On Monday, three young Cleveland women who had been missing for nearly a decade were found alive and, according to authorities, appeared unharmed. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight were kidnapped and held for years as prisoners inside a house in Cleveland. Police arrested the house owner, Ariel Castro, 52, and his two brothers, Pedro Castro, 54 and Onil Castro, 50.

Journalists are already starting to uncover details about the case and the brothers. In the search for further context, property records, background searches, court records and smart sourcing will be crucial. IRE is pulling resources, including tipsheets and archived ...

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Gannett sent more than 60 journalists from the companies' various media outlets to attend this year's conference. Those journalists are sharing their insights on Gannett @ IRE, which includes interviews with speakers and general insights from the conference. 

Here are some posts from Thursday:

World of Data session

I was amazed by how quickly Tisha Thompson said she types paper records into data files. I was even more amazed that she doesn’t really have anyone proofread her data entry. She said her way of checking her numbers from her data entry is by going back to public officials and ...

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By Mayra Cruz
@MayraC27

News stories can be deepened through data, said speakers in the "Using data journalism to investigate the news" panel. 

“News happens fast,” Arizona Daily Star Rob O’Dell reporter said.

From tracking crime to finance, incorporating data in journalism goes beyond daily reporting and anecdotal information. 

Adding visualizations, numbers and maps allow the public to understand a story better.

Mortgage meltdowns in Arizona led O’Dell to look through data and map the areas where most of the foreclosed homes were being auctioned.

O’Dell also mentioned the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, in ...

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Until recently, getting arrested in Philadelphia for possession of crack cocaine and admitting drug dependency would not preclude being hired or continuing to work as a police officer in the public school system.

A month-long, data-driven investigation  by The Philadelphia Inquirer found that in more than a dozen cases school police were themselves getting into trouble with the law. Even an open bench warrant issued for one officer charged with a drug offense failed to trip the school district's alarm.

In another case, an officer who showed up in court to face charges after her second arrest for drug ...

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The statistics did not make sense.

Identity theft complaints to the federal government had been declining for the last four years. With almost daily reports of major information breaches, phishing attacks and other forms of cyber-crime, how could this be?

I answered this question by turning to a federal database that I obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request. I reviewed five year’s worth of identity theft complaints to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the consumer watchdog agency that collects ID theft information.

After a year’s wait for the records and extensive work scrubbing and assembling ...

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The Dallas Morning News ran a probing article that examines how the Dallas Police Department classifies what most people would think of as burglaries. The newspaper found that the police department often called it vandalism if someone broke into a home but didn’t take anything. The FBI, in the UCR Handbook (warning: big PDF here) that’s used by law enforcement agencies to classify crimes, calls burglaries “The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft.” The UCR handbook further distinguishes between burglary and vandalism: “A forcible entry or unlawful entry in which no theft ... Read more ...

I drive by an elementary school on my way to work every day. More than once there’s been a police cruiser idling in the school’s parking lot with lights flashing and the officer standing nearby. Although those incidents never involved a major crime, on several occasions this year the Tulsa World has chronicled arrests at schools. In January, police arrested an 18-year-old man found with a stun gun, two samurai swords and six knives in his car in a high school parking lot. In February, police arrested a 59-year-old man after he pointed a gun at students standing ...

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