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 "cotton" ...
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The Deadliest Place in Mexico
The Juarez Valley, a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande, was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the Juarez cartel moved in to set up a lucrative drug smuggling trade. “The Deadliest Place in Mexico” explores untold aspects of Mexico’s drug war as it has played out in the small farming communities of this valley. The violence began in 2008, when the Sinaloa cartel moved in to take over the Juarez cartel’s turf. The Mexican government sent in the military to quell the violence — but instead the murder rate exploded. While the bloodshed in the nearby City of Juarez attracted widespread media attention, the violence spilling into the rural Juarez Valley received far less, eve as the killings began to escalate in brutal ways. Community advocates, elected officials, even police officers were shot down in the streets. Several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. By 2009, the valley, with a population of 20,000, had a murder rate six times higher than Juarez itself. Newspapers began to call the rural farming region the “Valley of Death.” This investigation uses extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, and difficult-to-obtain interviews in Spanish and English with current and former Juarez Valley residents, Mexican officials, narcotraffickers and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, to reveal that many of these shocking deaths were perpetrated with the participation of Mexican authorities. It shows scenes of devastation — households where six members of a single family were killed, without a single police investigation. It uncovers targeted killings by masked gunmen of community activists and innocent residents for speaking out against violence and repression facilitated by corrupt military and government officials. And it gathers multiple witnesses who describe soldiers themselves, working in league with the Sinaloa cartel, perpetrating violence against civilians. "The cemeteries are all full. There isn't anywhere left to bury the bodies," one former resident said. "You'll find nothing there but ghost towns and soldiers."
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Excessive Speculation Distorts Commodity Markets, Harms Consumers
The topic of our series was excessive financial speculation in commodity markets. Throughout one year, I worked on a series of labor-intensive investigative pieces showing how the influx of financial speculators in the futures market had distorted the price of crude oil, coffee, cotton and other commodities.
Tags: fiancial speculation; commodity markets; crude oil; commodities
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Excessive Speculation Distorts Commodity Markets, Harms Consumers
The topic of our series was excessive financial speculation in commodity markets. Throughout one year, I worked on a series of labor-intensive investigative pieces showing how the influx of financial speculators in the futures market had distorted the price of crude oil, coffee, cotton and other commodities.
Tags: fiancial speculation; commodity markets; crude oil; commodities
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Cotton Bailout: How your tax dollars turn markets upside down, prop up big growers and squeeze small farmers
"The series examined the impact of U.S. agricultural subsidies on small farmers in the United States and Africa, and investigated the buse of federal payment limits by large growers."
Tags: agriculture; AJC; Georgia; Congress; USDA; subsidy; subsidies; farming; growers; Africa; USA; United States
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The Uncertain Season: The Farm Crisis in Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's series on the farm crisis in Georgia. It takes a look at farm families and the effects of drought.
Tags: farming; farmers; drought; Georgia; peanuts; cotton; Georgia farmers; Freedom to Farm Act
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Farming for Insurance
The series revealed abuse of the federal crop insurance program. The stories found out that "many farmers are risking their ethics - playing the insurance game instead of farming to make a crop." The reporter investigated different forms of farming for failure and insurance payments - bad seed, poor planting practices and illegal double-cropping.
Tags: Fraud; crop insurance; farmers; federal government; taxpayers; corn; cotton; soybeans; transgenic seed
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King of Kings
Fresno Bee profiles the sprawling agricultural empire J.G. Boswell Co. and its clout in the political circles. This in-depth study of the King County cotton business reveals that the company has run into trouble with the environmentalists over its plans to repackage one of its ranch and sell it to dairy operators. Managing the manure has become the key issue in the game.
Tags: J.G. Boswell Co.; King County; cotton; dairy farming; agriculture; manure management; dairy waste; water water; Boswell
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No title (id: 13763)
When cotton was king, Alabama got greedy, planting and reaping until the soil was exhausted. Now, fast-dollar pulpwood trees are king in rural Alabama. There are disturbing signs that, once again, Alabama is pushing its luck. The Mobile Register explains the origins and the enormous consequences of this rush for pulp chips and quick profits. (Oct. 27, 1996)
Tags: Reilly Finch Hodges CAR Alabama forest cut short Contest entry Deforestation Wood 81 pgs.
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No title (id: 6516)
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) checks into the Sheriff's Department of Franklin County; finds commissioned felons and improper campaign contributions, July 30 - Aug. 1, 1989.
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No title (id: 2525)
Daily News Record/Fairchild Publications (New York) runs series on the politics, tradeoffs and conflicting interests that the occupational disease byssinosis ("brown lung" disease, caused by the inhalation of cotton dust) has created in the U.S. textile industry, 1978. Byrne textiles brown lung
Tags: None