The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
By Brittany Collins Structuring an investigative news story is important. Not only does it help prevent confusion for viewers, but it also allows the reporter to get creative when putting together various elements of the story. Solly Granatstein from The Weather Channel, Brendan Keefe from WXIA-Atlanta, Chris Vanderveen from KUSA/9News Denver, and Matt Goldberg from…
Read MoreThe Seattle Times built an interactive graphic on the Oso landslide By Albert Hong “For me, doing this panel is a real treat because it means, for once, I get to hang out with the cool kids,” Ken Armstrong, staff writer at The Marshall Project, said as he kicked off an IRE Conference session on…
Read MoreBy Lenore T. Adkins Some of the most important stories about the environment lurk beyond the city limits, but reporters often overlook those narratives because they aren’t in urban settings, said a group of panelists who investigate the environment. “Agriculture is vastly under-covered,” said Joseph Davis, editor of the WatchDog newsletter for the Society of…
Read MoreSeymour Hersh is an investigative reporter with a storied career dating back to his reporting on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Recently, his reporting on the killing of Osama bin Laden, a narrative that runs counter to the one widely circulated, has garnered a wide range of reactions. Hersh addressed all of…
Read MoreBy Moriah Balingit In the past year, incidents of police brutality and fatal police shootings have served as a flashpoint for discussions on race in this country. And rightfully, much of the discourse has been centered around those events: the details, the characters, the protests and investigations in their aftermath. But how do journalists move…
Read MoreBy Rachel Premack Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko talked government programs and accountability with approximately 100 journalists at the annual IRE Conference in Philadelphia. This inspector general’s job duties are not unlike that of an investigative journalist. Sopko leads an independent governmental department aimed at ensuring Afghan reconstruction programs are effective and…
Read MoreBy Meldon Jones A few months ago, “SEO” was like a dirty word to Education Week reporter Benjamin Herold. His reporting philosophy – “Build it and they will come” – placed the onus on readers to find and engage with content on his blog. Herold routinely ignored emails lauding anything related to the importance of…
Read MoreShani Hilton of BuzzFeed and Betsy Reed of The Intercept at the 2015 IRE Conference.Credit: Roger Barone | Talk Radio News Service By Miranda A. Strong The abuses of power and labor that followed the industrial boom of the 1900s inspired journalists to investigate corruption and expose its consequences to the masses. The work of…
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