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Thanks to everyone who submitted a Lighting Talk idea for the 2017 CAR Conference. Now it’s time to narrow the 35 ideas down to the 10 talks we'll hear in Jacksonville. Go online and vote for your favorite proposals. The polls close on Sunday, Feb. 19.
What are Lightning Talks? Lightning Talks are 5-minute presentations on topics wide and varied. NICAR attendees can submit and vote on the talks, and the 10 with the most votes will be presented on Friday, March 3rd at 4:45 pm.
Congratulations to IRE member Brian Rosenthal of the Houston Chronicle for winning the 2017 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. USC Annenberg recognized Rosenthal for his seven-part series, "Denied,” which uncovered a systematic denial of special education services for tens of thousands of children with disabilities in the state of Texas.
According to the USC news release, the series elicited bipartisan outrage in the Texas legislature and led to the introduction of eight bills aimed at ending caps on special education enrollment. The federal government has also launched an investigation.
The Selden Ring judges wrote: “Rosenthal's series, ‘Denied,’ vividly detailed the suffering caused by officials' imposition of an arbitrary cap on special ed, at levels far lower than elsewhere in the nation. His work prompted swift action, fundamentally rewriting access to education for hundreds of thousands of Texas' most vulnerable students and their families.”
“I hope this will raise awareness and serve as a reminder about the need for states to take seriously their responsibility to students with disabilities,” Rosenthal said in the news release.
The $35,000 annual Selden Ring Award honors a work of investigative journalism that enacts tangible change. The award is given by the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.
Back by popular demand! Please join us on Thursday, February 16 at The Boathouse at Confluence Park, beginning at 5:00 pm.
RSVP online for the event and join the IRE Ohio 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.
We’re working hard to make sure the 2017 CAR Conference program addresses the issues and skills you need to know now. From covering the Trump administration to protecting yourself and your sources to understanding polls and statistics, our schedule is sure to have something for everyone.
Here are a few of the nearly 200 sessions, classes and tracks we're excited about:
Develop a plan for covering the Trump administration with "The first 100 days of data," "Doing data journalism under duress" and "Separating fact from fiction: Information verification."
Get an inside look at how companies like Uber deal with hacking and data breaches.
Learn how to deal with uncertainty and statistics. Does the election have you questioning the value and accuracy of polls? Are you inundated with press release about rankings and best-of lists? Learn how to figure out what’s worth covering, sort good data from bad, and accurately convey your findings to readers.
Pick up tools and techniques for tracking your impact. A discussion of readership metrics, benefit cost analyses, survey data, and case studies will help you quantify the impact of your work.
Improve your data viz skills with a special hands-on track organized by the Society for News Design. You’ll learn new ways to get from tools to published graphics using things like Ai-to-HTML, R-to-Illustrator and more.
The votes are in and the 2017 NICAR T-shirt has been selected!
Joe Fox of the Los Angeles Times won our annual contest with a redaction-inspired design. You'll be able to buy his design at the 2017 CAR Conference in Jacksonville. Any extra shirts will be available for purchase online in the IRE Store.
Madi Alexander of Bloomberg BNA came in second place. Her design will be available as a round laptop sticker.
Thanks to everyone who entered designs and voted.
By Sacha Pfeiffer, The Boston Globe
'Spotlight' on the IRE Radio Podcast
Listen to Pfeiffer, Walter Robinson and Marty Baron discuss the Globe’s reporting in 2002 and 2003.
Fifteen years ago, my Boston Globe Spotlight team colleagues and I published our first story about the Catholic Church’s widespread cover-up of clergy sex abuse. It was a decades-long practice aimed at avoiding public scandal: paying secret settlements to victims, dissuading them from going to the courts or police, promising to remove accused priests from circulation – and quietly returning abusers to parishes, where they often abused again.
Our reporting ultimately consumed nearly two years of our lives, resulting in more than 1,000 stories. And it taught me – then a 29-year-old reporter – some of the most important and enduring lessons of my life: the importance of questioning authority, the risks of being blindly deferential to powerful institutions, and the immense value of investigative journalism.
As our industry struggles with its financial challenges, investigative reporting is increasingly viewed as an unaffordable luxury. It requires the support and patience of editors and publishers willing to give reporters months – sometimes years – to focus on a single project. The payoff can be enormous, and it can be vital to a healthy democracy. But this type of work is at risk of becoming an endangered species.
To help keep investigative reporting robust, the Boston Globe is awarding a $100,000 fellowship – sponsored by Open Road Films, Participant Media and First Look Media – to one or more individuals or teams of journalists to work on in-depth research and reporting projects. The chosen journalist(s) will collaborate with established Spotlight reporters and editors, and submissions will be accepted through March 1, 2017. We encourage anyone interested to apply. For more information and an application, go to www.spotlightfellowship.com.
