The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Posts by hdcoadmin
Extra Extra Monday: Overdoses, background checks, housing markets, midwifery and fraudulent accounting
Use only as directed | ProPublica and This American Life “About 150 Americans a year die by accidentally taking too much acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. The toll does not have to be so high.” Read the stories from ProPublica. Company Behind Snowden Vetting Did Check on D.C. Shooter | Bloomberg “The U.S. government…
Read MoreEnter the Philip Meyer Journalism Award contest
It’s once again time to enter the the Philip Meyer Journalism Award contest. Entries are now being accepted online. 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…
Read MorePhiladelphia Schools face downsizing, closures
Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission (SRC), voted on a controversial budget last May that eliminated counselors, sports, secretaries, librarians, music and art teachers and support safety staff at public schools in the area. Their plan: Save the beleagured School District of Philadelphia by tearing it down. The district faced a budget hole roughly the size of $300 million…
Read MoreHow Detroit went broke: The answers may surprise you
Detroit is broke, but it didn’t have to be. An in-depth Detriot Free Press analysis of the city’s financial history back to the 1950s shows that its elected officials and others charged with managing its finances repeatedly failed — or refused — to make the tough economic and political decisions that might have saved the…
Read MoreAlternative vaccine schedules mean fewer students fully immunized
inewsource in San Diego today reports that “a trend toward giving children fewer shots at one time, combined with continued skepticism about vaccines’ safety, means more kindergarteners than ever in San Diego County were not fully immunized when they started school last year.” inewsource analyzed data from the California Department of Public Health and found…
Read MoreWhat an IRE student membership meant to me
If you asked me how I first got started in investigative journalism, I’d find it hard to answer, since it’s all kinda fuzzy. It could have been the CAR class I took, or the Hacks/Hackers meeting I went to for its cool name, then stayed for its cool mission. But if there’s one experience that…
Read MorePretrial detainees on the rise in New York
WNYC News reports that “over the past decade, as New York City’s backlog of felony cases has grown, so too has the time defendants are spending behind bars before trial. The average pretrial detention in a felony case was 95 days in 2012.”
Read MoreReport from U.S. Senate committee claims EPA lacks transparency
Minority members of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a report on Sept. 9, 2013 claiming that the EPA has “a dismal history of competently and timely responding to FOIA requests,” has failed to adequately train staff members on FOIA policies, has shown bias in deciding to honor fee waiver requests, and…
Read MoreMeet the lawyer who keeps some of America’s worst charities in business
“The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting spent a year identifying the 50 worst charities in America based on the money they paid to professional solicitation companies over the past decade. Copilevitz & Canter has represented nearly three-quarters of them, as well as most of their for-profit telemarketers and direct mail companies.”
Read MoreUnlike Nation, Oklahoma Is Failing to Reduce Drunken-Driving Deaths
During most of the past two decades, the annual number of alcohol-related traffic deaths across the country has fallen by about 20 percent, to more than 11,500. More stringent drunken driving laws, widespread public education campaigns and safer vehicles have all played a role in that sharp reduction. In Oklahoma, however, it’s been a much…
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