A donor with longtime ties to IRE has given the organization more than $55,000 to promote high-quality freelance investigations.
The gift will provide at least two freelance investigative journalists with at least $1,000 apiece to conduct their projects. The original donation was matched with $25,000 from the Challenge Fund for Journalism III— a program of the Knight, Ford, McCormick Tribune and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism foundations— to create an $80,000 endowed fund.
The 2008 award applications will be scrutinized by three experienced freelance journalists. Applications will be accepted until April 30, 2008, and winners will be announced at the 2008 IRE Conference in Miami. More information.
IRE's endowment drive received a tremendous boost recently when the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation offered to extend its matching program through Sept. 30.
As part of a $2 million grant - the largest in IRE's history - the foundation offered to provide partial matching money for up to $1 million raise by IRE for its endowment fund. For every $2 raised by IRE, the Knight Foundation would provide an additional $1.
The drive was scheduled to end Dec. 31, 2007. We made a major push to raise as much as we could by that deadline. Through the dedication of a number of major donors, plus the involvement of more than 350 members who raised $85,000 through our $25 club alone, we took in a little more than $700,000.
Because of that strong show of support and a belief in IRE's mission, the Knight Foundation decided in February to extend our deadline for a short period so we could take advantage of the full matching program.
To make a donation in support of IRE's future, please visit our Breakthroughs Web page, www.ire.org/endowment. There you can learn more about the IRE endowment drive, download a donation form or donate on-line with a credit card.
Web innovator/Programmers
Asbury Park Press
Asbury Park, N.J.
Watchdog Reporter
The Morning Call
Allentown, Pa.
Investigative Unit Executive Producer
KCTV-5
Kansas City, Mo.
Investigative Photographer
KNXV-TV
Phoenix
Investigative Reporter
The Associated Press
Texas
Experienced Data Reporter
The Arizona Republic
Phoenix
We're happy to announce that IRE and NICAR have a new database library director.
Jeremy Milarsky, a former reporter and database editor with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, attended the 2008 CAR Conference in Houston and officially started his tenure this week.
Much of his career was spent at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where he worked as a reporter, news researcher and finally as a manager in the newsroom library. He has also worked for Tribune Interactive. Most recently, Milarsky took a short hiatus from journalism to concentrate on Web programming.
His Web skills will be a strong addition for IRE. But his main focus will be on continuing to build the Database Library, while making its collection of government data more accessible to members on deadline.
Working with data to find interesting stories, and discovering new and different ways of telling them, is his passion.
"The IRE and NICAR Database Library plays an important part in the organization's key role in serving the news media in an essential way—providing information and the means to analyze it intelligently," Milarsky said. "As news organizations continue to adapt to the changing economy, I believe the library will play an even more important service role for journalists."
Milarsky will initially be based in Florida until he can permanently relocate to the IRE headquarters in Columbia, Mo. He can be reached at jeremy@ire.org.
--IRE Staff
In the past year, I have fielded many requests from editors to help them find journalists who combine traditional CAR skills, including strong data analysis, with development ability to create interactivity for posting and analyzing data on the Web. Often, I can't find enough candidates for the demand.
So we created a new mini-boot camp as a part of this year's hands-on classes at the 2008 CAR Conference, which concluded Sunday in Houston. It was an advanced track, requiring SQL skills, and it took CAR classes in directions they haven't gone before. To see what we offered in the advanced boot camp, go to http://www.ire.org/training/houston08/frameworks.html for details.
This was just the beginning. We are working out the details for offering a similar session at the IRE annual convention in June in Miami. And watch for future announcements regarding the next steps for this training.
-- David Donald, Training Director, IRE and NICAR
March 8, 2008 - Memphis, Tenn.
Better Watchdogs & Unleashing the Watchdogs
This event is offered in collaboration with NABJ.
March 14-15, 2008 - Oklahoma City, Okla.
Better Watchdogs & Unleashing the Watchdogs
March 25-30, 2008 - Columbia, Mo.
Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp
There's still time to sign up. Learn how to acquire electronic information, use spreadsheets and databases to analyze the information and translate that information into high-impact stories.
Hundreds of Texas state employees have same first, middle and last names. So knowing their dates of birth is critical to identifying them correctly. That's why The Dallas Morning News has pushed for the release of this information, despite denials by the Texas Comptroller's Office.
A recent appeals court decision brought Texas news outlets and the public closer to having the information. The court upheld a lower court ruling that state employees' birth dates are public and must be released. The decision came nearly three years after The News made a routine request for state employee records that included dates of birth, which it had received previously.
While this may seem like a lot of work for one type of information, without dates of birth we can't report many stories, such as government agencies that hire people with criminal backgrounds or those who are underage. In our investigation of the Texas Youth Commission, we used birth dates to show that 266 TYC employees had criminal records.
Texas agencies that want to deny information requests notify the attorney general in most cases. In this case, the attorney general ruled that birth dates were public and should be released. The Comptroller's Office then filed a lawsuit, arguing that release of such information could leave state employees susceptible to identity theft. When it lost that suit, the Comptroller appealed.
While the appeal was pending, the Comptroller's Office added language to a fiscal clean-up bill before the Texas Legislature to eliminate birth dates from the public record. The language was dropped following media testimony before a legislative committee, which demonstrated, for example, that the chair of the committee had the same name as a convicted criminal.
The Comptroller has not yet said whether it will appeal to the state Supreme Court.
--Jennifer LaFleur, database editor for The Dallas Morning News, also covers open government on the Watchdog blog.
Send your ideas for IRE Member Updates. It's an opportunity to highlight stories with impact, talk about new approaches to investigations, FOI issues, or other news of interest to IRE members and supporters. Send suggestions to .