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Get to know your friendly IRE Staff in our new series, Ask Us Anything! These informal Zoom chats will be a way for you to put names to faces, hear about some exciting things we’ve got going on, ask questions and learn more about the organization you belong to (or want to join)!
Join us on Zoom on Tuesday, August 16 from 1:45 to 2:45 pm CT. You’ll meet the IRE content team to learn about all the awesome programming we're planning, how you can help guide the content of our conferences and online events, and ways to get involved. We’ll be there to answer all the IRE-related questions you’ve ever wondered about.
Are you interested in pitching an idea for the 2022 DBEI Symposium but don’t know where to start? Have you shared ideas in the past that have not been accepted? Or maybe you just want to learn more about what we look for in a pitch and what we’re planning for this year’s program.
Join IRE staffers on Zoom on Monday, August 1 from 3 to 4 p.m. ET for the first in a series of informative and informal open office hours. Don’t worry if you can only stop by for a few minutes, we’ll have plenty of folks available to answer questions and talk through your DBEI Symposium ideas.
The deadline to pitch an idea is Sunday, August 7.
The Investigative Reporters & Editors Board of Directors has elected officers for 2022-23.
Mark Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, was reelected president. Cindy Galli, Murrow Award-winning executive producer of the ABC News Investigative Unit, was elected vice president.
Brian M. Rosenthal, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at the New York Times, was elected treasurer. Josh Hinkle, a duPont Award-winning director of investigations and innovation for KXAN in Texas, was elected secretary. Jodie Fleischer, a duPont Award winner who is managing editor of investigative content for Cox Media Group, was elected at-large officer.
All five officers were elected without opposition at a board meeting Monday, July 11.
Other board members are Darla Cameron, managing editor for visual journalism at the Texas Tribune; Mark Greenblatt, senior national investigative correspondent at Scripps Washington Bureau; Kate Howard, investigative editor on the projects team at Reveal; Aaron Kessler, data journalist with The Associated Press in Washington, D.C.; Barbara Rodriguez, statehouse reporter for The 19th; Neena Satija, reporter on the Washington Post’s rapid response investigative team; independent journalist Lam Thuy Vo who is the data journalist in residence at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism; and Simone Weichselbaum, national investigative reporter with NBC News Investigations.
Board members will meet in August at IRE headquarters at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., for their annual retreat.
The next major IRE event is the virtual Diversity, Belonging, Equity and Inclusion (DBEI) Symposium, set for Oct. 20-21. Deadline for submitting ideas for speakers and panels is Aug. 7. Registration will begin in late August; details to come.
Applications are now open to participate in the IRE Conference mentorship program, either as a mentor or as a mentee.
FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDEES: If you’ll be joining us in Denver, you can sign up by filling out this form. IRE will match mentors with mentees and arrange for them to meet at a breakfast during the conference. The IRE22 mentorship breakfast will be held from 7:45 - 8:45 a.m. on Friday, June 24, at the conference hotel.
Space is limited in this popular program, and the deadline to apply is midnight CT on Sunday, May 22. If the slots are filled before then, your application will be added to a waitlist.
Please also note that you must register for the in-person conference by May 23 in order to participate.
FOR VIRTUAL ATTENDEES: If you can’t make it to Denver this year but still want to find a mentor, please check out the IRE page at JournalismMentors.com, where you can set up a time to meet virtually with an IRE member mentor.
Thanks to everyone who pitched and voted on the Lightning Talks for NICAR22. Here are the talks we’ll be hearing online and in-person in Atlanta Friday, March 4 at 5 p.m.
1. Teach better: Here's how | Jessica Huseman
In 5 minutes, I’ll teach you to teach better. Craft an objective, align your lessons to that objective, and measure the objective to ensure your students have attained the skill you want to teach.
