Posts by Alena Rehberger
Start planning for the 2014 IRE Conference in San Francisco
The IRE Conference in San Francisco is only a few months away. Here are a few things to consider as you make your travel plans: Expected Speakers and Sessions The best in the business will gather for panels, hands-on classes and special presentations about covering business, public safety, government, health care, education, the military,…
Read MoreInside the IRE Awards: Deadly Delays
By Hannah Schmidt This week on IRE Radio we’ll be taking you inside the 2013 IRE Awards with audio from some of the reporters, editors and producers who worked on prize-winning stories. View the complete list of winners here. Deadly Delays “Deadly Delays” exposed processing delays that put newborn lives at risk. Ellen Gabler is the reporter and…
Read MoreDocuments show Iowa offered hush money to ex-employee
The Iowa Department of Administrative Services explicitly offered $6,500 to a former state employee last year in exchange for her secrecy, according to documents obtained by the Des Moines Register. The documents include a March 6, 2013, e-mail in which Department of Administrative Services attorney Ryan Lamb writes to an attorney representing former employee Carol…
Read MoreInside the IRE Awards: The Child Exchange
This week on IRE Radio we’ll be taking you inside the 2013 IRE Awards with audio from some of the reporters, editors and producers who worked on prize-winning stories. View the complete list of winners here. The Child Exchange Members from the Reuters investigative team spoke at the NICAR conference about the 2013 IRE Award-winning…
Read MoreEscape dilemma at Avalon
A Tulsa World investigation found that officials at Avalon Correction Center marked serious offenses such as escape attempts and substance-related offenses as minor misconducts, instead of X-level offenses. Avalon is a halfway house, which are among the lowest-security facilities for Department of Corrections inmates, where some inmates who committed nonviolence crimes finish the end of…
Read MoreSign up for mentoring at the IRE Conference in San Francisco
The IRE Conference offers an opportunity for in-depth, one-on-one coaching on investigative reporting. These private sessions allow attendees to seek advice on challenging stories or follow-up ideas. IRE pairs those who signed up with a mentor, and contact information is provided to both mentors and those who want to be mentored. Mentors and mentees can…
Read MoreUnchecked irrigation threatens to sap Minnesota groundwater
Crop irrigation has boomed in Minnesota in the past few years, increasing land values and raising yields for corn, soybeans and other crops. But hundreds of Minnesota farmers appear to be irrigating cropland without the state permits required to use large volumes of public water, according to Minnesota Public Radio News. Of roughly 1,200 crop…
Read MoreKentucky company making money off Georgia motorists
A private company that sells vehicle accident reports for $11 each to Georgians is making roughly $1 million a year off information that can by law be made available to drivers for less than a dollar. Each day, police officers statewide direct hundreds of drivers involved in wrecks to a website, Buycrash.com, that belongs to…
Read MoreObama administration deporting illegal immigrants for serious crimes, and minor infractions
With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.” But a New York Times…
Read MoreJail Crunch: A visualization of crime in Eastern Europe
OCCRP reporters filed freedom of information requests to prison authorities across Eastern Europe. The interactive visualization is a compilation of the data received from each prison authority, organized to demonstrate similarities and differences between prison demographics and crime categories across the region. OCCRP journalists conducted dozens of interviews with convicted criminals throughout Eastern Europe. The…
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