The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Los Angeles politics" ...
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The Town the Law Forgot
LA Weekly chronicled "the intersection of organized crime and public corruption in the Hispanic suburbs of Los Angeles County and in revitalized downtown Los Angeles. ... The overarching conclusion is that local law enforcement's piecemeal approach to gang and drug-related crime is not sophisticated enough to make a dent."
Tags: crime; drug; urban; elected officials; attorneys; political operatives; lobbyist; corruption; police department; city
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Juice vs Justice
According to the Los Angeles Times, Las Vegas Justices rule on matters in cases where they have received donations from lawyers or defendants, without disclosing their financial interests or relationships, and without withdrawing when a conflict of interest exists. The Los Angeles Times reports "A common perception among a dozen out-of-state lawyers interviewed about their experiences in Nevada courtrooms is that justice in Las Vegas is just another form of legalized gambling." The Times reported this series because more than a quarter of all visits to Las VEgas are made by Southern Californians, and over a third of alll business relocating to Nevada come from California.
Tags: Blackstone; judicial corruption; good-old-boy culture; Las Vegas; Nevada Supreme Court; political fundraising; financial contributions; juice; disclosure; campaign funds; endorsements; pay-to-play
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The Final Hours of Miguel Contreras
Labor leader and Los Angeles power-broker Miguel Contreras was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles, the week before the 2005 mayoral election. No autopsy was performed, and doctors were pressured to sign a death certificate. The article outlines political power bases in Los Angeles, and speculates how various issues would have had different results if Contreras had lived.
Tags: organ harvesting; autopsy; botanica; 911 tape; labor leader; coroner; Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; LAPD; United Farmworkers; UFW; Centinela Freeman Memorial Hospital; Daniel Freeman Hospital
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DWP Files
This series of stories on LA's Department of Water and Power, the nations' largest municipal utility, follows up on Anderson's report last year about racial discrimination at the utility company. He reports on price gouging by suppliers; dysfunctional management and extortion by the unions; whistleblowers being fired; shoddy workmanship and cost overruns.
Tags: City government; mismanagement; power supply; electricity; unions; corruption; Los Angeles politics
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City Hall Scandals
"These articles delved the influence of money and politics in Los Angeles city government and revealed a system in which government officials pressure private firms to make sizable political donations in return for contracts, a contractor made large sums of money padding the bills it submitted to city government, and the city's mayor used a public relations firm under contract with the water department to advance his own agenda, and a favored mayoral fund-raiser bounced checks to business associates and political candidates, including the mayor, with impunity.
Tags: corruption; bribery; contracts; bidding
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The Troubles at King/ Drew
The reporters began with a basic analysis of all the hospitals in the Los Angeles County public hospital system. They found that the most severe problems and violations were happening at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, formed after the 1965 Watts riots to serve the poor of southern Los Angeles. The problems ranged from underfunding to staff misdiagnoses, accidental patient deaths, and racist politics on the hospital's Board of Supervisors. The reporters also interviewed healthcare experts and published six detailed possible solutions to the problems facing the hospital.
Tags: healthcare; doctors; pathologist; Medical Board of California; American Medical Association; medical malpractice; civil rights
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Feed 5: Best of Show and Tell
1) Jennifer Kraus (WTVF-Nashville) This story exposes problems at the Nashville office of international charity "Feed the Children." In a four-month investigation, WTVF-TV's undercover cameras caught the charity's staff loading up their personal cars with donated items and taking the items home. 2) Deborah Sherman (WFXT - Boston) Costa Rican trips for child sex. Actually spoke with girls who used to get paid by American tourists for sex. Focuses on one area man charged with this crime. 3) Anna Werner, David Raziq (KHOU-Houston) KHOU-TV reports that "You're in physical pain. You need help. So you go to your doctor expecting needed relief and comfort. But what if in the process of treating you, you realize this healer's touch has become 'sexual?' That's what dozens of Houston women claimed happened to them when they were referred to a local health professional, a professional they claimed used their trust to molest and even rape them. His name is Shin Higashiura and he claimed to be a Master of Shiatsu, also known as acupressure, a Japanese massage therapy that promises health benefits...." 4) Jilda Unruh (WCCO-Minneapolis) An investigation reveals that automatic door sensors can't detect certain colors. The doors often close on elderly people, causing them harm. 5) Tom Merriman/Jeff Harris (WEWS-Cleveland) The story investigates how state-trained lifeguards perform on state beaches as compared to privately trained lifeguards on private beaches. Follows both teams though a simulation. The state team fails horribly and never recovers the dummy planted for them to rescue. 6) Jim Schaefer; Shellee Smith (WXYZ-Detroit) WXYZ-TV discovered that the leaders of Highland Park, a poor city surrounded by Detroit, had virtually ignored a major problem in the 911 emergency response system while continuing to enjoy the relatively expensive perks of their jobs. While claiming there was no money in the budget to fix the problem, the mayor leased a brand-new Lincoln with city cash. Undercover video found citizens at risk, fire fighters in danger and no one helping. 