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Great investigative work is often done in the days, or even hours, following a breaking news event. The IRE Awards have often honored such work, and now we are pleased to introduce a new category dedicated to such efforts. The Breaking News Investigations category spotlights outstanding investigative work done following a news event or development,…
Read MoreAn investigation by Tim Darragh of The Morning Call (Allentown, Penn.) shows that the majority of money raised by paid fundraisers hired by Pennsylvaina nonprofits went to the fundraisers, not the charities. “Of the 2,716 campaigns using professional fundraisers reported to the state since 2002, fundraiser costs exceeded the amount left for the nonprofit nearly…
Read More“A stimulus job report that says more than 10,000 jobs were saved or created in Wisconsin is rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers based more on satisfying federal formulas than creating real jobs,” according to a report by Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One of the problems is linked to cases…
Read MoreIRE 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.)…
Read MoreA three-day series by The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) examined the local charter schools run by national, for-profit Imagine Schools Inc., the largest charter school management company in the nation. The series found that the idea of local, independent control – demanded by IRS rules governing non-profits – is non-existent, as the hired management…
Read MoreThe Boeing C-17 is a $250 million aircraft used by the military to transport troops and supplies. Despite the Pentagon asserting it has plenty of C-17s in its fleet, Congress continues to approve funding for additional planes, according to a report by Ben Elgin and Keith Epstein of BusinessWeek. The 2010 budget has $2.5 billion…
Read MoreMackenzie Ryan of the Statesman Journal (Salem, Ore.) recently investigated a new and controversial financial strategy in Oregon that attempts to lower a public agency’s pension system. The arbitrage strategy – where cities, school districts and the state issued bonds and then invested the money – made pension costs more volatile because “an agency’s pension…
Read MoreThe latest report from the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University shows that the majority of clean-energy grants paid out from stimulus funds have gone to overseas companies. “Of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants handed out by the government since Sept. 1, 84 percent – a total of $849 million – has gone…
Read More“During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings,” reports Mathew Mosk of The Washington Times. Additionally, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents, access to top…
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