The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Posts by hdcoadmin
Botched ATF sting in Milwaukee ensnares brain-damaged man
“ATF agents running an undercover storefront in Milwaukee used a brain-damaged man with a low IQ to set up gun and drug deals, paying him in cigarettes, merchandise and money, according to federal documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel.” Read the Journal Sentinel’s full investigation here.
Read MoreU-T San Diego may have offered bargain ad deals to candidates they endorsed.
Tom Shephard, a political consultant for Bob Filner, a Democrat running for mayor of San Diego, noticed a lot of full page newspaper ads attacking his client; ads that he was quoted $8,000 for. “Amita Sharma and Ryann Growchowski, with inewsource and KPBS, audited ads in the San Diego Union-Tribune every day between Labor Day…
Read MoreLeads in ATF sting gone wrong end in dead ends
In a follow up to their investigation on an ATF sting gone wrong, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has found that all leads on the stolen, government-owned Colt M4 have ended in dead ends. “And despite a newly filed search warrant detailing a text message that may link one of the original suspects to the theft,…
Read MorePolygraphs show border agency applicants admitted to rape, kidnapping
According to documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, admitted to a host of astonishing crimes during the application process, including rape, kidnapping. “The records – official summaries of more than…
Read MoreGuardian data blog explores history of data journalism
How far back do the roots of data journalism go? Simon Rogers of the The Guardian’s Data Blog can traces them pretty far. In a video this week on the blog, he explains that “journalists have been working with – and visualising – data since the Guardian first published in 1821.” The video is the second…
Read MoreInternational collaboration enhances investigation into Canadians’ role in Cuba’s child sex market
The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Miami Herald, recently collaborated on an investigation that found Canadians are travelling to Cuba in surprising numbers to sexually exploit young people trapped in the socialist country’s underground sex tourism industry. Havana’s conspicuous scenes of street-level prostitution are the public face of a hidden, sordid trade…
Read MoreFraud in the classroom: Cooking the books to make grades better
Test scores rocketed and plunged over several years at Annette Officer Elementary School in East St. Louis, Ill., often a telltale sign of tampering. The school district determined that cheating was “accepted practice. Photo: Hyosub Shin, AJC In Atlanta, 35 educators were indicted in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, all but three of whom…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Sweeping FOIAs, document-mining reveal problems with Norway kindergartens
By John Bones, Verdens Gang Rather than a traditional front page, VG created this cover, which reads “Mom and dad think I am safe in the kindergarten, but is it true?” It started like an ordinary news story last October. One of our reporters, Frank Haugsbo, made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the…
Read MoreDeadline for agribusiness workshop extended to April 14
Navajo boys plow a corn field on the Navajo Reservation in Shiprock, New Mexico, date unknown. Photo from the National Archives and Records Administration. The deadline has been extended to April 14 for an all-expenses paid reporting workshop on covering agribusiness from The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Investigative Reporters and Editors, held May 30 to…
Read MoreMaking the grade: Inside the college admissions process
“During the last month, on two occasions, The Inquirer has spent a total of about eight hours in the room with Lehigh staff members as they made sometimes difficult and agonizing decisions. It was a window into a highly competitive, emotionally charged process, often kept secret. The Inquirer agreed not to identify applicants.” Read the…
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