Proud of a story or project you worked on this year? Take the time to enter it in the 2008 IRE Awards. The IRE Awards, among the most prestigious in journalism, recognize outstanding investigative reporting in print, broadcast and online categories. Entry forms (.pdf) are available to download from our Web site.
All entries in the IRE Awards become a permanent part of the IRE Resource Center's investigative story collection. The stories - along with the questionnaires submitted by reporters - provide an invaluable resource to reporters working on a similar project in the future.
The postmark deadline for the 2008 IRE Awards is January 7, 2009. For more information, please see the contest Web site or call the IRE Resource Center at 573-882-3364.
If you're taking the train to the 2009 IRE Conference, Amtrak offers a 10 percent convention travel discount.
The discount applies to the lowest available rail fare to Baltimore from June 8-17. To book your reservation, call Amtrak at 1-800-872-7245 or contact your local travel agent. Convention fares cannot be booked online. Please be sure to refer to Convention Fare code X13V-951 when making your reservation. This offer is not valid on the Auto Train and Acela Service.
Fare is valid on Amtrak Regional for all departures seven days a week, except for holiday blackouts. Offer valid with Sleepers, Business Class or First Class seats with payment of the full applicable accommodation charges.
The latest version of the Small Business Administration 7a Loans database (SBA7a) is now available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Journalists can use 7a data to explore repayment of SBA loans by businesses in their communities, to find out which financial institutions are major SBA lenders in their area, and to find out what types of businesses are getting the loans.
This is a database of loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration under its main lending program, known as 7a. The program provides loans to small-business borrowers who can't obtain financing through traditional channels. The records should contain data on every company that received a SBA-backed loan under the 7a program through September 30, 2008.
Visit the Database Library online for ordering information or additional details. IRE members can purchase data at sliding-scale rates based on news organization size.
The full text of Uplink stories are available to subscribers only. IRE members can subscribe for $40; non-member and institutional subscriptions are available.
Visit http://data.nicar.org/uplink/ for more.January begins our new series of computer-assisted reporting boot camps, and this year we're offering a new option: Attend the full six-day workshop, or select from two other options that let you attend just the days you need the most.
As always, participants can sign up for the entire week, during which you'll learn how to use spreadsheets and databases to analyze data, plus how to download data, how to convert it from text, where to look for it on the Web, and more. This year, we're also allowing attendees to sign up for a portion of the boot camp. Are you new to data analysis and only have a couple of days to devote to beginning the learning process? If so, you can attend the first two-and-a-half days of the boot camp, which includes an introduction to computer-assisted reporting and focuses largely on learning to analyze data with spreadsheets.
Are you already familiar with Excel and have experience using spreadsheets for news analysis? You have the option of skipping the first third of the boot camp and joining the sessions when we begin talking about database analysis.
We recommending attending the entire session—you'll leave with a solid grounding in CAR and with the skills you'll need to improve your daily and long-term reporting with the two major tools used by CAR reporters. But for those who can't take the full week, we hope this new option will allow you to begin developing, or to expand, your CAR skills.
At our Mapping Boot Camp, Jan. 9-11 in Columbia, you can take database skills to the next level and learn how to uncover the "where" in your data. Instructors Jennifer LaFleur of ProPublica and David Herzog of NICAR will show how to use ArcView geographic information system (GIS) software in this intensive three-day session. You'll learn how to create simple data maps and perform more sophisticated geographic analysis. You'll also learn how to geocode data and deal with projections.
More than 60 panels and hands-on classes are in the works for the 2009 CAR Conference, Mar. 19-22, in Indianapolis.
A preliminary list of planned sessions and expected speakers are online now. Watch for updates on the complete schedule.
See registration and hotel details.
Looking for a gift for that hard-working colleague, intern or employee? This is the perfect way to support the future of journalism.
Give a gift that gives all year long — a membership to IRE!
To acknowledge your gift, a special holiday card will be sent to the recipient advising them of the membership and stating that the holiday gift came from you.
Purchase more than one gift membership and SAVE:
Purchase your gift(s) using our secure online order form. You can purchase up to 4 memberships with one order.
All membership applications are subject to IRE approval and the provisions of IRE's bylaws. Refunds will be given for applicants who do not qualify for membership. See qualifications for IRE Membership categories
Questions? Contact Membership Coordinator John Green,
Investigative Reporter
KGTV—San Diego
Assistant Professor
SUNY College—Plattsburgh
Director of Research & Data Management
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Search Associate
Good Search, LLC