2. Beyond fact-checking Whack-a-Mole: Using narrative and contextual analysis to decode mis/disinformation | Giovana Fleck
Identifying misinformation and disinformation online can feel like a hopeless game of Whack-a-Mole: false and harmful information is proliferating online at a rate that makes it impossible for even the most efficient fact-checking system to keep up. While fact-checking and other quantitative approaches to stopping the spread of mis- and disinformation are important, they often fail to identify broader narratives and local context and subtext that permit a fuller understanding of the broader dynamics at work in media ecosystems.
3. How do different newsrooms' style-guides compare: A data dive | Areena Arora
I created a searchable database of different newsrooms' (BBC, BuzzFeed, Reuters, The Guardian and NPR) styleguides to see how they compare. Some words, such as, 'Black' aren't capitalized by some newsrooms, while others do — giving a peek into their editorial leanings.
4. How many mosquitoes does it take to kill you? | Dexter McMillan
Since hiking in Ontario two years ago, getting absolutely swarmed by mosquitoes, I've been obsessed with a question: how many mosquitoes would it take to gang up and threaten your life? Using Python Pandas and Datawrapper to visualize, I will create a dataset that attempts to answer this question. The audience, many of whom will known how to use Pandas to analyze already-built datasets, will learn how to use these tools to tell a story by building a dataset themselves.
5. You'll Never Guess How These Platform Algorithms Work | Jonathan Stray
Recommender systems are the algorithms that power social media and news aggregators. I've spent the last two years studying them and helping others build them in the public interest. Here's what I've learned about what's inside the black boxes.
6. How to end tabmageddon| Cezary Podkul
Face it: You have waaay too many web browser tabs open and it's driving you crazy. It's also not good for you. Here's a few good strategies for how to regain control over your online research and end tabmageddon once and for all.
7. When An Internet Source Won't Tell You Who They Are | Ari Schneider
Too often do journalists quote anonymous internet users without knowing who they are, but that falls short of rigorous journalism ethics. How do you know what their motives are, or if they're not the same person operating under multiple accounts? My presentation will help investigative reporters build the trust of potential sources from the dark web, Reddit, Discord, etc, to get information on the record and on background from individuals who are accustomed to being cloaked by message board anonymity.
8. Wayback Machine - Tips and Techniques | Mark Graham
10 Tips and Techniques about how to use the Wayback Machine in your next investigation. Will review some new and lesser known features and capabilities. News you can use!
9. File management, organization and documentation for dummies (And why doing it badly can be disastrous) | Yoohyun Jung
How many times have you saved files in random directories and you cannot remember the file path to save your life? Bad management and organization of files can prove disastrous, especially when you're working on big projects. Helpful tips I gained from my own disasters.
10. An awesome tool for finding sources | Brad Hamilton
The best option out there for identifying and making contact with potential sources -- whether you're looking for someone specific or trying to cultivate an FBI agent, for example, or an employee of the Trump Organization -- is the Contacts Reference database in LexisNexis. This amazing tool, compiled by web scrapers that troll for professional profiles among company and government agency websites, as well as job-search outfits like LinkedIn, unearths sources from among hundreds of millions of profiles, showing you names, titles, employers, areas of expertise and how to reach them by work email and office phone numbers. An astonishingly small number of journalists have heard of this tool, let alone know how to use it properly. This session will show you how.
The Wall Street Journal's deep dive into TikTok algorithms won first place in the 2021 Philip Meyer Journalism Awards. Other top awards go to newsrooms that used sensors to track air pollution from sugar cane controlled burns and that used machine learning to analyze thousands of police contracts for pricey benefits.
"The Philip Meyer award entries for 2021 showed a growing sophistication in both technique and storytelling that melds the best of social science methods and journalism," said Sarah Cohen, a contest judge and the Knight Chair in Data Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.
