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IRE is proud to announce the winners and finalists of the 2016 IRE Awards.
In the year in which presidential politics seemingly dominated the news, journalists from around the world exposed doctors who preyed on their patients and USA gymnastics coaches who sexually assaulted young athletes. The work of other journalists led to improved living conditions for the disabled, the end of hidden co-pays with prescription drugs by a giant health-insurance company and a criminal investigation of campaign finance law in Britain.
These investigations are among the 18 winning entries in the 2016 Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards. Another 37 entries were chosen as finalists.
A team of more than 400 journalists from around the globe who produced the “Panama Papers” project has been selected as the winner of the Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. The reporters sifted through 11.5 million leaked files to expose the hidden financial dealings of world leaders, fraudsters, gangsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and more.
"If you are looking for inspiration, high-caliber reporting, and impressive execution, look no farther than this exceptional lineup of award-winning journalism,” said Jill Riepenhoff, chair of IRE’s Contest Committee and a projects reporter with The Columbus Dispatch. “The judges were impressed by the strong investigative work being done in newsrooms around the world, from small to large. The winners and finalists faced immense obstacles – and in some cases, threats – but persevered. They show that the work of our members is more important than ever.”
This year’s winners and finalists were selected from among more than 480 entries.
The awards, given by Investigative Reporters & Editors Inc. since 1979, recognize the most outstanding watchdog journalism of the year. The contest covers 17 categories across media platforms and a range of market sizes.
Click here for a complete list of winners and finalists.
Investigative Reporters and Editors is now welcoming nominations for its annual Golden Padlock award recognizing the most secretive government agency in the United States.
"The techniques of government secrecy have been elevated into high art by determined civil servants," said Robert Cribb, chair of the Golden Padlock committee. "This award brings well-deserved recognition to those who have distinguished themselves with ingenious creativity in denying the public's right to know."
To nominate an agency, please fill out this short form. You'll be asked to provide the name of the government department or individual, your reasons for nominating, and links to media coverage or documents detailing the intransigence. Entries must be submitted to IRE by Sunday, April 30.
The Department of Veterans Affairs won the 2016 Golden Padlock Award for withholding records about the qualifications of medical staff who evaluated thousands of veterans for potential brain injuries following service to their country.
Previous winners also include:
We are excited to announce that Nikole Hannah-Jones will deliver the 2017 IRE Conference keynote address.
Nikole is an award-winning investigative reporter who covers civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine. In 2016, she helped found the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a news trade organization dedicated to increasing the ranks of investigative reporters of color. She is also writing a book on school segregation called, "The Problem We All Live With," on the One World imprint of Penguin/Random House.
Prior to joining The New York Times, Nikole worked as an investigative reporter at ProPublica in New York City, where she spent three years chronicling the way official policy created and maintained segregation in housing and schools. She has also spent time at The Oregonian and The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Nikole's reporting has won several national awards, including the Peabody Award, George Polk Award, National Magazine Award, Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service, and the Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting. She was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2015 and was named to The Root 100 in 2015 and 2016. She is also a 2017 New America Emerson fellow.
The keynote address will take place at the IRE Conference luncheon on Saturday, June 24. Please join us June 22-25 at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge in Phoenix.
Cody Winchester of the Austin American-Statesman will join the IRE staff April 3 as a training director.
Cody brings six years of reporting experience plus advanced computer coding skills to the position. In Austin, Cody worked on a team at the newspaper that develops, tests and deploys interactive graphics, applications and other web products. Previously, he worked at the Omaha World-Herald as a reporter and web developer and at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader as a watchdog reporter.
As a reporter, he produced watchdog stories that dug into the environmental record of a local meatpacking plant, allegations of bid-rigging on a 911 network contract and secret payouts to executives at a nuclear station, among other topics. He coded online interactives for many of his stories, made internal tools for the newsroom and developed groundbreaking news applications that track public salaries, automate campaign finance data analysis, catch live election results and more.
