The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
The Golden Padlock Award. Photo: Travis Hartman. Investigative Reporters and Editors has named the U.S. Border Patrol as the winner of its first annual Golden Padlock Award recognizing a U.S. government agency or individual for unrelenting commitment to undermining the public’s right to know. The country’s largest law-enforcement agency was chosen among dozens of nominations…
Read MoreBy Gwen Girsdansky Lisa Song of InsideClimate News, Ingrid Lobet of the Houston Chronicle, David Sheppard of the San Antonio Express-News and Jim Morris of the Center for Public Integrity gave suggestions for online resources available for investigating environmental issues on Thursday at the IRE Conference. Lobet mentioned a good tactic is thinking about what…
Read MoreBy Kolten Parker and Perla Arellano Keeping a low profile and scavenging online court records are vital when covering drug trafficking across the United States-Mexico border. San Antonio Express-News reporter Jason Buch, Knight International Journalism Fellow Jorge Luis Sierra and Belo Corp. border bureau chief Angela Kocherga discussed tools and strategies they utilize to investigate illegal…
Read MoreDay two of the IRE Conference in San Antonio featured the event’s showcase panel, “The Government’s War on Leaks”. IRE board member Leonard Downie Jr. moderated a panel featuring Michael Oreskes of the Associated Press, Lucy Dalglish of the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, author James Bamford, and independent journalist Quinn Norton. The panelists discussed NSA…
Read MoreBy Kathryn Sharkey “How many people in here have filed federal information requests … and how many of you have been told no?” The room, during the panel “Getting past ‘No’ when government pushes back” on Friday of the IRE Conference, was filled with raised hands and chuckles as Jack Gillum from the Associated Press…
Read MoreIRE members elected six new directors to the IRE board on Saturday evening at the organization’s annual conference in San Antonio. The newly elected members are: Leonard Downie Jr., the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University; Matt Goldberg, NBC Bay Area; Ziva Branstetter, Tulsa World; T. Christian Miller, ProPublica; Josh Meyer, Medill National…
Read MoreBy Gwen Girsdansky Investigating a nonprofit often boils down to checking whether it is keeping its promises. What was the original mission statement when the nonprofit submitted its required tax form (known as the 990) to the Internal Revenue Service? Kendall Taggart from The Center for Investigative Reporting and Kris Hundley from the Tampa Bay…
Read MoreBy Kolten Parker Manny Garcia, of El Nuevo Herald, speaks during a panel entitled Investigating political shenanigans. Photo: Travis Hartman Journalists eager to scoop political scandals should get out of the office and state house and into the bar. A panel of three reporters with experience exposing political shenanigans shared advice and downplayed the notion…
Read MoreBy Jordan Gass-Poore’ Investigative journalists shared their under-the-gun experiences with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Thursday during the panel “Criminal justice: Guns” at this year’s IRE Conference in San Antonio. Ted Crest with the nonprofit organization Criminal Justice Journalists moderated the panel and provided national-level story ideas that reporters might…
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