The 2021 winners are:
First place: “How TikTok Figures You Out,” The Wall Street Journal
By Rob Barry, Yoan Cart, Dave Cole, Jason French, Robert Libetti, Maureen Linke, William Mata, Frank Matt, Darnell Stalworth, Joanna Stern, Christopher S. Stewart, Kenny Wassus, Georgia Wells, and John West
Judges’ comments: “Reporters at the Wall Street Journal revealed how TikTok's algorithm can send users, including teens, into a seemingly endless stream of potentially harmful videos on sex, drugs, and depression. The Journal created over 100 bots, each programmed to pause for specific types of content, to see where the social media site sent them. The bots collected hundreds of thousands of videos and thumbnail images, which were analyzed using a variety of machine learning and image classification techniques designed for unusually large collections of this kind. The reporters found in some cases, the algorithm sent the bot down a rabbit hole of dark or dangerous content.
“By presenting their first findings in a video, the Journal showed non-technical audience the threads of extreme content that the bots were pushed into viewing. The combination of simulations and analysis in uncovering this troubling and sometimes appalling content was, in the judges' view, an important extension of the social science methods that the Philip Meyer Award is meant to recognize.”
Second place: Black Snow: Big Sugar’s Burning Problem, The Palm Beach Post and ProPublica
By Lulu Ramadan of The Palm Beach Post, and Ash Ngu and Maya Miller of ProPublica
Judges’ comments: “The Palm Beach Post and ProPublica teamed up to gauge air quality in the Glades -- an agricultural region in Florida with cane fields that produce more than half the nation’s cane sugar -- during the four months of the cane-burning season. The project probed the relationship, if any, between cane burns and increased air pollution at residents’ homes. The Palm Beach Post and ProPublica collaborated with residents to set up low-cost sensors outside their homes. Their analysis of more than 100 days of data discovered spikes in fine particulate matter on days when the state authorized cane burns. In addition to the quantitative analysis of the air-quality data, reporters gathered qualitative data about the effects of cane smoke, using a text bot that surveyed residents whenever their sensors detected a spike in pollution.”
Third place: “Gilded Badges: How New Jersey Cops Profit From Police Unions and Avoid Accountability,” Asbury Park Press and ProPublica
By Andrew Ford of the Asbury Park Press, and Agnes Chang, Jeff Kao and Agnel Philip of
ProPublica
Judges' comments: “The Asbury Park Press-ProPublica team scraped thousands of municipal contracts and pension documents, then built a natural language processing workflow to find gold in the archive of bureaucracy. In one case, actual gold, in the form of a $7,000 police badge. Gilded Badges uncovered dozens of incidents of questionable practices, huge leave liabilities, overpaid officers, illegal payouts and other contract language and perks that make New Jersey cops strikingly well paid and protected.”
The Meyer Award recognizes the best uses of empirical methods in journalism. The winners will be honored during the 2022 NICAR Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on March 5. The award is administered by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Missouri School of Journalism.
The Meyer Award honors Philip Meyer, professor emeritus and former Knight Chair of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meyer is the author of “Precision Journalism,” the seminal 1973 book that encouraged journalists to incorporate social science methods in the pursuit of better journalism. As a reporter, he also pioneered the use of survey research for Knight-Ridder newspapers while exploring the causes of race riots in the 1960s.
The judges for the Philip Meyer Award for Precision Journalism were:
The Philip Meyer Journalism Award follows the rules of the IRE Awards in its efforts to avoid conflicts of interest. Work that included any significant role by a Meyer Award contest judge may not be entered in the contest. This often represents a significant sacrifice on the part of the individual — and sometimes an entire newsroom. The IRE membership appreciates this devotion to the values of the organization.
IRE works to foster excellence in investigative journalism, which is essential to a free society. Founded in 1975, IRE has more than 5,500 members worldwide. Headquartered at the Missouri School of Journalism, IRE provides training, resources and a community of support to investigative journalists; promotes high professional standards; and protects the rights of investigative journalists. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting was founded by the Missouri School of Journalism in 1989 and became a collaboration between the school and IRE in 1994.
