Posts by adam@ire.org
Missed Warnings: How Scripps News investigated the Maine shooting
By Lori Jane Gliha and Brittany Freeman, Scripps News When a gunman killed 18 people during a shooting spree in Lewiston, Maine in October 2023, our team did what many reporters might do in a breaking news situation: we asked a ton of questions, and we filed open records requests for anything that might give…
Read MoreStudent-built database shows lawmakers skirting travel rules
By Kathy Best, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism This is a story of AI-assisted redemption. In 1999, two enterprising Congressional Quarterly reporters wanted to show the link between congressional trips and the private interests that financed them. They used a portable scanner to make copies of travel reports and spent weeks inputting information by hand…
Read MoreBattling the U.S. Navy: Documents and sources cut through secrecy
Twelve years ago, I was stomping through the corridors of the Pentagon as a military beat reporter for The Washington Post. At the Defense Department, there’s always a deluge of potential news stories and international incidents to monitor. The trick is figuring out which ones will keep your editors happy, which ones you can safely…
Read MoreReporters finish groundbreaking work amid layoffs, mergers
By Nadia Hamdan, Reveal Alexia Fernández Campbell was in Baltimore when she got the news. It was March and she was attending the NICAR 2024 conference, where her colleague, Pratheek Rebala, would be on a panel to talk about the big project they had been working on together, “Forty Acres and a Lie.” At the…
Read MoreStaying on the story: Investigations unfold on Baltimore bridge collapse
By Richard Martin, The Baltimore Banner On March 26, 2024, the cargo ship Dali lost power while leaving the Port of Baltimore and slammed into a critical support pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. It was 1:24 a.m., and within seconds the bridge crumpled into the cold Patapsco River, sending six construction workers working…
Read MoreThe 2024 IRE Award Winners Spill Their Secrets
The incredible work done by the winners of of the 2024 IRE Awards has changed and saved lives. These spectacular journalists have crossed borders, built databases, dug through thousands of pages of confidential records, and risked their own safety to reveal wrongdoing from incredibly powerful people. And in a time when those powerful people increasingly…
Read MoreHonoring longtime IRE member and mentor Susan Carroll
Honoring longtime IRE member and mentor Susan Carroll By Lise Olsen, The Texas Observer As a monster storm approached in August 2017, my friend Susan Carroll arranged for others to care for her young children in order to camp out in the Houston Chronicle newsroom along busy Loop 610. She stayed there awaiting the arrival…
Read MoreIRE statement on Pentagon press freedom constraints
(September 23, 2025) — Investigative Reporters & Editors and its Board of Directors join with numerous newsrooms and journalism organizations in condemning the Pentagon’s new requirement for reporters to sign a pledge limiting their ability to report without government approval in exchange for a press credential. “This unprecedented move undermines the fundamental principles of journalistic…
Read MoreDemanding release of detained journalist Mario Guevara
(September 23, 2025) — Investigative Reporters and Editors joins dozens of organizations in demanding the release of detained journalist Mario Guevara. Guevara was arrested June 14 in metro Atlanta while covering a protest, then transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, where he remains. He has been detained for more than 100 days —…
Read MoreNew IRE fellowship honors Susan Carroll
(September 23, 2025) — Investigative Reporters and Editors has a new fellowship in honor of the late Susan Carroll Alvarez, a fearless watchdog journalist beloved for her mentorship and leadership skills. Family members, friends and journalists around the country have raised more than $25,000 to create the new Susan Carroll Fellowship to support journalists covering…
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