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Brant Houston, an
award-winning investigative reporter and member of the
Missouri School of Journalism faculty, has been promoted to executive
director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). The announcement
was made today by John Lindsay, president of the IRE Board of Directors,
and Dean Mills, dean of the School of Journalism.
Houston has been working for IRE for the past three years as managing director of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), a program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism that trains journalists to use electronic databases in their reporting. The appointment follows an energetic, nationwide search by IRE and the school. More than 250 potential candidates were contacted during the three-month search. The board of directors interviewed five finalists for the position. IRE is a national organization of more than 3,000 members based at the Missouri School of Journalism. IRE provides professional training for journalists through conferences, newsroom seminars and publications. More than 1,000 journalists are expected to attend the organization's national conference June 12-15 in Phoenix, Arizona. Before coming to IRE, Houston worked for 17 years as a daily journalist. He was an investigative reporter for the Kansas City Star and Hartford Courant, where he also served as database editor. He began his career at the Woburn Daily Times, a small newspaper northwest of Boston. He joined IRE as a member nearly 20 years ago and participated in national and regional conferences before joining the staff. In the past three years Houston has overseen the establishment of NICAR as the premier training ground for print and broadcast journalists wanting to use high technology to improve their daily and enterprise journalism. NICAR has trained more than 8,000 journalists around the country and supplies government databases and technological advice to more than 100 news organizations. Houston has been an assistant professor at the Missouri School of Journalism teaching both investigative and computer-assisted reporting. He also is the author of Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide, published by St. Martin's Press. |
