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 "Public Media Center" ...
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No Small Thing
The Poughkeepsie Journal series “No Small Thing” goes where no other newspaper or media outlet has – it challenges the mainstream medical dogma on Lyme disease. In rigorously documented articles, Projects Writer Mary Beth Pfeiffer concludes that the major actors in this public health scandal -- chiefly the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Infectious Disease Society of America – have minimized and mismanaged a burgeoning epidemic of tick-borne disease at great harm to thousands of infected people. These two powerful institutions have held – in policy and pronouncement -- that Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and easy to cure. It is neither.
Tags: Media coverage; public health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CDC
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Big Money 2012
Big Money 2012 is an unprecedented multi-platform project to investigate campaign finance in the post-Citizens United era. Spanning television documentary, radio and online news outlets, this initiative draws on the award-winning talents of some of the best in the industry to dig deep into a story that goes to the foundations of our democracy. FRONTLINE’s pre-election TV broadcast of Big Sky, Big Money in partnership with American Public Media’s Marketplace formed the center of this multiplatform investigation, Big Money 2012, which continued on the radio and on the web. Further coverage of this timely story also continued online as part of ProPublica’s Dark Money series featuring reporting by ProPublica investigative reporter Kim Barker with Rick Young and Emma Schwartz reporting for FRONTLINE. Big Money 2012 tells a tale of money, politics, and intrigue in the remote epicenter of campaign finance, Montana. The investigation led the teams from big sky country—to a meth house in Colorado and to a UPS store in D.C. as they followed a trail of documents. What they find exposes the inner-workings of a dark money group. In all, it’s a unique collaboration a year in the making, which has led to robust journalism with real impact. And, the story is still unfolding.
Tags: campaign finance; politics; politicians
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Secret Money Project
The Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio launched the "Secret Money Project" as a joint initiative to track the hidden money in the election season. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisements hurt Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign. In the 2008 presidential campaign, independent groups also did everything possible -- sometimes well under the radar -- to influence the election. Independent groups raised and spent tens of millions of dollars, unleashing attack ads, robocalls and direct mail across the country. Although NPR is best known as a radio network, the primary venue for the Secret MOney Project was npr.org. The project Web site featured a blog of breaking news and analysis. It serves as a searchable database of independent groups and attack ads, which provided a real-time public resource during the election and will continue to be a research tool that can shed light on future political races.
Tags: campaign finance; attack advertisements; new media; political reporting; Senate races; presidential races
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Donald T. Sterling's Skid Row Mirage
According to advertisements he distributed in the media, Los Angeles Clippers basketball owner Donald T. Sterling was building a new homeless center in downtown LA. But after L.A. Weekly did some investigating, they found he wasn't close to constructing anything. In fact, he was still looking for a homeless service provider to raise the $50 million needed to build the Donald T. Sterling Homeless Center.
Tags: homeless centers; celebrity; fundraising; construction; false advertising; wealthy; media scam; public relations
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Updated Version of Well Connected Media Tracker
In October 2006, Well Connected, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, updated its Media Tracker. The Tracker is a tool to "identify the source of news and information filtered to their community through newspapers, broadcast, cable, satellite, phone lines and broadband." The Tracker also features political information. This set of stories tells about the new version of Media Tracker, with background stories which profile many of the "top companies in broadcast television, radio, telephone, cellular, cable, broadband and satellite TV and radio."
Tags: Internet; Media Tracker; media ownership; Well Connected; information filters; Center for Public Integrity
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Shriners Hospitals for Children Investigation Series
Freelance reporter Sandy Frost investigated a tip from Shriner Vernon Hill that there were irregularities in the way the fraternal Shriners organization and the charitable Shriners organizations were handling their money and not complying with Standards For Charitable Accountability.
Tags: Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine AKA Shriners; Standards for Charity Accountability; 2001 Criminal Tax Manual; Hershel Gober; Philanthropic Research, Inc. AKA Guidestar.org; Second Avenue Partners; Mike Slade; Aquantive; Nick Hanauer; Shriners; Masons; Knights Templar; Royal Order of Jesters; National Sojourners Order of Quetzacoatl; Mike Severe, Imperial Officer, Shrine of America; compensation; real estate transactions; excessive benefit transactions; charitable donation fraud; HIPPA; Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002; Vernon Hill; Suite101.com; Paul Dolnier; 501c10 non profit fraternal corporation; 501c3 non profit charity; Better Business Bureau; Charity Watch Center; Pennsylvania's Charitable Special Investigation Unit; Internal Revenue Service; IRS; good old boy system; U.S. Senate Committee on Finance; whistleblower retaliation; Charles G. Cumpstone Jr., Potentate Stewart W. Lewis; Charities Review Council of Minnesota; Generally Accepted Accounting Principles; GAAP; Independent Sector; SLAPP: strategic lawsuits against public participation; Cabiri Royal Order of Scotland; International Order of Demolay
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Power Trips
Medill students partnered with American Public Media and the Center for Public Integrity to examine travel taken by members of Congress and their staffers paid for with private dollars, largely by lobbyists. They expanded the publicly available database to include travel by staffers and travel though June 30, 2006. Reporters from Medill NewsService wrote over 30 stories based on the data. All the stories are included here.
Tags: ethics; congressional staffers; lobbyists; Alabama; California-Imperial Valley; Colorado; Connecticut; Florida; Indiana; Iowa; Massachusetts; Missouri; Mississippi; North Carolina; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Platts, South Carolina; Barney Frank; Washington; IRE Student Entry
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Silent Partners: How political non-profits work the system
This online story from the Center for Public Integrity looks at the working of the Section 527 Committees. These tax-exempt associations raised and spent almost half-billion dollars in 2003-04. The increase in the fundraising was driven by 53 committees that focus largely on presidential elections.
Tags: Section 527; nonprofits; presidential campaign; campaign finance; presidential elections; America Coming Together; Media Fund; political non-profits
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Bush, Harken and the Public's Right to Know
National media outlets reported on President George W. Bush's activities as a director with Texas oil company Harken Energy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The stories referenced documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity during the course of research for the book, "The Buying of the President 2000" and two other Center investigative reports. Now, the Center has released new documents--and a series of stories--that shed additional light on what transpired at Harken while Bush was a director, a chronicle of Bush's Harken tenure, and the close relationship between Harvard Management and Harken.
Tags: IRE FOI AWARD CATEGORY; Bush; George W. Bush; Harken; Harvard; Enron; SEC
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Power Struggle: California's Engineered Energy Crisis and the Potential of Public Power
Multinational Monitor investigates how huge oil and gas companies close to George W. Bush have profited from the energy crisis in California. "The blackouts ... have many causes. But neither a shortfall a supply nor a surge in demand for electricity is among them," the magazine points out. The story finds that California's consumers and taxpayers are victims of a massive, complex double-theft, first by the biggest electric power utilities, and second by some of the president's closest associates and contributors. Another finding is that the U.S. barons of fossil and nuclear fuel have used the crisis as " a pretext to declare an all-out assault on environmental protection."
Tags: American Public Power Project; environmental protection; oil; gas; president; utilities; deregulation; power plants; electric market; Public Media Center; Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; California and U.S. Public Interest Research Groups; American Public Power Project; Concerned Stockholders of California; Dick Cheney; Federal Electrical Regulatory Commission; PG&E Corporation