IRE Journal
IRE Radio Podcast | Killed by the Cops
How many times a year do police kill people? And what happens to officers after they fire a fatal shot? Those were just some of the questions prompted by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. On this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast we’ll be talking to…
Read More3 ideas for covering America’s booming prison population
The United States is a world leader in incarceration, with more than 2 million people in prisons and jails. At the 2014 IRE Conference Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley Law School, discussed a handful of trends for journalists to follow in the coming year. Here are three to keep an eye on:…
Read MoreWe’re taking your questions in the next issue of the IRE Journal
Have a question for IRE? Now’s the time to have it answered with the Journal’s new feature “Ask IRE.” This is your organization. Ask about anything from policies to resources to ethical dilemmas. It will be featured in the upcoming Journal issue. Send us your questions by the end of the day Friday, December 5.…
Read MoreAudio from 2014 Watchdog Workshops now available for download
Participants at the Jacksonville Watchdog Workshop. (Photo courtesy of Tracey Eaton) Couldn’t make it to one of our Watchdog Workshops this year? We recorded audio from many of our panels and, thanks to a generous grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, have made it available for download online. We have recordings from…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Navigating Nonprofits
Americans donate about $300 billion a year to charities, with about 30 percent of that taking place in December. But not all charities are good stewards of donated dollars. For our last podcast of 2014 we’re talking about how to investigate nonprofits and charities. Here’s the lineup: Justin Elliott of ProPublica talks about investigating the…
Read MoreAUDIO: How to find specific forgotten victims
At the 2014 IRE Conference, a panel of three journalists, moderated by New England Center for Investigative Reporting senior investigative reporter Jenifer McKim, talked about finding how they found forgotten victims and tackled overlooked issues. Senior citizens in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Detroit citizens unfairly affected by the city’s recent bankruptcy, black lung-afflicted…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Housing Horror Stories
It’s a special Halloween episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, and this week we’re telling some housing horror stories. Here’s the lineup: Marisa Kwiatkowski of The Indianapolis Star talks about her story “The exorcisms of Latoya Ammons,” which became the most-read story in the Star’s history. Kate Berry of American Banker explains “zombie foreclosures” and…
Read MoreAUDIO: How to track and report on gun violence
There is no perfect or universal way to classify a mass shooting. As such, reliable, nuanced data on the topic is sparse. And further complicating the reporter’s job is the way even the most human stories can become fuel for the right-versus-left fire. It’s with these challenges in mind that three reporters and researchers came…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Hazardous Health Care
It’s not easy prying information out of hospitals and health departments. On our podcast this week we’ll hear from journalists who successfully negotiated for the data or documents they needed to fuel an investigation. Here’s the lineup: Gary Dotson of the Belleville News-Democrat shares the paper’s 2012 story about the state’s failure to investigate after…
Read MoreAUDIO: How to structure your story
You’ve done all of your reporting and now it’s time to write, but how do you structure your story? Jacqui Banaszynski, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, explored this issue during the 2014 IRE Conference in San Francisco, demystifying the process and offering insight on how to think beyond the traditional inverted…
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