Sacha Pfeiffer, a print and broadcast journalist, was a member of the Boston Globe Spotlight team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its stories on clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. That reporting is the subject of the movie Spotlight, in which Pfeiffer is played by actress Rachel McAdams.
The 5th annual Tapestry Data Storytelling Conference will be held at Casa Monica in St. Augustine, Florida on Wednesday March 12th, 2017.Tapestry is an event designed to advance interactive online data storytelling, bringing together different viewpoints with the goal of generating a rich conversation about data storytelling.
This one-day, invitation-only conference includes keynotes from speakers like Pro Publica’s Lena Groeger, short stories from authors like Cole Nussbaumer Knafilc, and a demo theater designed to provoke ideas and dialogue across disciplines.
The registration fee is waived for attendees in journalism, and transportation from the conference to Jacksonville will be provided for attendees who also plan to attend NICAR. For more information, and to request your invitation to attend or present, visit the Tapestry Conference website at http://www.tapestryconference.com/.
The Shorenstein Center has named nine IRE members from five news organizations as finalists for the 2017 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and one IRE member as the winner of this year’s academic Goldsmith Book Prize. The winners of the 2017 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting will be announced on March 2, 2017, at the Kennedy School. The Center will choose from six finalists.
Danny Robbins and Jeff Ernsthausen of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution were named for their work on “Doctors & Sex Abuse.” The investigation uncovered a system that protected doctors who sexually abused vulnerable patients and consistently failed to strip offending doctors of their license to practice.
Sam Roe and Karisa King of the Chicago Tribune were named for their work on “Dangerous Doses.” The two-year investigation uncovered the fatal and harmful effects of mixing prescription drugs and found that pharmacies miss half of all fatal drug combinations.
David S. Cloud of the Los Angeles Times was named for his series of articles investigating the California Guard enlistment bonus scandal. Cloud found that the California National Guard paid thousands of soldiers enlistment bonuses to entice them to reenlist when the Guard was short on troops, and then, a decade later, the Pentagon demanded the money be repaid, charging interest and resorting to wage garnishments and tax liens if soldiers refused to pay back the money.
Josh Salman, Emily Le Coz and Elizabeth Johnson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune were named for their series “Bias on the Bench.” The team built their own database to compare sentencing patterns in the state of Florida based on age, race, gender, previous work experience and more. They found that black defendants were sentenced to more time behind bars and less second chances.
Michael Siconolfi and John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal were named for their work on “The Downfall of Theranos.” The investigation spotlights a laboratory start-up, Theranos. The company doctored research, failed quality-control checks and advertised revolutionary blood testing techniques that threatened the health of their patients.
James (Jay) T. Hamilton, director of the journalism program at Stanford University, is the recipient of this year’s academic Goldsmith Book Prize for his book, Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism (Harvard University Press). Hamilton traces the real-world impact of investigative journalism and uses economic theories of markets and incentives to identify the types of investigative projects that are prioritized and funded. His work shows the social benefit of investing in investigative reporting.
Lightning Talks are back for the 2017 CAR Conference in Jacksonvile. Pitch your ideas at lightningtalks.ire.org by Feb. 12.
5 minute talks on any subject. Anyone who is attending NICAR 2017 can pitch and the attendees vote on the talks they want to see. The 10 talks with the most votes will be presented during NICAR.
From now until Feb. 12, come up with a pitch (or two) and submit it here. Then, on the morning of Feb. 13, the pitching period ends and the voting period begins. You'll be able to vote for as many talks as you'd like, and the 10 talks with the most votes will be a part of the lightning talks session at NICAR this year. Voting ends on Feb. 19 and we'll post the official lightning talks schedule within a day or two. Then, all that's left is to come to the lightning talks session on Friday, March 3 and enjoy!
Here are three pitches that were selected in recent years.
Watch the lightning talks from 2016, 2015 or 2014, or check out the full list of proposals from last year.
Sisi Wei has encouraged everyone (newbies especially) to pitch a lightning talk, and offered to help coach, prod, brainstorm with, edit, and encourage anyone who needed it. This still applies! If you're interested in pitching and need help coming up with something, read this.
Yes you can! On the other hand, if you've spoken in both 2015 and 2016, please take a well-deserved year off and encourage new speakers to pitch a talk.
Come train with us! IRE seeks a training director to help journalists bolster their watchdog and data skills.
The trainer will help organize and conduct watchdog workshops and customized newsroom training; help plan national conferences; and develop innovative instructional materials in investigative and data journalism.
While IRE is located at the University of Missouri, the trainer can work remotely.
The position requires strong data and watchdog skills, excellent public speaking ability, a passion for investigative reporting, frequent travel (including some weekends), and the ability to work successfully from a remote office.
Apply online by Feb. 16.
If you have questions, please contact IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix by email (doug@ire.org) or phone (614-205-5420).
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