The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
“Police track known gang members in an electronic database and, although police won’t make public exact numbers, Lt. Ed Bombrys, who oversees the gang unit, said there are an estimated 2,000 gang members in Toledo. There are, he said, anywhere from 25 to 40 ‘big, major gangs.’ In 2012, gang-related homicides were down from 2011, said…
Read MoreA Statesman analysis of deaths at state mental health hospitals reveals the deaths are rarely investigated outside the hospital, doctors are regularly cleared of improper care and deaths in state prisons get more scrutiny than those in state hospitals. Read the full investigation here.
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously today that the state of Virginia had the power to restrict public records access to residents of that state. Virginia limits freedom of information requests to its own residents and certain media outlets. The case reached the court after Rhode Island resident Mark J. McBurney and California resident Roger…
Read MoreLawyers have continuing legal education. Doctors have continuing medical education. What do journalists have? IRE! While the underlying ethic of investigative journalism does not change, technology and the media are changing faster than ever. So stick with us. We will help each other. IRE is holding a membership drive throughout April, and everyone who either…
Read MoreWe hope you’ve already made plans to join us at San Antonio’s Riverwalk on June 20-23 at #IRE13 where for the first time in seven years, Investigative Reporters and Editors will bring its amazing annual conference back to Texas. https://www.ire.org/conferences/ire-2013. The line-up already includes prominent Pulitzer-prize winners, like the bilingual bicultural team that brought you…
Read MoreInvestigative Reporters & Editors salutes Linsdey Hobbs of Otterbein University in Ohio, recipient of the eighth annual Betty Gage Holland Award recognizing excellence in college journalism. Hobbs and the student newspaper at Otterbein, The Tan & Cardinal, were honored for their continued coverage of increased secrecy surrounding campus crime in 2012. After Otterbein’s campus security…
Read MoreThe Sunlight Foundation released a new “journalistic accountability” tool today, wryly named “Churnalism“. It tells you if an author was “churning” out somebody else’s material by checking journalistic text against a database of press releases. To the dismay of plagiarists and lazy reporters alike, it even checks against Wikipedia. The site provides a few examples.…
Read MoreMelody Petersen of The Orange County Register has two pieces of advice to offer reporters: stay patient and follow the money trail. Petersen investigated school bonds in Orange County after realizing schools were opting for expensive agreements that would push costs onto taxpayers decades after the initial bond was distributed. She found that school districts…
Read More“A highly paid psychiatrist working in state mental health hospitals engaged in a pattern of false billing claims while collecting more than $430,000 in payments beyond his base salary over three years, according to investigative documents obtained by the Star Tribune.” Read the Star Tribune’s full investigation here.
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State Department reverses position, makes comments on Keystone XL available to public
Reversing a position announced in March, the U.S. Department of State has stated it will make public the more than 800,000 comments submitted to date regarding the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. In March, John H. Cushman reported for InsideClimate News that the State Department would not make public the public comments it received during the drafting…
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