government database for a story?  You might want to read Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide.
  • IRE Conference Audio Tapes
    Audio tapes from panels at IRE conferences are available for sale from Sound Images, Inc.  This page contains links to lists of panel topics available on audio tape from past conferences. 
  • IRE Educator's Center
    This section of the IRE Web site provides journalism educators who are IRE members with curriculum outlines and ideas, teaching exercises, and access to the archives of an electronic mailing list for journalism educators.  Also available in this section are links to resource material, the IRE story and tipsheet databases and a citation list of articles, books and essays for journalism educators. 
Scholastic Organizations
  • Columbia Scholastic Press Association
    CSPA is an international student press association uniting student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges and award programs.
  • Journalism Education Association
    The Journalism Education Association is the only independent national scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers.
  • National Scholastic Press Association
    The National Scholastic Press Association serves student media in secondary schools and journalism education programs in the United States and abroad. Membership is by publication, not by school or individual.
  • Quill and Scroll
    Quill and Scroll is an international honorary society with the goals of promoting and creating interest in high school journalism.
  • Scholastic Press Freedom
    From the ASNE High School Journalism Web site, this page contains links to the Student Press Law Center Legal Clinic, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights and summaries of some cases.
  • Student Press Law Center
    The Student Press Law Center is the nation's only legal assistance agency devoted exclusively to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship.

    • Related Web Sites
  • High School Journalism
    This Web site, maintained by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, has information for students, teachers and editors involved with high school journalism. It includes links to high school newspapers, award and program information, links to journalism schools, links to scholastic journalism organizations and some journalism resources as well as other information.
  • Reporter.org
    This page has links to several journalism organizations such as Asian American Journalists Association, the Science Journalism Center or the Society of Environmental Journalists.  Students writing on a particular topic might find some good resources on one of these Web sites.  Also, this page includes a link to the IRE Beat Resources, a good source for finding Web sites on a particular subject or beat. 
  • The Journalist's Toolbox: High School Journalism
    This site includes a link to a publication from the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation about using the Internet for high school journalists. It also includes links to Web sites on a variety of topics/beats, and several organizations aimed at high school journalists.
  • Campus Weblines 
    A site by The New York Times focused on assisting high schools build online newspapers. Includes information on reporting and editing standards.
  • Dow Jones Newspaper Fund
    The mission of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund is to improve the quality of journalism education and the pool of applicants for jobs in the newspaper business. It provides internships and scholarships to college students, career literature, fellowships for high school journalism teachers and publications' advisers and training for college journalism instructors.
  • Freedom of Infomation Center
    Serves the media and general public on questions regarding access to government information. Hosts collection of more than 1 million articles and documents on access at all levels of government.

    • Workshops and Programs
  • High School Journalism Student Workshops
    This is a list of workshops, arranged by state, for high school journalism students, supported by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.
  • High School Journalism Teacher Workshops
    This is a list of workshops, courses and resources for high school journalism teachers, publication advisers and students, supported by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.
  • High School Journalism Workshops and Programs
    From the ASNE High School Journalism Web site, this is a list of programs and workshops for students and teachers of high school journalism.
  • Media and American Democracy Project
    This is a program at Harvard University for secondary school teachers to learn about teaching the role of media in our democracy. An application and brochure is available for download from this Web site as well as links to other workshops around the country. Also, see teaching units geared to your grade level. The lessons developed by this project can be downloaded from the Bill of Rights Institute web site at http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org.
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