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Posts by Alena Rehberger
Houston police barely investigated almost two dozen homicide cases
Eight Houston Police Department detectives have been disciplined for failing to properly investigate more than two-dozen homicide cases spanning almost a decade. The victims were as young as 11 months old. They were nearly all black or Hispanic. They were walking along the sidewalk or just answering their door when they were killed. When news…
Read MoreLearn to write code, build a web scraper at our September workshop
IRE and the University of Missouri Journalism School are offering a special workshop Sept. 4-7 that will introduce the basics of newsroom programming by teaching how to build one of the simplest but most useful tools in a data journalist’s toolbox: a web scraper designed to automate the downloading of data. The workshop will also…
Read MoreStruggling with a federal FOIA request? Get help from the Office of Government Information Services
Need help with a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request? Wondering how the whole FOIA process works? Want to better understand an agency’s response to your request? Sign up for a short one-on-one session with a representative from the federal FOIA Ombudsman’s office. The Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) is a neutral office…
Read MoreMost Wyoming legislators pass one or zero bills
Of the Wyoming Legislature’s 90 members, only 28 lawmakers got one bill passed in this year’s legislative session, according to a Casper Star-Tribune analysis. Thirty-nine didn’t succeed in getting any bills passed. Fourteen didn’t sponsor anything. But passing bills is only one way to measure a lawmaker’s effectiveness. “There are a lot of legislators who…
Read MoreCorey Johnson: Why you should go to the IRE Conference
There’s still time to register for the IRE Conference in San Francisco. But if you’re still on the fence, we hope this will help. We asked some of our members to tell us why they think you should go to IRE14.
Read MoreUpdated FBI Uniform Crime Reports now available
The NICAR Database Library has updated the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, one of the best resources for national crime statistics. The most current reports are for 2012. WHAT’S IN IT? Law enforcement agencies around the countr​y ​​voluntarily* submit reports to the FBI on what are known as “index” crimes: Murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery,…
Read MoreDownload the inaugural IRE Radio Podcast
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the IRE Radio Podcast. On these regular audio features you’ll find a brief recap of IRE news and upcoming events, interviews with journalists and IRE staff, and audio tips from the best in the biz. We’ll try to keep each episode around 15 minutes. For now the podcast is…
Read MoreExperts: County supervisor’s charity use violated state, federal laws
San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn said he bought a charity decades ago for $25, called it the Basic Faith Foundation and used it to hold money from real estate deals. Horn said he gave the interest to Christian missionaries in Mexico and South America. inewsource dug into the Basic Faith Foundation and into Horn’s…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The Desert Sun’s investigation into off-duty Marine deaths
Brett Kelman | The Desert Sun In 2011, three car crashes caught the attention of Greg Burton, executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California. The first involved a 100 mile-per-hour road race that led to a deadly wreck at a park. The other two also ended with fatalities. All three involved Marines. The news…
Read MoreIRE and Esri mapping fellowships awarded
IRE and Esri, the leading commercial publisher of geographic information system (GIS) software, have awarded 13 fellowships to attend Esri’s annual International User Conference and IRE’s mapping bootcamp. Fellowships to the User Conference July 13-17 in San Diego were awarded to: Leslie Griffy, Independent journalist Chris Hanson, KTRK-Houston Glenn Howatt, The Star Tribune Ingrid Lobet, Houston Chronicle Hoa Nguyen,…
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