The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
In her ongoing series “Cashing in on Kids” which has found millions of dollars in fraud within Wisconsin’s $350 million taxpayer subsidized child-care system, Raquel Rutledge writes that hundreds of convicted criminals, including those who had physically abused children, are being licensed to run day care centers. Some of them now appear to be scamming…
Read MoreBy Steve Weinberg With all the gloom about the future of newspapers and other mainstream media, the speakers at the showcase panel “Doing great work in tough times” at the 2009 IRE Conference provided a mostly upbeat alternate conventional wisdom. Jill Abramson, New York Times managing editor, moderated the panel. She is bullish on the…
Read MoreBy Roy Harris With his first words, Bob Woodward signaled the blunt, no-nonsense tone of “Accountability Reporting and Digging Deep,” the 2009 IRE Conference showcase panel with Woodward and Leonard Downie Jr. Downie– the longtime executive editor at The Washington Post, now headed for Arizona State University–had begun the discussion by describing the 37-year reporter-editor…
Read More(This is the news release from the Knight Foundation’s announcement at the IRE Awards Luncheon, June 13, at the 2009 IRE Conference in Baltimore.) The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced a $15 million initiative to help develop new economic models for investigating reporting on digital platforms. The grants, some on-going, some…
Read MoreThe Panama City News Herald tallied farm subsidy data for Florida and examined the subsidies paid to U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd and other Congressional leaders with ties to agriculture. Matt Dixon reported that in “Boyd’s first 10 years in Congress, Boyd Family Farms has received $1.2 million in subsidy payments, ranking it 12th out of…
Read MoreThe University of Illinois is re-evaluating its admissions policies after the Chicago Tribune uncovered a “shadow admissions process” for politically connected applicants. “At a time when it’s more competitive than ever to get into the University of Illinois, some students with subpar academic records are being admitted after interference from state lawmakers and university trustees,”…
Read MoreThe Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., published “Risky Business,” a four-part series on the Bethlehem Area School District’s costly use of variable-rate bonds and swaps to finance hundreds of millions of dollars in school renovations. “While the board approved swap after swap on the advice of the administration and former financial consultant Les Bear, no…
Read MoreAn Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found that the state of Georgia does not keep track of all of students, which leads to questions about the state’s dropout and graduation rates. According to the article, “Last year, school staff marked more than 25,000 students as transferring to other Georgia public schools, but no school reported them as…
Read MoreWhile schools struggle though a budget crisis and freeze funds, San Diego Unified spent more than $2,000 in federal money for disadvantaged students to send its superintendent to a conference in Washington, D.C. “Deputy Superintendent Chuck Morris, who approved the spending, now says charging the federal fund for the expenses was inappropriate and vowed to…
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