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UPDATE: IRE will have a special remembrance of Mike McGraw during the national IRE conference June 14-17 in Orlando.
By Brant Houston
Mike McGraw was an exemplary investigative journalist, an inspiring teacher, a strong defender of those exploited and ignored, and a colleague who not only celebrated his fellow reporters’ best work, but also appreciated their foibles.
Mike passed away Saturday after battling cancer. He was 69. The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter was remembered in an obituary in the Kansas City Star, where he retired in 2014 after a 30-year career in journalism.
Mike is known for his many awards, his unceasing curiosity, his constant wise counsel to other journalists, and his patience in hearing out anyone’s grievance. He also gave three decades of devoted service to Investigative Reporters and Editors as a board member, speaker, mentor and as its ever-abiding conscience.
For his newsroom colleagues, it was a privilege to work with Mike: to learn from him, to agonize over doing the right thing, to struggle to write the truest story possible, and then take the heat with him for telling the truth. Through it all, Mike brought a humble and compassionate approach to his journalism and a humanity that his colleagues hoped to emulate. He also brought humor and joy every day to what often is a very tough job.
Time and again, we have met another journalist who recounted the excitement in talking reporting with Mike, taking a class from him or collaborating with him on a project. And then there are all the people whom Mike helped and uplifted with his investigations.
In the coming days, they will share their stories and often surprise and impress us with the breadth and depth of Mike’s journalism, his friendships and his kindness.
We hope that their stories and admiration of Mike will provide comfort to his colleagues, his friends, his wife Ruth, his sons Andy and John and all of his family.
Brant Houston is a former executive director of IRE. He now works as Knight chair in investigative reporting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
IRE's annual investigative reporting conference will be taking place June 14-17, 2018 in Orlando — and we want your input!
Use this form to share ideas, suggestions and other comments you think will help us plan the best possible conference. The only required field is your contact information (in case we want to follow up). No suggestion is too small. Since we can't accept every idea, please do not confirm anything at this point. We'll be in touch by late April if we want to follow up.
Here are a few ways you can use this form:
Have several ideas? Great! Feel free to fill out the form as many times as you’d like. And help us spread the word by sharing this form with friends and colleagues.
Make sure to get your ideas in by Jan. 19!
IRE is committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, age, appearance or religion. Please take a moment to read through the IRE Principles before making a pitch. Please, direct questions to conference@ire.org.
Thanks to the generosity of many, IRE is fortunate to have funding available to provide fellowships to its training events. These fellowships provide financial assistance to attend IRE boot camps. This month, IRE awarded six fellowships for the January 2018 CAR Boot Camp.
Jenni Monet, a freelance journalist from Tucson, Arizona, and Kristen Taketa, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, received the Ottoway Fellowship.
Established by David Ottaway and the Ottaway Family Fund, the Ottoway Fellowship is aimed at increasing the diversity of IRE's membership.
David DesRoches from WNPR (Hartford, Connecticut), Yolanda Martinez from the Marshall Project (New York) and Matt Troutman from the Traverse City Record-Eagle (Traverse City, Michigan) received the Total Newsroom Training Fellowship.
Total Newsroom Training (TNT) Fellowships are open to those who have completed two days of TNT training between 2013 and 2017.
Additionally, thanks to The Fund for Rural Computer-Assisted Reporting, a journalist from a news organization in a rural area is able to receive the R-CAR Fellowship. Established by IRE member Daniel Gilbert, the fellowship is intended to provide rural reporters with skills that will help them uncover stories that otherwise would not come to light. The fellowship is offered in conjunction with the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
Jake Bleiberg from the Bangor Daily News received the R-CAR Fellowship.
If you are interested in applying for a fellowship for financial assistance for future boot camps, go here for more information and due dates. The next due date is January 22 (to attend the March CAR Boot Camp).
Join us on Dec. 8 to swap investigative reporting and public records tips, find out how your colleague got that great story and anything else you want to know at a SE Portland watering hole (TBD). Who should attend? Reporters who investigate, investigative reporters, student journalists and editors!
RSVP online for the event and join the IRE Portland Meetup group if you haven’t already.
IRE has member-organized Meetup groups in six cities. Learn more about them on our IRE Meetups page.
Our student sponsorship program is back for 2017! Last year, more than 110 of you sponsored memberships for nearly 180 students.
For just $25, you shared the spirit of IRE – encouraging journalists to grow through training and mentorship.
We ask for your support again this year as we aim to introduce more students to IRE. Please consider sponsoring a $25 student membership on behalf of your alma mater, college media or for an intern at your news organization. You don't have to know a student – we can help with that.
This year, you can also make a donation to our student fund, which will send an ethnically or racially diverse student to an IRE training.
Visit our sponsorship site for more details and spread the word using hashtag #SponsorIRE.
It's once again time to enter the Philip Meyer Journalism Award contest. Entries are now being accepted online, through Nov. 17.