In Austin, he contributed to his newspaper team's brown-bag training sessions and served as a data visualization consultant for a graduate-level reporting class at the University of Texas School of Journalism.
Cody fills a vacancy created by the departure of former IRE senior training director Jaimi Dowdell.
IRE training director Megan Luther has been promoted to senior training director. In her new role, Megan will supervise Cody, training director Denise Malan and data services director Charles Minshew.
“Our all-star training team will ensure that IRE continues providing innovative, relevant, and effective training and services,” IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix said. “I’m excited about the prospects for new ways that we can help journalists sharpen their watchdog teeth and hone their skills.”
Napoli Management Group, one of the largest news talent representation firms in the country, has established and will fund an IRE scholarship to benefit young television journalists interested in investigative reporting. The scholarship is designed to help aspiring watchdog journalists, early in their careers, who otherwise would not have the financial means to attend the national Investigative Reporters and Editors conference.
“We want to help young TV journalists become inspired and develop tools, at a national IRE conference, that will set them on a lifelong path to producing investigative stories that truly make a difference,” said Mendes J. Napoli. He founded the firm in 1993 after more than 23 years of experience and expertise in the broadcast industry as a general manager, news director and corporate executive.
Napoli Management Group represents close to 600 broadcasters, including TV news anchors, reporters, weathercasters and sportscasters in all of the major television markets in the country. In addition, the firm represents journalists and hosts at the television networks, as well as on the major cable news networks.
The scholarship is expected to be in place for the 2018 IRE national conference in Orlando.
Additional contributions to the scholarship may be made to the IRE endowment by writing "Napoli” in the donation note.
How to donate to IRE's endowment:
Independent reporters are encouraged to apply to Freelance Investigative Reporters and Editors (FIRE), for support with investigative stories.
FIRE, a collaboration between Project Word and Investigative Reporters and Editors, offers stipends of up to $10,000, plus a suite of reporting tools. The application deadline is Thursday, March 23, 2017.
To apply to FIRE, reporters are encouraged to visit the program's Guidelines page.
By Soo Rin Kim
You’re a city government reporter and you’re on a deadline to write about a public hearing on the city’s zoning overhaul. You want to quote a resident who made an interesting comment at the hearing, but you forgot to get the exact spelling of his name (oops!). What do you do?
As unlikely as it sounds, voter registration data can save your life in a situation like this. If you managed to get his address, you can look up his name in the county voter registration data.
At a 2017 CAR Conference panel, Derek Willis, a news apps developer at ProPublica; Rachel Shorey of the New York Times; and Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political science professor, discussed how to utilize election data beyond election results with some examples from this year.
ProPublica used voter survey and turnout data to investigate administrative problems in the election system – including voter registration rejection rates – as part of Electionland.
Voter registration data usually includes a person's name, address, age, gender, race, party registration and even voting history. This data can usually be obtained directly from county agencies or from private data vendors that collect and standardize the data.
Voter registration data is also handy when looking up sources’ names and addresses or doing broad demographic counts. You can also dive in deeper to find more interesting anomalies, such as Republicans that live in mostly Democratic districts and districts with big swings.
Panelists said some states are particularly helpful. Florida collects additional election information such as the number of anticipated voters, staffing and types of voting machines in Election Preparation Reports. Georgia collects additional early voting and absentee voting data.
They also warned that election data is ephemeral in nature. States and localities have different retention policies and are not required to archive data beyond certain periods of time, making it difficult to compare election cycles. County-level data can also be incompatible. It took about a month and a half for Smith’s research team to collect precinct data from all 67 counties in Florida. And the data they obtained wasn't easily synchronized because every county had different reporting methods.
By Amanda Nero
The CAR Conference came and went much too quickly. Luckily, it’s nearly impossible to walk away from the conference empty-handed. Whether it’s technical skills or a deeper understanding of the data community and its importance, hopefully you walked away with a memento to remember the conference by.
