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 "paper sources" ...
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Paper and Databse Trails
Hall discusses the information that an investigative reporter can gather from various data sources including documents and databases. The tipsheet provides a list of documents/records and what sort of information you can anticipate finding with each given example
Tags: documents; FOI; databases; audits; payroll documents; police reports; correspondence; reports; annual budgets; overtime; purchasing records; contracts; campaign finance reports; test scores; tax-exempt organizations; inspection reports
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Investigating Fraud: Schemes, Scondrels and Scams
The authors discuss how to uncover and report on fraud. The tipsheet offers suggestions for documenting fraud, such as finding a paper trail or videotaping the scheme. Then, the tipsheet discusses how to turn your findings into a well-organized, effective investigative piece. Finally, the tipsheet includes useful websites for finding court records, consumer information, corporations, property records, regulators and more.
Tags: internet sources; undercover investigations; visual story-telling; story ideas; consumer investigations; crime; fraud
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Diary of a two-day reporting effort
Nalder's diary of a quick-hit investigation. He details the steps of his investigation from receiving a tip to publishing the story in a matter of days. His account shows how to be thorough and organized for accurate reporting in a small window of time.
Tags: quick hit; investigation; investigative reporting; sources; people trail; paper trail
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Stretching your resources to do investigations
Dee Hall provides tips to reporters who work at small-budget newsrooms on now to maximize their resources and produce great investigative stories. She offers tips that range from ways to avoid travel costs to finding free sources.
Tags: low budget; small papers; investigations
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Investigative Business Journalism: Prepare for the Hunt
This tipsheet walks you through the five most important SEC forms and filings; it explains what they are and why they are useful to journalists. They include: S-1, Registration Statement; 10-K Annual Report; 10-Q Quarterly Report; 14-A, Proxy Statement; 8-K, Current Report.
Tags: documents; paper sources; Securities and Exchange Commission
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Unearthing Documents, Sourcing and Legal Considerations
The title of this tipsheet pretty much says it all; the tipsheet lists various sources (paper, human, etc) and then gives specific advice about how to get as much from the source as possible. Some sources listed include: public records, lawsuits, criminal litigation, Secretary of State, CEOs and interviews.
Tags: sourcing; interviews; sources; FOI; paper documents; legal advice; internet sources
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Unsung Documents: New and Surprising Paper Trails
This dynamic trio start off with a list of five basic rules for finding and using documents, and then go on with a long list of favorite documents and good sources.
Tags: paper trail; document; FOIA
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Favorite documents and other sources
This tipsheet contains a lengthy list of document sources both local and national that could prove helpful to just about every beat.
Tags: documents; sources; investigative reporting; government; public records; FOI; reports; story ideas
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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.
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Using CAR to track property records
A good set of data can act like a reliable source. You can go to it again and again for great stories. Gebeloff details what stories his paper has created out of some New Jersey property records.
Tags: property records; CAR; databases; taxes; usable sales; census