For more than 70 years, the Washington Redskins have boasted that they have sold out every game. Seats are so scarce that the waiting list for general admission season tickets has 160,000 names on it. But James Grimaldi of The Washington Post reports that the reality is that the team has sold thousands of general…
Read MoreThe IRE Bookstore is pleased to announce our first eBook title, “Understanding Crime Statistics: A Reporter’s Guide, 2nd Ed.” Our eBooks will provide you with useful desktop references that you can have with you on the go. The PDF is compatible across eReader platforms, or can simply be opened on your computer desktop. You will…
Read MoreG.W. Schulz of the Center for Investigative Reporting investigated the policing tactics used during Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. last year. “Officials took unprecedented advantage of new laws to halt potential subversives before they attack. But the effort resulted in heavy-handed tactics, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Center for Investigative…
Read MoreHazardous lending practices approved by the directors of Cape Fear Bank appear to have contributed to the bank’s failure, according to a report by Stella M. Hopkins of The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. John Davie Waggett, a successful pharmacist, tried his hand at real estate development securing over $18 million in loans. The largest lender was…
Read MoreA story by Heather Vogell of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution raises questions about whether Atlanta is doing enough to probe allegations of cheating on state tests at its schools. Vogell used the state’s Open Records Law to obtain more than 2,400 pages of internal investigations into testing misconduct at six large metro school districts.
Read MoreStars and Stripes (Washington, D.C.) reporter Kevin Baron reports that less than a week after the paper first revealed that the Pentagon was routinely profiling journalists, the Army decided to cancel the program. “The U.S. military is canceling its contract with a controversial private firm that was producing background profiles of journalists seeking to cover…
Read MoreHearst Newspapers reveals widespread failure ten years after a federal report implored the medical industry to cut in half the annual death toll from medical errors and hospital-caused infections, estimated at 200,000. Among the failures: the federal government doesn’t even tally the nation’s leading category of accidental deaths. Some states tried but most failed. Hospital…
Read MoreNow is the time for college and university students to take advantage of the special student rate that allows you to join IRE and take advantage of all of the member-only resources we offer. For only $25 a year, you’ll get access to more than 3,000 tip sheets that can give you a quick roadmap…
Read MoreAn investigation by Sheri Fink of ProPublica reveals “what really happened to some of the patients who died at New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” Among her findings, Fink reports that more patients than had been previously reported were given lethal injections, and some of those patients were near death…
Read MoreBy Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, ProPublica In examining the California Board of Registered Nursing, we found widespread problems. Most troubling, perhaps, is that the board took more than three years, on average, to investigate and discipline errant nurses. When we compared the board’s performance to its peers in other large states, we found that…
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