Here are some conference takeaways from a first-time CAR Conference attendee:
1. Victor Hernandez and Mike Reilley have an app for everything. During their session, “30/60: Thirty of the best free data storytelling tools in sixty mins,” they introduced 30 free tools worth checking out for advanced and newbie journalists. Typeform, a cloud-based app for creating surveys, and Banjo, a real-time event detector, are just a few notable examples.
2. Journalists have a responsibility to protect endangered data. David Herzog, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, moderated a panel of mostly non-journalists who do their part to protect data in the Trump era and beyond – but they need journalists’ help. If you are working with or come across a dataset you wouldn’t want to see disappear, archive it or find someone who can. Preservation is key for the future of data reporting.
3. GIFs are an insanely useful way to present data visualizations, and they’re not that hard to make. Lena Groeger of ProPublica showed how easy it is to make a GIF with Photoshop and from the command line. The options for making GIFs and the possibilities to get more people interacting with data visualizations on social platforms are endless.
4. Tableau is more than just a storytelling tool. Ben Jones from Tableau proved that you can use the data viz program to find stories in data, too.
5. Young data journalists shouldn’t be afraid of what they don’t know. Madi Alexander and Rachel Schallom, two recent college graduates and working journalists, reassured young conference-goers that no one is perfect when starting out. In the session “Jobs and career straight-talk,” Alexander, Schallom and a group of mentors talked about how being adaptable is just as beneficial as knowing every program and having every skill.
By Uliana Pavlova
"If you think you are indispensable, just die and see what happens." – Ron Nixon
It seems almost impossible to find a work/life balance when you're a journalist in a constantly shrinking industry. In the world of breaking news and Twitter, it's hard to unplug. Nixon, a Washington correspondent with The New York Times, sat on a 2017 CAR Conference panel with Darla Cameron of The Washington Post; Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times Magazine; Cynthia K. Persico, a vice president for Health Advocate; and Andy Boyle of Axios. Together, they shared tips and advice on battling burnout.
What do you do when your boss tries to reach you after hours? Panelists suggested setting up boundaries with your boss early on. Hannah-Jones tells her boss she doesn’t check her email at night and asks for texts if it’s an emergency. Boyle uses email for semi-important stuff, Slack for important stuff and phone calls in case of emergency.
It’s important to find ways to relieve stress. Hannah-Jones throws parties for writers at her house in New York. Reading poetry with like-minded people helps her reduce anxiety. Boyle works out six days a week to take his mind off of work. Nixon never eats at his desk. He said a quick change of environment helps him relax and think.
All journalists suffer from imposter syndrome to some extent. It’s typical to put in more hours when you are just starting a new job or transitioning from an internship to full-time employment. But after a while, panelists said, it’s okay to transition to normal hours and let your life take over.
“No one ever dies and wishes they worked harder,” Persico said.
By Dariya Tsyrenzhapova
The definition of bots is murky, but expectations for the use of artificial intelligence tools in news organizations is on the rise. Bots, like automated personal assistants, can collect information, execute actions, generate content and even emulate humans, said Tiff Fehr, an interactives editor at The New York Times.
Fehr moderated a 2017 CAR Conference panel on bots with John Keefe of Quartz, Ken Schwencke of ProPublica and Simon Rogers of Google.
How can journalists interact with their audiences using bots? How can they use them to improve their reporting? One example panelists pointed to was The New York Times’ Politics Chatbot that provides automated updates with the latest election poll numbers, along with news updates via Facebook Messenger.
Quartz recently launched a Bot Studio, with the support of the Knight Foundation. It’s an experimental project, intended to build automated tools for journalists and applications for voice and messaging interfaces.
Bots can help you watch RSS feeds, keep an eye on court cases and even see things before everyone else, Keefe said. “That kind of tool is completely amazing,” he added, “especially if you can come up with stuff that nobody else is watching or thinking.”
Panelists said that bots can be our digital assistants and robot friends. They are programmed to automate journalists’ routine tasks and to deliver efficient, timely responses to journalists’ queries.
But is there a way to have them interact in an unprompted way, on their own?
“We are not there yet,” Keefe said, laughing. “And I am not sure if we want to be there.”
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