The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
Last week, President Obama nominated Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding to head the Transportation Security Administration, but Harding’s ties to several TSA contractors via Harding Security, a firm he founded in 2003, have raised ethics concerns. “A review of Harding Security’s business activities by CongressDaily showed that of 21 companies listed on the firm’s…
Read MoreIRE members have access to a Web-based data exploration application to quickly and easily analyze demographic data while on deadline. ESRI and IRE made a special agreement to offer ESRI data to IRE members at no cost. This program will save journalists time and money by making ESRI data available in an easy-to-view format. A…
Read MoreTake a look at some of the best computer-assisted news stories from the past year in this presentation: Year in CAR slideshow. IRE executive director Mark Horvit and training director Doug Haddix gave the presentation last week during the Computer-Assisted Reporting conference in Phoenix. Each slide has a short description of the story, along with a…
Read MoreThere are several options for keeping up with the latest at the CAR conference. To keep track on Twitter, look for either #nicar or #nicar2010 and follow IRE/NICAR on Twitter @ire_nicar Several members of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism are attending the conference and keeping a running blog passing along some…
Read MoreAn investigation by the Honolulu Advertiser found that donors linked to city and state contractors are giving money to candidates for Hawaii’s gubernatorial races. Experts say the donors are exploiting a loophole in Hawaii’s five year-old pay-to-play law. The study is based on a computer-assisted survey of more than 2,300 campaign contributions made to three…
Read MoreAn investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune found clustering of probationers and parolees “in specific neighborhoods and even apartment buildings, despite rules prohibiting people on supervision from associating with one another. Law enforcement and scholars say offenders are more likely to succeed if they are dispersed, but a lack of halfway houses and city ordinances…
Read MoreAn investigation by The New York Times reveals that “the federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington’s efforts to discourage investment there.”
Read MoreMichelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It’s not “dedicated” at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.
Read MoreThe Tennessean‘s three-part series on gangs reveals a growing problem across the state, particularly in suburbia and small towns. Law enforcement is overwhelmed and schools are ripe recruiting grounds in what’s part of a national trend of gangs expanding their influence to areas outside the urban core to sell drugs. The newspaper gained access to…
Read MoreBy Jaimi Dowdell, IRE Training Director If you’re still debating whether to head to Phoenix next week for the computer-assisted reporting conference, I want to give you a few reasons why you should make the trip. The people. I’m not ashamed to admit that I wouldn’t be where I am in my life or my…
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