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 "contributors" ...
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Analysis Tools at FollowTheMoney.org
Roth Barber highlights the many great tools at FollowTheMoney.org in this tipsheet. There's everything from an independent spending database to "A unique view of the top 10,000 donors to political campaigns at both the state and federal level—information that exists nowhere else."
Tags: campaign spending; donors; tracking the money; L-CAT; contributors
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Ten Things to Look For Next Month - Midyear campaign finance filings
This list looks at what to look for in the midyear filings for both campaign finance and lobbying. From largest contributors and opponents' fundraising to new registrations and issues in the news.
Tags: campaign finance; lobbying; PAC; donations; contributions; political action committees
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Waiting in the Lobby...Using Cal-Access to explore the intersection of policy, politics and money
Palmer explains how to use Cal-Access (the California Secretary of State's website) to uncover the policy agenda of campaign contributors. Palmer includes lots of screen shots and walks you through each stage of the internet investigation.
Tags: campaign finance; campaign donations; FEC; state government; elections
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Follow the money -- government contracts
Klas outlines a number of things to keep in mind when looking into government contracts, from knowing the laws to checking out minority contractors to connecting the dots between political contributors and contract vendors.
Tags: government contracts; follow the money; RFP; RFQ; vendors; political contributions; SEC documents; contractors
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Following the local paper trail
The tipsheet explains how to find and use public records at the local level such as government contracts, fictitious business filings, election records and property records.
Tags: documents; campaign contributors; candidates; trust deeds; Hawaii.
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Tracking campaign donors through City Hall
This tipsheet offers ideas how to get more knowledge about who is financing local campaigns in order to understand what is happening in local government or politics. Some pieces of advice are to create your own databases, join campaign finance listservs and run lists of contributors in the paper to evoke community sources' reactions.
Tags: elections; politics; Shays-Meehan bill; PACs; donors
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Following the Money in Virginia
This tipsheet explains how to the newspapers in Virginia formed a consortium in which they shared an extensive database of campaign contributors to the state's $30-million gubernatorial race. This tipsheet offers examples of articles produced using this database as well as offers tips on starting a similar consortium in your own state.
Tags: campaign finance; database; contributors
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how to learn about campaign contributors
This handout is a list of information to help journalists learn about campaign contributors. It also contains Web sites that has government databases, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission's Web site.
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Campaign Cash: Is it better to give than receive??
This tipsheet covers how political contributions and expenditures can offer reporters a lot of stories and insight into the candidates they cover. It's easy to see what issues are important to candidates and who their friends and even enemies are. This tipsheet suggests how to look at campaign finance data and discover relationships among candidates, their contributors and the issues.
Tags: CAR
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Getting a handle on the money in election campaigns
This extensive packet includes a short update to the Follow the Money Handbook; 10 CAR campaign finance stories you can do quickly and examples of those stories; a list of where copies of federal campaign finance reports may be reviewed and copied; a Federal Election Commission handout which includes a citizens guide to contributions and the law, using FEC services, and financial information about candidates, parties and PACs; a guide to the FEC Direct Access Program -- on-line access to campaign finance data; guidelines for use of the contributor list; and Jesse Jackson's 1995-96 campaign summary report. Audio tape available through the IRE Resource Center at (573) 882-3364 or rescntr@ ire.org. Ask for tape #IRE96-27.