The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Data obtained and analyzed by ProPublica suggest another factor in the drug Bystolic’s rapid success: Many of the drug’s top prescribers have financial ties to Forest Laboratories, its maker.
Read More// Texas-based author Lawrence Wright. Photo: Travis Hartman. Listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright discuss turning characters into donkeys, choosing his next project and working at his custom-built desk with his one-of-a-kind index card reporting system. Wright is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the Austin-Texas based author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda…
Read MoreDay three of the IRE Conference was jam-packed with the IRE Awards Luncheon, a full slate of sessions, the IRE membership meeting and Board of Director elections. Six members were elected to the board. During the IRE Awards luncheon, IRE member Andy Hall detailed the situation in Wisconsin, in which the state government attempted to kick…
Read MoreThe 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…
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