The Sun Sentinel won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service on Monday for its "well documented investigation of off-duty police officers who recklessly speed and endanger the lives of citizens, leading to disciplinary action and other steps to curtail a deadly hazard." Investigative Reporter Sally Kestin and Database Editor John Maines wrote a piece for the Summer 2012 IRE Journal, reproduced below, about their investigation into off-duty- cops.

Above the Law: Off-duty police caught driving from 90 to 130 mph

By Sally Kestin and John Maines, Sun Sentinel

We’d all seen it before – cops flying by with no ...

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InsideClimate News became the third, and smallest, web-based organization to win a Pulitzer Prize, placing first on Monday in National Reporting for "The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You've Never Heard Of." Months ago, reporter Lisa Song brought a database of pipeline spills to and IRE/NICAR boot camp and began learning to work with the data. She later wrote a piece for Uplink, IRE's Journal of computer-assisted reporting, about her reporting. It's republished below:

First Venture: Probing pipeline leak detection

By Lisa Song, InsideClimate News

I became interested in pipeline data after reporting on ...

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Fourteen members of Investigative Reporters and Editors were among journalists recognized in the 2013 Pulitzer Prizes on Monday.

Members Sally Kestin and John Maines were part of a Sun Sentinel team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for its "well documented investigation of off-duty police officers who recklessly speed and endanger the lives of citizens, leading to disciplinary action and other steps to curtail a deadly hazard." Read their IRE Journal entry about the story here.

David Barstow of The New York Times and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab won the Investigative Reporting category for "their reports on how ...

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IRE would like to congratulate IRE member Ryan Gabrielson of California Watch for winning the first place prize of the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting

From the press release: "Gabrielson won for “Broken Shield,” an investigative series that exposed shoddy police work at California institutions for the disabled. His stories chronicle the activities of a special police force that patrols California’s five state developmental centers – taxpayer-funded institutions for patients with severe autism and cerebral palsy."

Second place also went to an IRE member. From the release: "Second place in the contest went to Peter Dujardin, a reporter at ...

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Seven IRE members were among winners of the 64th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism, announced today by Long Island University. The annual George Polk Awards in Journalism were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate George Polk, a CBS Correspondent murdered in 1948 while reporting on the civil war in Greece. The following IRE members were honored in this year’s awards:

• David Corn of Mother Jones won the George Polk Award for Political Reporting for his work securing and publishing video of  the “47 percent” remarks from 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney. See the full story ...

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Monday April 30, is the deadline to join IRE or renew your membership and you'll be entered in a drawing for one of three prizes:

* Three hotel nights and free registration for the IRE Conference in Boston, June 14-17

* Two additional years of IRE membership at no cost

* $50 in merchandise from IRE's store (can be used online or at the conference)

You'll get access to our library of more than 3,000 tipsheets, 25,000 investigative stories, the IRE Journal and new online features we'll be unveiling in the coming months that will provide more ...

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Congratulations to several IRE members who won Pulitzer Prizes today.

Members Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times were awarded the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting for their project, “Methadone and the Politics of Pain.”-an investigation that exposed Washington State’s push of the cheaper painkiller methadone.  Berens and Armstrong were also awarded the Selden Ring Award and an IRE Award for this story. The two presented at IRE’s Watchdog Workshop in Los Angeles this past Friday. For their tips on how to find, start and write a great story click here.

Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman ...

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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 ...

We'd like to thank everyone who helped make IRE's membership drive a success and announce the winners in the drawing. More than 440 people joined IRE, renewed expired memberships or signed on for another year during October. We also received several thousand dollars in donations, made by those of you who chose to offer additional support when you joined or renewed. Much of this success was due to the many members who volunteered to recruit and who held informational sessions in their newsrooms or on their campuses.  IRE is only as strong as its membership, and we are ... Read more ...

Holly Whisenhunt Stephen was the best executive producer an investigative reporter could ever ask for. [caption id="attachment_149" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Holly Whisenhunt Stephen"][/caption] Holly, an award-winning journalist and a longtime IRE member, died Nov. 28 after a long battle with cancer. She was 38. Holly spent much of her career in Texas, working for TV newsrooms in Stephenville, Waco, Austin, Houston and San Antonio, before moving to WTHR in Indianapolis. While in Indianapolis for the past three years, Holly helped lead WTHR’s 13 Investigates unit to national recognition, including an IRE Award, a Peabody award ... Read more ...