The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
Longtime IRE Journal FOI columnist and University of Missouri professor Charles Davis has been named dean of the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Davis has enlightened IRE members with his FOI column in every issue since 2000. “Charles has the ability to effortlessly cut through obfuscation and bureaucratic smokescreens to…
Read MoreA big “Thank You” to all who participated in another successful membership drive! The results of the drawing are: 1st Place – Kate Perry, The Florida Times-Union3 Hotel nights and registration for the 2013 IRE Conference in San Antonio 2nd Place – Abby Rapoport, KNXV-PhoenixTwo years of free IRE Membership 3rd Place – Lori Jane…
Read MoreA strong group of stories were submitted to IRE for the IRE Freelance Fellowship competition. The winners of the Freelance Fellowships for 2013 are: Wally Roberts, for his story on abuse in the nation’s largest nursing homes; Leah Bartos, for her work regarding shoddy forensic work; Erin Segal, for her work on misunderstood aspects of…
Read MoreWashington Monthly reports that “over the past five years U.S. border agents have shot across the border at least ten times, killing a total of six Mexicans on Mexican soil.” According to the report, border patrol shootings were a rarity before 2009, with only a handful occurring. But after an increase in border patrol agentst between…
Read MoreOn Monday, three young Cleveland women who had been missing for nearly a decade were found alive and, according to authorities, appeared unharmed. Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight were kidnapped and held for years as prisoners inside a house in Cleveland. Police arrested the house owner, Ariel Castro, 52, and his two brothers, Pedro Castro, 54 and Onil Castro,…
Read More“Maple Grove surgeon Joseph Pietrafitta has been sued at least six times for malpractice, leading to $1.2 million in settlements for former patients. The Minnesota Board of Medical Practice also has cited some of the lawsuits in ordering Pietrafitta to take corrective action for “inappropriate” conduct. In 2010, no conventional insurance carrier would give him…
Read More“Since 2005, immigration has been criminalized as never before. In 2000, when George W. Bush came into office, there were about 10,000 convictions for illegal entry and re-entry—essentially crossing the border illegally; in 2011, even as the number of people crossing the border had plummeted during the Obama administration, there were more than 71,000 such…
Read More“The next day, hundreds of shiner perch were found dead on the banks of Browns Slough. A week later, the state Department of Ecology and the Department of Fish and Wildlife say they are no closer to finding a cause. No samples were tested and no cause has been established — just a lot of…
Read More“Change of ownership, key to reassessment, is cut-and-dried for homeowners but not businesses. It means a loss of tens of millions of dollars a year in tax revenue,” according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.
Read More“Twenty-two percent of plants in Texas that regulators say pose a risk of explosion or toxic release have never have been inspected for emergency preparedness, federal data shows. Another 10 percent were inspected, but not by federal, state or even local governments. Instead, those facilities reported inspections by their own contractors, insurance companies or employees,…
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