by Johanna Somers
In a season of cutbacks, Seattle Times reporter Christine Willmsen was surprised to see the state government proposing a budget increase.
"I noted an add-on of an addition of over 20 million dollars, and I thought that was odd," Willmsen said.
The budget listed a line item increase for civil commitment, which is a program that allows the state to detain sexually violent predators indefinitely. It also mentioned a Washington State Supreme Court decision that would require annual civil commitment trials for violent sexual offenders. This would give the sexual offenders more opportunities to be released but potentially cost taxpayers an additional $22.5 million a year. Per the Attorney General's Office's request, the decision is being reconsidered and a final decision should be given later this year, wrote Willmsen, in one of her articles.
However, before a sex offender is even deemed a "sexually violent predator" who deserves civil commitment, there is a trial. Taxpayers are the ones who cover the cost for the sex offender's numerous defense experts.
In order to find out how much taxpayers were already paying for the program, The Seattle Times and its attorney battled lawyers to obtain defense experts' invoices from the Washington State Department of Social Health Services. To understand why particular experts were being approved Willmsen had to persuade judges to unseal court documents that listed funding approvals.
"When it was completely sealed, you had no idea what the justification was for the defense attorney hiring the psychologist," Willmsen said.
To learn how Willmsen uncovered the story behind sex offender defense expert, read the whole post on the On the Road blog.
Ten candidates for 2012 IRE BOD Election
Vote for 2012 IRE Board of Director Candidates!
Voting privileges are granted to the professional (including international), academic and retiree membership categories. Your membership must be current through July of the election year.
Candidate and their statements can be viewed here.
IRE Announces new Database Library Director
We are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Lucas is joining IRE as the new director of our National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) Database Library.
Liz comes to IRE from the Center for Public Integrity, where she analyzed data for investigative projects on political, environmental and health topics. Among the projects she worked on was Poisoned Places, which won the Sigma Delta Chi award for Public Service journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize and the IRE Award.
She previously worked in the Database Library while getting her master's degree at the University of Missouri.
Send us your creative, inspired ideas yearning to be on our website or a T-Shirt.
The 2012 IRE Conference is coming to Boston, and we're looking for your help. After the success of the Computer Assisted Reporting Conference T-shirt contest, we want to hear more design ideas from our members. IRE staff and students are working on the program and other design work and we want to hear from you as well.
What would you like to see in a confernece logo for Boston? The design will be used on T-shirts, conference posters and some printed materials. This won't be a formal contest. We're just asking for suggestions from our members.
Click here for contest details and to enter!
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2012 IRE Conference
Make plans now to attend the 2012 IRE Conference in Boston. You'll leave with the knowledge, tools and tips you need to tackle important stories in your community.
For more information on panels, registration, special events, hands-on classes, and more, click here.
The conference will be held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. The discounted room rate is available until Friday, May 18, or until our room block is full (whichever comes first).
Our block is currently sold out of rooms on Wednesday, June 13. We are working on overflow options and will post that as soon as information is available. Rooms are still available for Thursday, June 14 - Sunday, June 17.
Don’t wait until the last minute to reserve your room as our room block in previous years has sold out prior to the final day to make reservations.
Hotel Information
Boston Marriott Copley Place
110 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
Click here for information on registration, the roommate forum, and more!
Mentoring at the conference-Deadline soon
The conference offers an opportunity for in-depth, one-on-one coaching on investigative reporting. These private sessions allow attendees to seek advice on challenging stories or follow-up ideas. You must have registered for the conference and have signed up for a mentor by May 21.
Click here for information about the program.
Follow the Money — Tracking Companies' Influence on Politics
Free business journalism training before the conference
Come to a free Reynolds Center workshop on Wednesday, June 13, the afternoon before the IRE Conference. Bring the name of a company you follow to this workshop and learn how to track its efforts at political influence from two experts: New York Times reporter Ron Nixon and Sunlight Foundation editorial director Bill Allison.
For more information and to register for this free training, visit the Reynolds site. You must register in advance to attend this training.
Visualize your data with Tableau Public
Tableau Public will host two, four-hour hands-on training sessions Thursday, June 14, at the IRE Conference. The sessions — one for beginners and one for more experienced users — will cover the basics of using Tableau to quickly create data visualizations and post them to your website as well as more advanced features of this free software.
Learn more about the training sessions and how to reserve a seat.
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