Susan Carroll Fellowship
By Jackie Spinner, CJR Editor’s Note: This article first ran on June 28, 2016 on the Columbia Journalism Review’s website. A pair of investigations that arrived just days apart last week—one from a small nonprofit, the other by a leading daily—brought new scrutiny to the way the city of Chicago handles allegations of police misconduct.…
Read MoreJoin us Monday, July 11 at 6 p.m. for the IRE Bay Area Investigators with Drinks! Invite your friends and get them to RSVP here so we have enough snacks to go around. Share what you learned at the IRE Conference and catch up with colleagues at the tropical-themed Natoma Cabana. The bar is just a…
Read MoreA serial killer. An Afghan teenager in London. A porn star with an immense knowledge of shell corporations. “Gee,” you might say, “is that the cast of the latest Wes Anderson film?” Actually, these characters are all real people, featured in stories by the speakers at the “Longform Investigative Journalism: Stories on Different Platforms” panel at…
Read MoreLearn the rules, then break them. That’s how to excel in the not-so-delicate art of the investigative interview, according to Julian Sher, a producer of the CBC’s The Fifth Estate. Investigative journalists have their strengths: battling with officials for public records, digging through documents, analyzing Excel spreadsheets. But navigating tough interviews? Well, that can be…
Read MoreBy Kaitlin Washburn Journalists from the Sunlight Foundation, National Institute on Money in State Politics, and Voice of OC discussed strategies for following the money in state and local elections. Melissa Yeager, a senior staff writer for the Sunlight Foundation, started by giving specific reasons why state and local coverage is so important: There’s more…
Read MoreBy Soo Rin Kim Journalists who worked on the Panama Papers came together at the IRE Conference to discuss what it take to pull off the world’s largest collaborative investigation. Chrys Wu of The New York Times moderated the panel, which included Michael Hudson, Mar Cabra and Joachim Dyfvermark. Here are some of the most…
Read MoreBy Soo Rin Kim There’s nothing more boring and unappealing than seeing a story full of numbers. “But it’s a data story,” you say. “I can’t help it!” Put aside your excuses. Data stories can be and always have been human stories. Mc Nelly Torres of NBC6 Miami, Andrew Lehren of the New York Times…
Read MoreWill Fuller and Vanessa Araiza at the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans.Photo: Will Fuller At the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans, Knight Scholar Will Fuller sat down with Vanessa Araiza, a weekend anchor and reporter at WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama. Fuller: Why journalism? Araiza: I was never a news junkie. I wanted to…
Read MoreBy Kaitlin Washburn Craig Flournoy, a journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati, recognizes the courage it takes for a student to do investigative reporting on the college he or she is attending. “It is a risk…to criticize the hand that signs your paycheck or that hands you your diploma,” Flournoy said. Marcelo Rochabrun did…
Read MoreBy Ashley Balcerzak When writing about abortion or reproductive rights, it can be difficult to move past the debate itself. Many stories lean on a formula of pro-life versus pro-choice activists and ultimately land on a somewhat expected left-leaning takeaway. At this year’s IRE Conference panel “How to investigate the war on women’s health,” Hannah…
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