The early bird deadline for 
IRE Journal
Developing Sources
By Bernice Yeung There are many lessons about journalism to be learned from “Spotlight,” the film that chronicles The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Boston Archdiocese’s systemic cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests. As the story behind the story, “Spotlight” highlights themes that are especially instructive to investigative reporters: That there’s the unspoken…
Read MoreFinding Errors in Texas Data
By Brian Collister “You were right, and we were wrong.” It was a stunning reversal by Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, who couldn’t deny what KXAN spent months documenting: His troopers wereinaccurately reporting the race of minority motorists, mostly Hispanic, as “white” and skewing crucial racial profiling data. For months,…
Read MoreInvestigative Books of 2015: “Ghettoside” leaves lasting impression
By Steve Weinberg With so many superb investigative/ explanatory books published by U.S. journalists during 2015, singling out just a few to this year’s IRE investigative book list feels daunting. That is true every year, but for reasons I cannot decipher precisely, the year 2015 felt more that way. Certainly, the impressive quality and quantity…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Life and Death in Lowell
Approximately 2,700 women are serving time at Lowell Correctional Institution, the nation’s largest women’s prison. On this episode, Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown discusses her year-long investigation into Lowell. Documents, interviews and a Facebook page for former inmates helped her expose a world of sexual extortion, abuse and corruption inside the Florida prison. As always,…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | BONUS: The Sounds of NICAR16
There are certain pieces of advice you hear over and over again at our annual computer-assisted reporting conference: Get out there, take risks and experiment. So at our recent conference in Denver, we sent University of Missouri journalism student Jack Howard to do just that. On this bonus episode, you’ll hear his five-minute experiment: capturing…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Chicago’s Secret Cash Machine
Chicago drivers have forked over more than $600 million for traffic fines captured by red light cameras. But an investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that the largest robotic camera system in the country hasn’t done much to make the streets safer. Instead, city officials have used Chicago drivers like a network of cash machines. Reporter…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | America’s Exploited Guest Workers
All across America, you can find foreign guest workers peeling crawfish, setting up carnival rides and trimming trees. But the visa program that legally brings them here is rife with problems. On this episode, Ken Bensinger and Jessica Garrison take us through their BuzzFeed News investigation into H-2 visas, a program that condemns thousands of…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Journalists and the Death Squad
On this episode, reporter A.C. Thompson discusses his investigation into the deaths of five Vietnamese-American journalists between 1981 and 1990. Officials seemed to think that an anti-Communist group called the Front had been behind the slayings, but law enforcement agencies never charged anyone and the cases went cold. Thompson reopened the investigation for ProPublica and…
Read MoreTips for investigating child and family issues
Domestic violence, foster care and mental illness are important issues for journalists to cover. But anytime you’re dealing with families and children, there are ethical decisions to consider. We pulled some of our favorite tips and insights from a panel at the 2015 IRE Conference. IRE members can listen to the entire panel online. …
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | BONUS: Spotlight
If you attended an IRE Conference in the early 2000s, the plot of the movie “Spotlight” might have sounded familiar. That’s because the Hollywood depiction of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the clergy sex abuse scandal stayed surprisingly true to the real behind-the-scenes story. How do we know? A few of the journalists depicted in…
Read More