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The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
By Kaitlin Washburn Journalists from the Sunlight Foundation, National Institute on Money in State Politics, and Voice of OC discussed strategies for following the money in state and local elections. Melissa Yeager, a senior staff writer for the Sunlight Foundation, started by giving specific reasons why state and local coverage is so important: There’s more…
Read MoreBy Soo Rin Kim Journalists who worked on the Panama Papers came together at the IRE Conference to discuss what it take to pull off the world’s largest collaborative investigation. Chrys Wu of The New York Times moderated the panel, which included Michael Hudson, Mar Cabra and Joachim Dyfvermark. Here are some of the most…
Read MoreBy Soo Rin Kim There’s nothing more boring and unappealing than seeing a story full of numbers. “But it’s a data story,” you say. “I can’t help it!” Put aside your excuses. Data stories can be and always have been human stories. Mc Nelly Torres of NBC6 Miami, Andrew Lehren of the New York Times…
Read MoreWill Fuller and Vanessa Araiza at the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans.Photo: Will Fuller At the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans, Knight Scholar Will Fuller sat down with Vanessa Araiza, a weekend anchor and reporter at WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama. Fuller: Why journalism? Araiza: I was never a news junkie. I wanted to…
Read MoreBy Kaitlin Washburn Craig Flournoy, a journalism professor at the University of Cincinnati, recognizes the courage it takes for a student to do investigative reporting on the college he or she is attending. “It is a risk…to criticize the hand that signs your paycheck or that hands you your diploma,” Flournoy said. Marcelo Rochabrun did…
Read MoreBy Ashley Balcerzak When writing about abortion or reproductive rights, it can be difficult to move past the debate itself. Many stories lean on a formula of pro-life versus pro-choice activists and ultimately land on a somewhat expected left-leaning takeaway. At this year’s IRE Conference panel “How to investigate the war on women’s health,” Hannah…
Read MoreJenise Morgan of the Florida CourierPhoto by Akira Kyles At the IRE Conference in New Orleans, 2016 Knight Scholar Akira Kyles spoke with attendee Jenise Morgan, senior editor at the Florida Courier. Kyles: How did you fall in love with journalism? Morgan: I fell in love with journalism when I was in the 11th grade…
Read MoreBy Emma Henderson “The truth may never be known.” That quote from an article in the Boston Globe is what motivated Marty Baron to get the paper’s Spotlight team to investigate the Archdiocese of Boston. The team’s reporting uncovered an unprecedented and elaborate cover-up of clergy sexual abuse of children. Now, more than a decade…
Read MoreBy Moriah Balingit Covering schools can be grueling and it can be easy to get caught up in the mundane. At an IRE Conference panel, Dallas Morning-News reporter Tawnell Hobbs, Tampa Bay Times reporter Michael LaForgia and University of Missouri graduate fellow Francisco Vara-Orta offered their advice on how to dig deep on the schools…
Read More.@SheilaCoronel @columbiajourn greeting her inspired students @IRE_NICAR #IRE16 #IRE2016 pic.twitter.com/1Ed4VWlJzf — Francisco Vara-Orta (@fvaraorta) June 18, 2016 By Sarah Gamard The word “family” comes up often at IRE conferences. Sheila Coronel began her keynote speech in New Orleans by saying she felt she was in a room with 1,800 cousins from all over the world…
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