7) Drew Griffin (KCBS-Los Angeles) "The Real ConAir" Investigation reveals department of corrections transporting convicts on commercial flights. Passengers are not told who's sitting beside them. Planes are forced to land because of disturbances during the flight. A girl is sexually assaulted by one of these convicts. 8) Robb Leer; Maria Tomasch (KSTP-Minneapolis) Inmates can change their names on the taxpayer's dime. 9) Jeremy Rogalski; Bill Dutton; Gerry Lanosga; Kathleen Johnston (WTHR-Indianapolis) WTHR-TV reports that "a source mentioned to us that numerous DUI cases were being dismissed because police witnesses fail to appear in court... After we crunched a slice of our county's criminal justice data ... We found thousands of DUI cases - nearly one in ten - thrown out because cops didn't show..." 10) Wes Williams; C.J. Ward (KPNX-Phoenix) Security guards with criminal records have a "License to Steal." 11) Tony Kovaleski; Matt Goldberg (KPRC-Houston) Ninety-eight guns were discovered in schools in 10 of Houston's largest school districts -- that works out to 5,864 students per gun. 12) Phil Williams; Chris Clark (WTVF-Nashville) WTVF-TV's investigation into the backgrounds of school teachers found more than three dozen convicted felons working in Metro Nashville-Davidson County schools. 13) Chris Halsne; Kim Albro; Dave Weed (KWTV-Oklahoma City) Voters handed Oklahoma City Schools a 93 million dollar bond in 1993 to improve schools. The money is now gone, but many projects remain unfinished. KWTV-TV's investigation found millions of dollars in waste, fraud and mismanagement. 14) Laure Quinlivan; Jeff Keene; Ken Fulk; Mark Shafer; Scott Diener; Stuart Zanger (WCPO-Cincinnati) WCPO-TV's investigation "... to monitor County officials as they began spending nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money... earmarked to build two, new sports stadiums for our city's professional sports teams, the Bengals and Red. As (the) investigation enters its third year, work on the first stadium is two-thirds complete and ground will soon break on the second. Already, our investigation has revealed broken promises, manipulation of numbers in official reports, political cronyism in contract awards, creation of 'pass-through' companies and other questionable and possibly illegal activities...." 15) Jim Barry; John Campbell; Sam Zeff; Jennifer Snell; Denise Haley; Brad Naw (WTXF-Philadelphia) After transit union strike crippled Philadelphia's bus and subway service for forty days, WTXF-TV investigated the region's transportation agency - Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. SEPTA is one of the largest and most expensive transit systems in the county. This investigation exposed a widespread culture of laziness and dishonest work habits that was allowing hundreds of buses with potentially dangerous problems out onto the street each day. 16)Darcy Spears; Kim Kruger (KVBC-Las Vegas) "Taken for a Ride". Taxi drivers getting kickbacks for taking clients to certain bars/stripclubs.
Tags: TAPE; Investigative reporting; computer-assisted reporting; IRE; FOI; CAR; no transcripts
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Know Justice, Know Peace
Crogan tells the ins and outs of the "... chilly reaction by officials to the announcement of a citywide gang truce in April 1992 by Bloods and Crips peacemakers. Since that time, local government has failed to provide either political of financial support to bolster the momentous agreement, perhaps squandering a rare window of opportunity to stop what amounts to urban street warfare among the city's minority youth....There was also the published Bloods-Crips proposal to the city which circulated in South-Central, including $2 billion for infrastructure, $700 million for educations, $6 million for Neighborhood Watch patrols $20 million for economic redevelopment, and $1 billion for social-service and recreation programs. In exchange, the so-called 'Bloods-Crips Organization' promised to 'ask drug lords to invest their monies in L.A. area businesses and properties and to stop their drug trade'".
Tags: gangs; Watts; youth violence; blacks; LAPD; Los Angeles Police Department; projects; hood war; grassroots; South-Central; crime; CYA; California Youth Authority
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Asleep at the Wheel: The Government Auto Safety Breakdown
In a series of news and investigative stories the Los Angeles Times "focused on how the deceptions by auto and tire companies coupled with the ineffectiveness of the nation's auto safety regulators..." Some of the major findings included that "State Farm insurance company had notified federal regulators about problems with Firestone tires as far back as 1998, but got no response" and that "Ford Motor C. was aware of instability problems with its Explorer SUV...but twice had declined to make design changes...". Reporters found out that " tires made by Goodyear had been experiencing similar problems to the Firestones and had been linked to several fatal crashes". Some of the stories questioned the companies' practice to keep "knowledge of unsafe products out of public eye". The series raised questions about the efficiency of federal government on safety issues. It pointed out that "the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had been thwarted for over two decades from setting or updating auto safety standards because of industry pressure and lack of funding and political support from Congress."
Tags: Firestone; automobiles; highways; tires. lawsuits; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; accidents; fatalities; Ford; Goodyear; State Farm Insurance; Continental General Tire Inc.; General Motors; Suzuki; Venezuela; Saudi Arabia; FARS; NHTSA
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IRE Feed 3, "Hot Stories and Cool Techniques."
A compilation of 8 Stories: 1.) "License For Sale" KCBS, Los Angeles, Criminals and government employees illegally buying real drivers licenses. 2.) "Demon Drivers" WSMV, Nashville. 3.) "Ambulance Felons" KNXV, Phoenix, Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians stealing credit cards from victim's homes and more. 4.) "Hunter Felons" WCCO, Minneapolis, Criminals with firearm hunting licenses. 5.) "Skin Peddler" WXYZ, Detroit, Underage dancers and prostitution. 6.) "Cash, Trash, and Politics." News 12 Long Island, Campaign finance money like with the garbage business. 7.) "Toxic Traffic" WJXT, Jacksonville, Hazardous material accidents and toxic waste dumps. 8.) "Military Secrets" WRAL, Raleigh, Military personnel can't sue for malpractice.
Tags: TAPE; KCBS; WSMV; KNXV; WCCO; WXYZ; News 12 Long Island; WJXT; WRAL.