The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Photo credit:Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times (Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of our “Behind the Story” look at coverage of the Hanford nuclear reservation’s environmental issues.) Determining when an ongoing issue becomes an issue worth investigating isn’t always easy. Craig Welch, an environmental reporter for The Seattle Times who juggles topics from oceans to forests,…
Read MoreInvestigative reporter Wendy Halloran from KPNX 12 News in Phoenix, Arizona revealed an explosive piece of investigative work that exposed prisoner mistreatment, mismanagement and neglect in Arizona prisons. She capped off her three part series, “Failure to Aid” by showing the severity of the mistakes made by corrections officers and the deliberate indifference to preserving…
Read MoreHundreds of attendees and dozens of speakers descended on St. Louis for the 2012 Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference, for a weekend packed with data analysis, web development, other sessions, and a panda costume. We had a full team of students attending and blogging about panels throughout the conference. In all, the bloggers covered dozens of sessions,…
Read MoreBy Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 Campus coverage can be daunting, but looking beyond the campus is a way to get the story, Jennifer Wheeler of The Register-Mail said at “DataU: the databases you need to cover higher ed.” From grants to graduation rates, one of the major databases to mine for information is the Integrated Postsecondary…
Read MoreBy Jon McClure@JonRMcClure Sex sells. But it sometimes buys, too. Online. As described in the panel “Hidden databases: Mining the private parts of public officials,” the trick is learning how to uncover the online footprint of public figures and track the nefarious deeds they might do under the cover of online alter-egos. Russ Ptacek of…
Read MorePhoto credit: USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism Congratulations to Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times, for receiving the 2012 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, for their series “Methadone and the Politics of Pain.” Berens will be speaking at IRE’s Watchdog Workshop this weekend in Spokane, Wash. Berens and…
Read MoreBy Anna Boiko-Weyrauch@AnnaBoikoW “Hacking the Census” was a collection of lightning talks on tools, tricks and codes to hack the Census and American Community Survey, ranging from introductory to advanced. Steve Doig, professor at Arizona State University, said the Census has information about people and households, of course, but there’s also info on business, education, foreign trade, and more.…
Read MoreBy Mayra Cruz @MayraC27 One way to get around bureaucratic hassles is to get the to the data directly by scraping it off the Web. The fight for public records can sometimes be avoided by taking the data directly from websites, Dan Nguyen of ProPublica said. On Saturday, Nguyen led a hands-on class of “Web…
Read MoreMany investigative reporters are recreational data users, but data alone cannot be trusted. “You can’t take what is in those databases for granted,” said Kate Golden, a reporter and multimedia producer for WisconsinWatch.org. At the panel “Environmental analyses for any newsroom,” she emphasized the importance of speaking with the lead agency to find out what…
Read MoreBy Jessica Pupovac@jessicapupovac IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit and training director Megan Luther led a whirlwind tour of 25 data-driven stories during their “Year in CAR 2011” presentation, paying special attention to those projects that reporters can and should attempt to “do at home.” Highlights in the “do-it-yourself” category included: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s piece on…
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