The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
By Jennifer LaFleur, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Imagine a broad group of people regularly excluded from social, governmental and employment activities because systemic and structural barriers keep them out. A pretty important story, right? Yet it’s one that too often goes uncovered. For investigative reporters, it’s an opportunity to do data-driven stories that…
Read MoreBy Doug Meigs, IRE & NICAR Journalist and scholar Tom Koch built his career writing at the intersection of public health and social justice. Now, the longtime IRE member is helping a new generation of public health reporters and journalists working with disabilities. Koch himself has low vision, and he had to fight for fair…
Read MoreThe program will award $10,000 grants to journalists pursuing investigative reporting projects focused on public health and disability issues.
Read More2025 marks IRE’s 50th anniversary! To celebrate the milestone, retired journalists can join or renew their membership for $50 instead of $75 in 2025.
Read MoreFor the January 2025 IRE Radio Podcast, Francisco Vara-Orta — IRE’s director of diversity and inclusion — reads an excerpt from his Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism 2025 piece titled, “The quest for diversity evolves.”
Read MoreWe asked IRE members why data skills are important, even for those who may be new (or hesitant) to using numbers in the newsroom. Here’s what they shared.
Read MoreBy Francisco Vara-Orta, IRE & NICAR Visibility in the news comes and goes for historically marginalized communities. This is especially true for people living with a disability. Major events and milestones — such as the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Disability Pride Month, the Paralympics or the COVID-19 pandemic — have centered these…
Read MoreBy Nakylah Carter, IRE & NICAR Disability is often excluded from conversations about diversity, but there are many resources available to help journalists address this problem. Although not an exhaustive list, IRE has gathered the following four guides as a helpful starting point for improving your newsroom’s disability coverage. As social norms rapidly change regarding…
Read MoreBy Neelam Bohra, The Texas Tribune Are government programs to support disabled residents adequately serving the community? Two newsrooms in Texas explored this question in the context of public school privatization and dangerous residential care facilities. Project: “Inaccessible Private Schools or Underfunded Public Schools: Texas’ Disabled Students Have Few Options With No Change in Sight”…
Read MoreBy Douglas Schepers, Fizz Studio; Frank Elavsky, Carnegie Mellon University People with vision or cognitive disabilities often struggle with charts, graphs and diagrams as a source of information. People with disabilities also have a fundamental ethical and legal right to an equivalent experience of information access. For basic images, adding accessibility is as simple as…
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