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The journalists who attend the Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference do many things for their newsrooms: They analyze data, build websites, write stories, scrape and acquire records. To honor this work, the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting will sell a T-shirt celebrating the data geek in us all, and you’ll help design it. Proceeds from the shirt will help…
Read MoreIn a recent piece for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, Amy Green reports on the cost of sugar supports to American taxpayers. She is currently working on a book about the Florida Everglades, which will explore political and environmental impacts on the area.When Amy Green, a native Floridian, thinks of the Florida Everglades, she…
Read MoreBy Christopher Dolan, University of Scranton From the art of the interview to “Facebook creeping,” we learned many invaluable investigative tools at IRE’s Scranton Watchdog Workshop. During the day-long event, various expert investigative journalists taught the tricks and techniques needed when hunting down a good story. Tisha Thompson from WRC-Washington had many tips for crafting a…
Read More“In June, more than 30 Bloomberg reporters filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 57 agencies for the travel records of top administrators and cabinet secretaries. Three months later, only about 30 percent of the cabinet-level agencies had gotten back to the reporters with documents, and only one cabinet-level agency responded within the legal 20-day…
Read MoreThis is the first post under Transparency Watch, an occasional series from IRE tracking the fight for open records. If you have a story about a quest for public records you’d like to share, email us at web@ire.org. By Laura Bischoff, The Dayton Daily News The Dayton Daily News published a hard hitting Sunday story on…
Read More“The New Jersey State Police are one of only two statewide law enforcement agencies in the country to rely almost entirely on the opinion of supervisors for promotions, a practice most discarded years ago in favor of more objective written and verbal exams.” “A Star-Ledger survey found that the Rhode Island State Police, with a…
Read MoreFor more than a year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been investigating prescription drugs and the dangerous side effects of using opioids ot treat chronic pain. The latest installment of the series tracks the lives of chronic pain sufferers who praised the drug in a 1998 promotional video. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters John Fauber and…
Read MoreIn a joint investigation, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh found that large nonprofit hospitals in North Carolina are dramatically inflating prices on chemotherapy drugs at a time when they are cornering more of the market on cancer care. The newspapers found hospitals are routinely marking up prices on cancer drugs…
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