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Posts by Alena Rehberger
Louisiana failed to turn over key public records about execution drugs
Documents entered into court record in the lawsuit of one prisoner on death row show that the Louisiana Department of Corrections had documents that would have fulfilled a records request made by The Lens in 2013. The Lens, a non-profit newsroom in New Orleans, had previously requested records pertaining to the purchase and inventory of the state’s…
Read MoreHow to identify – and expose – inflated student enrollment statistics
Will Evans of The Center for Investigative Reporting explains how he started investigating an Oakland, Calif. church school that appears to have vastly inflated its enrollment numbers to collect extra taxpayer funding. “The place was in total disrepair, but the pastor drove an Escalade,” Evans said. In this first clip, Evans explains how he found…
Read MoreMaintenance workers for troubled public housing system reaped thousands of dollars from dubious overtime
The Center for Investigative Reporting has uncovered more problems in Richmond, California’s public housing system. Two maintenance workers, who also live in public housing, were found to have double-billed for tasks, billed for more hours than were worked and charged overtime during their regularly-scheduled shifts. Overtime paid to the two workers totaled more than $125,000 over four years.…
Read MoreIRE Preview: New nine-session track focuses on the art of storytelling
A special track of nine IRE Conference panels this year will focus on elevating our writing. It will include a series of “master classes” led by Pulitzer winning journalists Louise Kiernan, Walt Bogdanich and Sam Roe who each will dissect one of their classic prize-winning investigations with an emphasis on the writing choices. We’ll also…
Read MoreNew webinar focuses on data journalism for broadcasters
KTVB-Boise investigative reporter Jamie Grey explains how to get started on data projects, offering story ideas and tips for visualizing data on air. She walks through several examples including: Finding stories in airport and flight data Analyzing interstate crash data using basic Excel techniques Charting population change using driver’s license data Using county jail data…
Read MoreBillions unaccounted for in Venezuela’s communal giveaway program
The unsupervised spending in El Chaparral is symptomatic of a vast community aid effort with lax financial controls. A network of more than 70,000 community groups has received the equivalent of at least $7.9 billion since 2006 from the federal agency that provides much of the financing for the program, Reuters calculates, based on official…
Read MoreIRE Preview: Sign up for INN Day
For the past four years, INN and IRE have worked together to create a conference program specifically tailored to the needs and issues facing nonprofit investigative newsrooms. This year, on Thursday, June 26th in San Francisco, we will offer a day filled with opportunities, workshops and idea sharing designed to provide the maximum value to nonprofit news organizations…
Read MoreNICAR releases updated Death Master File, for cheap
The NICAR Database Library has just updated the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF), which is now current as of Nov. 30, 2013. We purchased the last full copy of the data available before the Social Security Administration changed the rule around access, limiting the most recent three years of data (and most likely…
Read MoreCuomo administration maintains secrecy, uses private email for official business
Some New York state officials are using private email accounts to conduct official business. One reporter at ProPublica received an email from Howard Glaser, director of state operations and a top adviser to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, regarding an open records request. This email was sent from Glaser’s personal email account. But later, when the…
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Student housing deaths, phantom workers, treatment of the terminally ill
Shadow Campus: A house jammed with students, a life of promise lost | The Boston Globe Boston, defined in large measure by the students who flock to it, allows these eager newcomers to be put at risk in overcrowded houses that serve as shoddy substitutes for modern dorms. Such illegal overcrowding is rampant in student…
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