The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
In an exclusive story, the Des Moines Register reported that a company had been sending mentally disabled Texans to work at a meat-processing plant in West Liberty, Iowa, for 34 years. The company housed the men in a 106-year-old bunkhouse and deducted from their pay $1,000 per month for room, board and “kind care.” After…
Read MoreBy Phil Williams, IRE Board Member If you read the industry news about the challenges facing journalism today, it’s easy to get discouraged. Positions on investigative teams — in some cases, whole teams — are being cut. Entire news organizations are closing their doors. The list of talented journalists looking for work grows every week.…
Read MoreWhen conducting an interview — or attempting to extract information from public officials who are less than forthright — it’s essential to be fair and upfront about your needs. While Tisha Thompson, a reporter for WTTG in Washington D.C., doesn’t hesitate to sit herself on public officials’ door steps at 6 a.m. to get the…
Read MoreCurious about all the news stories surrounding safety and security at our airports and prompted by Dave Savini’s terrific investigation into safety issues and the lack of tracking of security badges at Chicago airports, I started asking questions about other facets of the industry. I talked with pilots, air traffic controllers and others about what…
Read MoreThis story is part of our ongoing coverage of Chicago’s massive plan to demolish old public housing projects and replace them with new neighborhoods that were supposed integrate public housing residents with wealthier families. Under the plan, more than 13,000 apartments were demolished amid a severe affordable housing shortage in the city. The plan’s backers…
Read MoreGeorgia law requires children to be immunized against certain diseases before they can enroll in school. But many metro Atlanta schools and health officials don’t enforce the law, allowing thousands of children to enroll and remain in school without proof of required vaccinations. Public health officials consider school vaccination laws a cornerstone in wiping out…
Read More“Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.” Frank Bass and Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reported that visa applications…
Read More“How much lower can Zimbabwe sink? Chronic food shortages, hyperinflation, a cholera epidemic, people abducted for speaking out against President Robert Mugabe’s regime — all this is the stuff of daily life for ordinary Zimbabweans, as related here by a journalist in Harare, the capital,” begins the latest dispatch from “One Step From Hell.” It’s…
Read MoreThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Todd Holcomb used Georgia’s public records law to compare recruiting budgets for college football programs. “It has become big business for big-time athletics programs. Each year, they spend more than $500,000 on recruiting, but they make more than $50 million in annual athletic revenue, mostly from football.” The story shows the range,…
Read MoreThe Center for Investigative Reporting files ongoing reports about what viewers don’t see in the ABC reality TV series, “Homeland Security USA,” which G.W. Shultz characterizes as ” ‘Cops’-style, heart-pounding segments of border agents drawing their weapons on a suspect or airport security seizing smuggled narcotics” with an occasional pause “to focus briefly on the…
Read More