IRE Journal
IRE Radio Podcast | BONUS: Tips from a FOIA Terrorist
You’ve probably heard of Jason Leopold, even if his name doesn’t immediately ring a bell. He’s the journalist who forced the release of Hillary Clinton’s emails. He’s also unearthed shocking details on CIA torture and spying. Jason works at VICE News, and he’s the master of the federal FOIA request. In fact, he’s such a…
Read MoreGoing beyond stereotypes to report on substance abuse and addiction
By Jennifer Lu When writing about a topic as pervasive and complex as heroin addiction, the last thing you want to do is to get it wrong. At the 2016 CAR Conference, Stephen Stirling and Jacquee Petchel, who have reported extensively on this subject, shared their experiences and advice on reporting, quantifying and telling the…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Los Desaparecidos
[For the English version of this episode, click here.] No es un secreto en México, ni en Colombia, que la gente desaparece, muchas veces por los carteles y sin razón clara. Daniela Guazo y su equipo de datos de El Universal trabajo con El Tiempo de Colombia para darle una cara humana a la grave…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Disappeared
[Looking for the Spanish version of the podcast? Click here] It’s no secret to Mexicans or Colombians that people are disappeared, all the time, often at the hands of cartels and with seemingly no reason. We talked with Daniela Guazo from Mexico’s El Universal about the work she and her team did along with Colombia’s…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Disappeared – Transcript
The follow is an abbreviated transcript of Daniela Vidal’s interview with Daniel Guazo for the IRE Radio Podcast. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Daniela Vidal (IRE): Could you tell me a little bit about what this project is about, The Disappeared? Daniela Guazo (El Universal): The objective of this project was…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Fairbanks Four
For nearly 15 years, a journalism professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has been investigating the case of the Fairbanks Four, a group of men convicted in the 1997 beating death of a teenager. And he hasn’t been working alone. Each year, students in Brian O’Donoghue’s investigative reporting class picked up the case. Their…
Read MoreEthical Source Development
By Aidan White, Ethical Journalism Network The relationship between journalists and their sources is complex and full of ethical pitfalls. In the provocative opening to her splendid 1983 book onthe subject, “The Journalist and the Murderer,” Janet Malcolm targets deceptive journalism: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what…
Read MoreDeveloping 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…
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