Contact:
It’s time to gather your best stories of the year! The 2021 IRE Awards contest is now open for submissions, and we can’t wait to see what you’ve done. You may submit entries here.
Among the most prestigious in journalism, the IRE Awards recognize outstanding investigative reporting across all media, including print, TV, radio, and student work.
Eligible entries must have been published or aired between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021 The deadline for submissions is Jan. 14, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.
For details on how to enter, go here. To view past winners, go here.
Investigations that revealed corruption leading to poor quality of a state’s nursing homes, peeled back the curtain on the dark side of banking worldwide, and exposed a broken system where law enforcement agencies fail to track criminal officers are among the winners of the 2020 Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards.
“This year’s award winners showed how powerful people and institutions have harmed our most vulnerable populations from nursing home residents in Indiana to palm oil workers in Southeast Asia," said Jennifer LaFleur, an IRE board member and chair of the IRE Awards contest committee. ”All the while, the journalists were dealing with working during a pandemic and economic hardships. Though told across many different platforms, these stories were not only deeply investigated pieces, but beautifully told. Judging IRE’s award entries was the most inspiring thing I have done in the last year.”
This year’s winners were selected from more than 400 entries. The awards, given 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.
Note: You must be logged in with your IRE membership to access stories through the resource center
IRE MEDAL: “Careless,” The Indianapolis Star, Tony Cook, Emily Hopkins, Tim Evans (PRINT/ONLINE DIVISION 3)
IRE MEDAL: “American Rehab,” for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Shoshana Walter, Laura Starecheski, Ike Sriskandarajah, Brett Myers, Jim Briggs, Fernando Arruda, Kevin Sullivan, Al Letson, Amy Julia Harris, Katharine Mieszkowski, Najib Aminy, Amy Mostafa, Rosemarie Ho, Matt Thompson, Esther Kaplan, Andy Donohue, Amanda Pike, Narda Zacchino, Gabe Hongsdusit, Sarah Mirk, Claire Mullen, Hannah Young, Byard Duncan, David Rodriguez, Eren K. Wilson (AUDIO - LARGE)
FOI Award: “The Disappeared” and “An Adolescence, Seized,” Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Aura Bogado, Melissa Lewis, Victoria Baranetsky, Rachel Brooke, Jenny Casas, Wilson Sayre, Najib Aminy, Brett Simpson, Najib Aminy, Amy Mostafa, Andrew Donohue, Esther Kaplan, Mitchell Landsberg, Soo Oh, Nikki Frick, Al Letson, Matt Thompson, Kevin Sullivan, John Barth, Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda
Tom Renner Award: “FinCEN Files,” BuzzFeed News, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 media partners around the world
Print/Online (written word) Division I: “Fruits of Labor,” The Associated Press, Margie Mason and Robin McDowell
Print/Online (written word) Division II: “Deceit, Disrepair and Death Inside a Southern California Rental Empire,” KPCC/LAist, Aaron Mendelson
Print/Online (written word) Division III (MEDAL WINNER): “Careless,” The Indianapolis Star, Tony Cook, Emily Hopkins, Tim Evans
Print/Online (written word) Division IV: “Land-Grab Universities: Expropriated Indigenous Land is the Foundation of the Land-Grant University System,” High Country News, Robert Lee, Tristan Ahtone, Margaret Pearce, Kalen Goodluck, Geoff McGhee, Cody Leff, Katherine Lanpher and Taryn Salinas
Video Division I: “America's Medical Supply Crisis,” FRONTLINE, Associated Press, Global Reporting Centre, Peter Klein (GRC), Christine Brandt (GRC), Juliet Linderman (AP), Martha Mendoza (AP), Kate McCormick, Frank Koughan, Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak (AP), Ron Nixon (AP), Sally Buzbee (AP), Andrew Metz (FRONTLINE), Raney Aronson-Rath (FRONTLINE)
Video Division II: “Full Disclosure,” ABC15 Arizona, Dave Biscobing, Gerard Watson, Lauren Wilson, Shawn Martin and Mark Casey
Video Division III: “Cell Blocked,” WVUE-TV, Lee Zurik, Cody Lillich, Jon Turnipseed, Mike Schaefer, Kristen Palestina
