Customized training

Get more bang for your limited training bucks by bringing IRE and NICAR to your newsroom. It’s a winning partnership: You decide what skills your staff needs to sharpen, and we put together training to help you reach your goals. The training is surprisingly affordable, with a proven track record of producing results.

To learn about the most recent customized sessions and hear what participants had to say, see related posts from 'On the Road', a blog by IRE's training staff.

Our experience includes more than 500 workshops during the past six years, including giants such as The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and CBS News to aggressive smaller newspapers and television stations such as the Aberdeen (S.D.) American News, KTVU-Oakland and The York (Pa.) Dispatch.

Mix and match from a variety of training options for reporters, editors and producers, including:

  • Hands-on training in using spreadsheets and/or databases for better watchdog stories and beat coverage. We offer beginning, intermediate and advanced training. If your news organization lacks a computer training room, we can ship up to 20 laptop computers loaded with software and practice exercises.
  • Harnessing the power of the Internet from the invisible web to best search strategies.
  • Obtaining data and public records and making sense of them.
  • Storyboarding, planning, and managing investigative stories and projects.
  • Building an effective intranet of public records to strengthen your newsroom’s reporting on deadline.
  • Creating and fostering a watchdog culture in your newsroom.
  • Creating and fostering a CAR culture in your newsroom.
  • Hands-on training in ArcView mapping software.
  • Hands-on training in SPSS statistical analysis software.
  • Hands-on training in social network analysis software

Working with our training directors, you can put together the most effective schedule for your staff – one day, several days or even a week.

'Carve out a future for young journalists'

When you agree to bring customized training to your newsroom, journalists will be inspired to tackle fresh stories with new tools. Rob Dean, managing editor for The Santa Fe New Mexican, explains why he choose to bring customized training to his newsroom.


Our fee structure:

Our in-house training is tailored to fit your needs as well as your newsroom’s budget. Fees are based on organization size and set up as a daily rate. Discounts are available for multiple days of training. For detailed information, please contact one of IRE’s training directors: , 314-402-3281; or , 614-205-5420.



Upcoming sessions:


Past sessions: