The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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An investigation by The Dallas Morning News found that more than $16 million from a state fund to help high tech start-up firms has been awarded to companies that have investors or officers who are large campaign donors to Gov. Rick Perry. The News reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents,…
Read MoreDozens of publicly traded companies in Massachusetts misreported how much they paid their top executives to shareholders and regulators, the Boston Globe found in a review of company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 34 companies made 55 errors ranging from $20 to more than a half a million dollars. The Globe discovered the…
Read MoreAn investigation into the child porn industry by Isaac Wolf of Scripps Howard News Service has led to hundreds of American convictions, and those running the ring are now in jails in Eastern Europe. Wolf had unprecedented access to the backers of these porn sites. The investigation identified 30,000 customers of these sites in over…
Read MoreA program created by the federal government four decades ago to settle native land claims in Alaska has failed deliver on its promise to lift impoverished native Alaskans out of poverty. Though special privileges granted by Congress have launched Alaska native corporations into one of the great contracting booms in American history, a Washington Post…
Read MoreA two-part series by the Detroit Free Press found that “despite hundreds of oil and natural-gas pipeline accidents in the last decade, there are no federal regulations governing how far major pipelines should be from homes, or schools or businesses.” An interactive graphic show where oil and gas pipelines run through the state of…
Read MoreBy Doug Haddix, IRE training director Reporters should make one to three calls a day to sources whom they don’t need for a deadline story. That’s the most effective way to develop sources who’ll come through for you later with ideas and help, according to Ryan Gabrielson of California Watch. Gabrielson spoke during an IRE…
Read MoreA 23-story package investigates the state of travel in America uncovering a breakdown of safety systems across the board. Safety recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board are taking over 5 years to implement leaving people vulnerable from air to rail, road to sea. This investigative package was conducted by journalism students from 11 universities…
Read MoreA new fellowship is available for reporters from news organizations that serve a largely rural audience. It will help send such journalists to IRE’s computer-assisted reporting boot camps. The R-CAR Fellowship was created by IRE member Daniel Gilbert, to give rural reporters skills that will help them uncover stories that otherwise would not come to…
Read MoreA report by T. Christian Miller of ProPublica reveals that, for the first time, “more private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Between January and June 2010, 250 contractors died. During that same period, Pentagon records show 235 soldiers died.
Read MoreUSA Today’s Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy documented 201 criminal cases across the nation in which federal judges found that prosecutors broke laws and ethics rules. “They caught some prosecutors hiding evidence, found others lying to judges and juries, and said others had broken plea bargains.” The abuses resulted in both the wrongful incarceration of…
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