Video Division IV: “Fixing a Flaw for Veterans Lost on the Line,” WGME CBS 13, Jon Chrisos, Jack Amrock and Caulin Morrison
Audio Large (MEDAL WINNER): “American Rehab,” for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Shoshana Walter, Laura Starecheski, Ike Sriskandarajah, Brett Myers, Jim Briggs, Fernando Arruda, Kevin Sullivan, Al Letson, Amy Julia Harris, Katharine Mieszkowski, Najib Aminy, Amy Mostafa, Rosemarie Ho, Matt Thompson, Esther Kaplan, Andy Donohue, Amanda Pike, Narda Zacchino, Gabe Hongsdusit, Sarah Mirk, Claire Mullen, Hannah Young, Byard Duncan, David Rodriguez, Eren K. Wilson
Audio small: “Everytown: The Hamptons,”WSHU Public Radio, Charles Lane, Ann Lopez and Max Wasserman
Student Large: “Homeland Secrets,” Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, José-Ignacio Castañeda Perez, Alexandra Edelmann, Joel Farias Godinez, Derek Hall, Nicole Ludden, Maia Ordoñez, Devan Sauer, Mackenzie Shuman, Mike Barnitz and Troy Tauscher
Student Small: “When Colleges Fail On Mental Health,” CUNY Newmark School of Journalism: NY City News Service, Abigail Napp and Harsha Nahata
IRE Award for Sports Investigations: “Sexual misconduct at LSU,” USA TODAY, Kenny Jacoby, Nancy Armour and Jessica Luther
Investigations Triggered by Breaking News: “The Death of George Floyd,” Star Tribune, Libor Jany, Andy Mannix, Jennifer Bjorhus, Jeff Hargarten and Liz Sawyer
Book: “Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic,” by Eric Eyre
Click here for a complete list of winners, finalists, judges and judges’ comments.
The New York Times’ groundbreaking coronavirus tracking project took first place in the 2020 Philip Meyer Journalism Awards. Other top awards go to investigations that uncovered how deeply race and income determine causes of death in Massachusetts and how qualified immunity impacts excessive force cases against police.
“In this difficult year, journalists and news organizations stepped up to fill the void of important information for the public,” said Sarah Cohen, a contest judge and the Knight Chair in Data Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. “In the tradition of Philip Meyer, they created data and analyzed information using social science methods to help the public understand the pandemic, racial justice and other key issues.”
The 2020 winners are:
First place: Tracking the Coronavirus, The New York Times
By Staff at The New York Times
Judges’ comments: “The New York Times' coronavirus project is a massive data collection undertaking, but it also is much more than that. The Times took on vetting and building out a strict methodology to ensure that data on COVID cases at the county-level, at nursing homes, at universities and in prisons could be used reliably. But The Times also published groundbreaking journalism rooted in social science methods that helped shed light on disparities in the impact from COVID-19. This work truly is a public service for researchers, for public policy efforts, and most importantly, for readers.”
Second place: Last Words, The Boston Globe
By Mark Arsenault, Liz Kowalczyk, Todd Wallack, Rebecca Ostriker, Robert Weisman, Saurabh Datar and Spotlight editor Patricia Wen.
Judges’ comments: “Painstakingly gathering more than 1.2 million death certificates and surveying thousands of families, The Boston Globe showed how deeply race and income determine how and why Massachusetts residents die and how those factors affect the quality and length of life and access to care. The Globe carefully analyzed the death certificate data with methods such as linear and multiple regression and geocoded the residential addresses of the deceased and matched it with Census data to determine income. Along with the data and survey work, the Globe did numerous interviews with epidemiologists, medical experts and family members to produce compassionate and informed stories. Impressively, the Globe team reacted quickly to the pandemic by including investigations into nursing home deaths from Covid-19 and revealing possible discrimination against the poor who apply to nursing homes. The series is a riveting example of how data analysis and social science methods leads to stellar public service journalism.”
