Resource Center

Stories

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 "whites" ...

  • Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper

    Scapegoat is the true story of the horrific Chino Hills murders -- the highest profile crime in San Bernardino County history. It shows how law enforcement ignored eyewitness information implicating three white men as the perpetrators in order to pin the crime on Kevin Cooper, a recently escaped black prisoner from the nearby prison in Chino, California. It shows how his public defender lost the case before the trial even began and how the justice system has failed Cooper at almost every turn. It also shows the heroic work of an international law firm headquartered in San Francisco that adopted Cooper's case pro bono just three months before his scheduled execution in 2004 and won him a stay and how lawyers from this firm continue to appeal his wrongful conviction.

    Tags: Murders; crime; law enforcement; police; prison; justice system; wrongful conviction

    By Patrick O'Connor

    Crime Magazine

    2012

  • Platts: Russian Gas Giant Mines U.S. Energy Data

    Russia’s state-owned natural gas company says the U.S. shale-gas boom is economically unsustainable — and it’s buttressing its claim with financial data collected by an American consulting firm located less than 20 miles from the White House. Moscow-based Gazprom, the world’s largest gas company, is working with Pace Global Energy Services, a consulting firm in Fairfax, Virginia, to analyze how much money U.S. gas companies are spending on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Gazprom, citing the Virginia company’s data, says the true costs of U.S. shale-gas production are upwards of 150% higher than the revenues its practitioners have been reaping in the last few years. Gazprom says this will ultimately lead to the demise of fracking-based shale-gas drilling in the US and other countries that are considering adopting it. But Gazprom’s critics say the company and its unlikely Washington-area ally are spreading “myths and misconceptions” about the U.S.-led shale-gas gas boom so that European and Asian countries will not develop their own shale plays, and will instead continue to buy conventional Russian gas.

    Tags: Oil; gas; natural resources; fraud; oil wells

    By Brian Hansen

    Platts

    2012

  • Shades of Mercy: Presidential Pardons

    Reporters obtained exclusive access to thousands of internal documents and conducted scores of interviews with pardon applicants, Justice Department, and top legal advisers to every president since Ronald Reagan. What the documents showed were repeated instances in which white applicants with serious criminal records received pardons, while minority applicants who committed lesser crimes were rejected.

    Tags: presidential pardons; justice department; pardon; race; discrimination

    By Dafna Linzer; Jennifer LaFleur; Krista Kjellmn-Schmidt

    ProPublica/Washington Post

    2011

  • Testing The System

    USA TODAY's "Testing the System" focused on mandated state standardized tests, and in particular, whether radical gains in scores in some schools or classrooms were real or the product of cheating.

    Tags: Standardized tests; schools; classrooms; cheating; grades

    By Linda Matthews, Anthony DeBarros, Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum, Greg Toppo, Jodi Upton, Dennis Cauchon, Denise Amos, Chastity Pratt Dawsey, Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki, Kristi Tanner-White, Anne Ryman, Nancy Mitchell, Jennifer Oldham, April Dembosky

    USA Today (Arlington

    2011

  • What Trinity Toll Road Backers Didn't Tell Us

    In 2007, Dallas voters rendered a judgement on the largest public works project in city history, casting ballots in a referendum that had become a surprisingly close, all-in-battle between grassroots activists and the Dallas business and cultural establishment. The question- should the city's multi-billion plan to transform Dallas' long-neglected riverfront into a massive series of parks, forests, white-water rapids, and other natural wonders be built, as planned, with a $2 billion high-speed toll road running right through it?

    Tags: Dallas; 2007; Toll Road; Grassroots Activist

    By Michael A. Linderberger

    The Dallas Morning News

    2012

  • White Mayor's Burden

    In the summer of 2011, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he was starting the Young Man's Initiative, a multi-million dollar public-private partnership to "help" young black and Latino male New Yorkers. What he neglected to mention in the rollout was that under his tenure, New York City has arrested record numbers of black and Latino young men using the controversial "stop and frisk" technique, has suspended record numbers of black and Latino men from schools, and has actively fought a federal lawsuit to make the Fire Department comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    Tags: Civil Rights Act of 1964; Michael Bloomberg; Mayor; New York City; Young Man's Initiative Black; Latino; Fire Department

    By Stephen Thrasher

    Village Voice (New York)

    2011

  • Poisoning the Press

    The narrative history of the bitter quarter-century struggle between Richard Nixon and Jack Anderson exposes corruption by both men and illustrates a larger story about the price of power in politics and journalism alike.

    Tags: Richard NIxon; Jack Anderson; presidency; lobbyist; White House

    By Mark Feldstein

    Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

    2010

  • Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture

    The narrative history of the bitter struggle between Richard Nixon and journalist Jack Anderson exposes corruption by both men and illustrates a larger story about the price of power in politics and journalism alike.

    Tags: Richard Nixon; Jack Anderson; Somoza; White House tapes; Watergate; assassinate

    By Mark Feldstein

    Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

    2010

  • The Henry Louis Gates Jr. Case: Racial Profiling or Stifling Free Speech

    When police arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home, Gates claimed he was a victim of racial profiling. NECIR analyzed five years of arrest records from the Cambridge Police Department for disorderly conduct which did not seem to indicate a pattern of racial profiling. The results showed that more white people than black people had been arrested for disorderly conduct by the department.

    Tags: racial profiling; disorderly conduct, police; Henry Gates; Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Cambridge Police Department

    By Sarah Fauot

    New England Center for Investigative Reporting

    2010

  • NYPD: Fighting Crime at All Costs

    WABC closely examined the aggressive policing policies of the NY Police Department. A tip from an officer regarding the use of quotas had turned into "a relentless pursuit of arrests and summonses in the city's minority communities that he claimed led to the write up of innocent people."

    Tags: police; law enforcement; wrongful arrest; arrest; criminal statistics; crime statistics; crime; New York; NYPD; New York Police Department

    By Jim Hoffer; Daniela Royes; Bryan White

    WABC-TV (New York)

    2010