Established in 2005, the award was created to honor Philip Meyer's pioneering efforts to utilize social science research methods to foster better journalism. The contest recognizes stories that incorporate survey research, probabilities, and other social science tools in creative ways. Three awards are given annually:
Not sure what to enter? Watch award-winning data journalists Jennifer LaFleur, David Donald and Tom Hargrove discuss best practices for great data reporting and stories that previously won the Philip Meyer Awards. To learn more about the contest, go to the Philip Meyer Award FAQ page, or contact IRE's contest coordinator, Lauren Grandestaff at 573-882-6668 or lauren@ire.org.
The deadline for entries is November 17, 2017, 11:59 PST.
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — College juniors, seniors and graduate students are invited to apply to the Dow Jones News Fund for paid summer 2018 internships in data journalism, digital media, business reporting and multiplatform editing. The application and test deadline is Nov. 1.
The Fund’s internship programs offer interns a week of advanced training at top universities in data journalism, digital media, business reporting and multiplatform editing before they report to work. During each residency interns are taught the latest newsgathering, editing and storytelling technologies.
Data journalism interns are trained to collect, analyze and visualize data to unlock compelling stories; digital media interns augment their range of reporting skills using video, audio, data and social analytics; business reporters spend a week in New York learning to cover all sectors from Wall Street to personal finance and local companies; and the multiplatform editing interns hone their news judgment, headline writing, copy editing and page design skills.
The Fund and sponsoring media cover travel costs to and from training and to newsrooms. Interns are responsible for their housing and transportation costs during the internship. Students who return to school after a successful internship will receive $1,000 college scholarships.
Snapshots from summer 2017:
College juniors, seniors and graduates enrolled full-time on Nov. 1 are eligible to apply, including December graduates, and U.S. students studying abroad.
To apply, students should visit the programs page on the Fund website. Applicants are required to complete an online application and take a one-hour test for the program(s) they are applying to by Nov. 1.
Visit the Fund’s Directory of Test Monitors to find the campus contact for your school. Don’t see your school? Professors and college staff may sign up here to be test monitors and to receive program materials to distribute on campus.
College faculty who have volunteered to serve as test monitors should receive posters and tests by Sept. 25.
Mark Walker of Argus Leader Media in South Dakota will join the IRE staff as a training director on Oct. 9.
For nearly five years, Walker has worked a variety of positions for Argus Leader Media in Sioux Falls. His most recent job has been as a watchdog reporter focusing on law and order.
Walker’s investigation of wait times that mentally ill criminal defendants faced in jails across South Dakota led to state-ordered reforms in making psychiatrists available for competency evaluations. Another innovative story determined the time spent by Sioux Falls Police officers responding to calls at area Walmart stores compared with other retailers.
“Mark is the epitome of the power of putting IRE training to use for watchdog reporting,” IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix said. “Mark attended a weeklong IRE data boot camp and has participated in four national IRE conferences. He consistently has found ways to incorporate IRE training into his reporting. He’s well-positioned to train other journalists to follow his example.”
In 2016, Walker was named South Dakota Young Journalist of the Year and won the South Dakota Newspaper Association’s public service reporting award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Fort Valley State University in Georgia.
Walker is filling a vacancy created by the departure of former IRE senior training director Megan Luther, who now works for a new national investigative team formed by Raycom Media.
Denise Malan has been promoted to the role of senior training director for IRE. She oversees all of IRE’s training programs and supervises Walker, training director Cody Winchester and data services director Charles Minshew.
“Denise and her team bring a diverse array of experiences, skills and creative ideas to IRE,” Haddix said. “Our members are fortunate to have this team in place to nurture and support watchdog work and keep our training fresh and relevant.”
Data journalism site Sqoop has added the Department of Justice to its public records database that currently includes the SEC, patent applications and grants, and federal court dockets (PACER). Reporters can use Sqoop to search and set alerts for news tips in these filings.
The new DOJ release includes press releases and speech transcripts from the DOJ's Office of Public Affairs as well as releases from 93 U.S. Attorney's Offices from around the country.
Read more about this release on the Sqoop blog. Journalists can apply for a free account for immediate access to Sqoop's search and rapid alerting platform.
— Bill Hankes, Sqoop Founder & CEO
Investigative Reporters and Editors and an innovative journalism newsletter have launched a new partnership to promote the best local investigative reporting across the country.
IRE's sponsorship of the Local Matters newsletter, co-founded by Naples Daily News reporters Joey Cranney, Alexandra Glorioso and Brett Murphy, will expand the project’s audience to IRE’s network of more than 5,500 journalists.
"The Local Matters team is doing a tremendous service by spotlighting watchdog stories in markets large and small across the country," IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix said. "We're eager to help extend the reach and impact of their newsletter to our full network of journalists, educators, students and supporters."
Local Matters launched in December 2016 and has gained more than 2,200 subscribers. The weekly newsletter curates a list of the best local watchdog and investigative reporting from more than 100 daily newspapers.
"We want to highlight those important pieces of investigative journalism that otherwise would likely have been missed,” Cranney said. “For that purpose, there is no better partner than IRE. They are perhaps the most widely admired and respected organization among the country’s local reporters and editors that go to work every day as the watchdogs for their communities.”
Local Matters contact: Joey Cranney. joseph.cranney@naplesnews.com. 215-285-9083.
IRE contact: Doug Haddix, doug@ire.org, 614-205-5420.
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