Third place: “Shielded,” Reuters
By Andrew Chung, Lawrence Hurley, Jackie Botts, Andrea Januta, Guillermo Gomez, and Jaimi Dowdell
Additional reporting by Charlie Szymanski, Lena Masri, and Kanupriya Kapoor
Judges comments: “The Reuters' team reviewed thousands of lawsuits and appellate cases of qualified immunity to show a spike in cases since the Supreme Court's ruling in 2009, and that courts were more willing to take cases defending police officers than plaintiffs who accused officers of excessive force. Using their unique relationship with Westlaw, Reuters showed a plaintiff's likelihood of overcoming qualified immunity depended heavily on where the case was heard. The project used logistic regression and other social science methods, and was published weeks before George Floyd was killed and the Black Lives Matter movement shone a spotlight on the difficulty of prosecuting such cases.”
Honorable mention: “What Do We Really Know About the Politics of People Behind Bars?” The Marshall Project and Slate
By Staff at The Marshall Project and Slate
Judges’ comments: “The Marshall Project and Slate focused their social science efforts on a population never polled before: the incarcerated. The project was remarkable not only in its mission -- to survey the political leanings of those currently imprisoned -- but also in its reach, gathering more than 8,000 submissions from across the country during one of the most historic elections in U.S. history. As states begin restoring the voting rights of formerly incarcerated people, this project may very well be the first glimpse into the future of our nation's electorate.”
The Meyer Award recognizes the best uses of empirical methods in journalism. The winners will be honored during the 2021 NICAR Conference. The first-place winner will receive $500; second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200, respectively. The award is administered by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Missouri School of Journalism.
The Meyer Award honors Philip Meyer, professor emeritus and former Knight Chair of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meyer is the author of “Precision Journalism,” the seminal 1973 book that encouraged journalists to incorporate social science methods in the pursuit of better journalism. As a reporter, he also pioneered the use of survey research for Knight-Ridder newspapers while exploring the causes of race riots in the 1960s.
The judges for the Philip Meyer Award for Precision Journalism were:
The Philip Meyer Journalism Award follows the rules of the IRE Awards in its efforts to avoid conflicts of interest. Work that included any significant role by a Meyer Award contest judge may not be entered in the contest. This often represents a significant sacrifice on the part of the individual — and sometimes an entire newsroom. The IRE membership appreciates this devotion to the values of the organization.
IRE works to foster excellence in investigative journalism, which is essential to a free society. Founded in 1975, IRE has more than 5,500 members worldwide. Headquartered at the Missouri School of Journalism, IRE provides training, resources and a community of support to investigative journalists; promotes high professional standards; and protects the rights of investigative journalists. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting was founded by the Missouri School of Journalism in 1989 and became a collaboration between the school and IRE in 1994.
Contact:
It’s time to gather your best stories of the year! The 2020 IRE Awards contest is now open for submissions, and we can’t wait to see what you’ve done.
You’ll notice our new contest submission platform, which we hope will be easy and straightforward to use. The platform, powered by OpenWater, will allow you to start, save and come back to your entries at any point during the open call. You will need to set up a login and password through the platform, but it does not have to be the same information as your IRE membership.
As with any new system, we might need to tweak some things as we move forward. Please check out the new contest submission platform and email questions to Director of Programming and Resources Lauren Grandestaff at lauren@ire.org or Contest Committee chair Jennifer LaFleur at jlafleur@irworkshop.org.
Eligible entries must have been published or aired between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 12, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.
For details on how to enter, go here. To view past winners, go here.
To volunteer to be a contest pre-screener, fill out this short form.
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