IRE Journal
Staying On Track
By Mike McGraw, The Kansas City Star I’ve been a reporter for nearly 40 years, with most of that time spent as an investigative reporter. I love what I do and have never wanted to do anything else. Three things turned me on to investigative reporting: Covering organized labor in Kansas City in the 1970s…
Read MoreA push for investigative reporting in Bolivia
By Tracey Eaton, Flagler College Some reporters wanted to explore eastern Bolivia, where hundreds of Guaraní Indian families live in a state of semi-slavery. Others proposed investigating women’s rights and sexuality. No doubt, Bolivian reporters are eager to dig into all kinds of difficult and intriguing issues. Mexican journalist Pedro Enrique Armendares and I found…
Read MoreOvercoming obstacles to investigate public officials
By Andy Curliss, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) Our running investigation has focused on former Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina. We have revealed numerous instances of unreported gifts, favors or other perks provided to the governor while he was in office and shown how many of those people who made the gifts benefited…
Read MoreCharges vanish when officers miss court hearings
By Jason Riley and R.G. Dunlop, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal It had been an open secret for years in Jefferson County’s courts — Kentucky’s largest court system — that many defendants in criminal and traffic cases were able to get their charges dismissed simply because the arresting officer didn’t show up for hearings. But when…
Read MoreProPublica series shakes up California nursing board
By Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, ProPublica In examining the California Board of Registered Nursing, we found widespread problems. Most troubling, perhaps, is that the board took more than three years, on average, to investigate and discipline errant nurses. When we compared the board’s performance to its peers in other large states, we found that…
Read MoreRon Campbell: Untangling a collapsing financial empire
By Ron Campbell, Orange County Register Orange County restaurant king John Gantes was a very wealthy man with 110 restaurants. And then, quite suddenly, he was bankrupt. His declared net worth sank from $215 million at the end of 2007 to a negative $374 million in mid-January 2009 – a $600 million reversal of fortune…
Read MoreNew online home for the Journal
Welcome to the new online site for The IRE Journal. Here you will find timely posting of our popular Member News feature, some Web-only content and links to other features. This site will work in sync with the print Journal, now published quarterly. Much of the Web site content will be open to all site…
Read MoreGeorge Polk Award winners
The following members received George Polk Awards: David Barstow of The New York Times for “Message Machine”; Richard Behar for “China Storms Africa” in Fast Company; Adam Davidson of National Public Radio and Alex Blumberg of “This American Life” for “The Giant Pool of Money”; M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer of the Detroit Free Press…
Read MoreSocial networking tools bolster coverage of young drug informant’s murder
By Julia Luscher Thompson Tallahassee(Fla.) Democrat When 23-year-old confidential informant Rachel Hoffman was murdered in a botched drug sting, her story begged to be told, especially to young readers. But young people aren’t reading the daily Tallahassee Democrat as often as they once did, so we had to find a way to bring the story…
Read MoreMeasuring crime in Tulsa schools
By Gavin Off, Tulsa World I drive by an elementary school on my way to work every day. More than once there’s been a police cruiser idling in the school’s parking lot with lights flashing and the officer standing nearby. Although those incidents never involved a major crime, on several occasions this year the Tulsa…
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