Longtime IRE member David Dietz, president of our organization in 2001-02, passed away Wednesday, June 1,  after a battle with cancer. Dave was a beloved colleague and friend to many of us, and was honored last year with IRE's Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his many contributions. Over the past decade, Dave worked as a San Francisco-based investigative reporter for Bloomberg Markets magazine. He had a 40-year career in journalism, including positions at TheStreet.com, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. He won more than 30 national and regional reporting awards for investigating corporate fraud ... Read more ...

Investigative Reporters and Editors has joined the Society of Professional Journalists and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in asking administrators at Tarleton State University to stop barring instructors from assigning journalism students to request public records from the school. The University, part of the Texas A&M System, is enforcing a policy that prohibits employees from filing open records requests or encouraging others to do so. The text of the letter is below:

December 8, 2010

Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio President, Tarleton State University

Dr. Gary Peer Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Tarleton State University ...

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Just a quick reminder that IRE and NICAR have resources available to assist in covering the fatal explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.   A list of links and resources can be found in our Breaking News archive.  Contact the Resource Center (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) or the Database Library (573-884-7711) for additional assistance.

IRE has compiled some resources that may assist in covering the fatal shootings that occured today at Ft. Hood in Texas.  If you have other resources that could be of help to your fellow reporters, please feel free to contact us, and we can add it to the list.  (Email the IRE Resource Center, rescntr@ire.org.) Tipsheets 2360: Janet Lundblad's tipsheet lists resources that are helpful in tracking down people in the military - from books to websites. She also provides a few tips doing this sort of investigation, such as using social security numbers from personnel records to ... Read more ...

The 2008 Election Day is upon us! IRE and NICAR have compiled a list of resources to aid in your coverage of stories as they unfold on this historic election day.  Included you will find relevant tipsheets and stories, databases, articles on election coverage from Uplink and The IRE Journal, and other helpful websites. Please contact the IRE Resource Center (573-882-3364 or email) or the Database Library (573-884-7711) for additional assistance.

I was driving home from work that evening, just a little past 6 p.m., when several squad cars blazed past my left shoulder. Minutes later at home, my phone rang. "What do you know about bridges?" our new city editor asked. I flipped on my television and saw where the police had been heading: the carnage of twisted metal, concrete, cars and horrified victims. The Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis had collapsed into the Mississippi River. It was Aug. 1, just hours from deadline. The St. Paul Pioneer Press was facing one of its biggest stories in years, and ... Read more ...

It started with a recording on Aug. 1. After a family function, I came home around 8:30 p.m. to an urgent answering machine message from a colleague seeking National Bridge Inventory data. About 6:05 p.m. that evening, a bridge over I-35W in Minneapolis had suddenly collapsed with vehicles falling into the Mississippi River. Thirteen people died and many more were injured. In 48 hours, the IRE and NICAR Database Library provided more than 150 news organizations with the National Bridge Inventory. Over the next few days, that number grew to 200. The term "structurally deficient" was ... Read more ...

I was wrapping up a story out of federal court about 6:10 p.m. on Aug. 1 when a reporter ran back into the newsroom and breathlessly announced that a bridge on Interstate 35W had collapsed into the Mississippi River. I looked out the window and saw a plume of smoke. Moments later, the sirens started. I began typing faster, knowing what lay ahead. I had not worked with the Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory database since 1994, when I discovered its complexity and shortcomings while working at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Minnesota is known for ... Read more ...