The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets 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. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
Search results for "civil" ...
-
Investigative Business Journalism
Cohn's detailed tipsheet discusses investigative tips and techniques for covering foundations, nonprofits and charities with examples of the types of documents and resources critical to this type of reporting - from 990s to human sources. Part 2 of the tipsheet explores investigations of private companies.
Tags: nonprofit; charity; foundation; private business; Internal Revenue Service; IRS; Form 990; 990s; consolidated financial statements; civil court; criminal court; federal agencies; FOIA
-
First Day on the Beat: Covering Cops
Barton's tipsheet offers a list of 15 items of vital importance when covering law enforcement - from obtaining lists of sworn officers to securing statistics regarding police officers' use of force.
Tags: police; law enforcement; cops; first day on the beat; civil court records; accident reports; use of force;
-
Investigating the past with results in the present
Mitchell summarizes methods for constructing investigations that probe beyond the recent past. He suggests research methods, useful records and human sourcing techniques that he employed in his IRE Award-winning investigation of unresolved murder cases during the civil rights era in Mississippi.
Tags: open records; courts; law enforcement; justice; criminal justice system; crime; public records; history; historical investigations; law
-
Investigating Racial Profiling Problems
In this tipsheet, the author discusses her own experience investigating racial profiling in Texas. She discusses specific aspects of her investigation, such as getting the data and taking advantage of local university research, and then offers advice to help other journalists with those same areas of the investigation. The second page of the tipsheet is comprised entirely of helpful websites for journalists tackling this topic. The list includes The Council on Crime and Justice, as well as the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Tags: racism; minorities; traffic tickets; traffic violations; police; discrimination; social injustice; civil rights; ACLU; NAACP
-
Racial Profiling in US Customs Searches
Dale Russell shares the lessons learned from a recent I-team investigation about racial profiling in US Customs searches at airports. The tipsheet includes helpful facts about human sources, getting original source documents, and using IRE as a resource.
Tags: racial profiling; U.S. customs inspectors; airport security
-
Racial Profiling in US Customs Searches
This tipsheet looks at racial profiling of African-Americans by custom officials. It also includes a story from the LA Times.
Tags: racial profiling; African-Americans; customs; custom searches
-
How You, Too, Can Dig Up The Past
Nobody is going to tell you the whole story on a crime, especially if it's been a while since authorities brushed off the dust on it. Mitchell tells you how to do it yourself, how to dig into records, scour past coverage, and follow the paper trail to humanized testimonies. By the time you are finished reading Mitchell's tipsheet, you will be one step closer to thinking like a detective, like a prosecutor, and like a historian... and yes, that means "think outside the box." Mitchell tells you all from excavating the evidence to avoiding to dash your foot against a stone: what to do if someone says you cannot have the evidence, if people are shutting up, or if someone does not want to talk. He puts forth the rules of thumb and how to talk to targets.
Tags: investigation; investigating; investigative; criminal record; digging into past; sources; records; paper trail; interviews; ambush; detective; prosecutor; historian; courthouse; crime; court; docket.
-
Peeking Behind the White Curtain
Dolan lists and explains a number of Web sites and databases valuable to reporters covering health care or the health beat
Tags: health care; health; medical boards; physician; medical license; civil court; databases; data; Adverse Event Reports; public records; investigative reporting
-
Tips for Covering Public Education in an Age of Resegregation, Accountability and Choice
For reporters covering public education, this tipsheet offers suggestions on how to handle and analyze a mine of data after its procurement. Also included are tips on what not to do with the data.
Tags: education; resegregation; test scores; school spending