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IRE Journal
ProPublica 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…
Read MoreKoziol, first president of IRE, dies at 74
Ron Koziol, a co-founder of Investigative Reporters and Editors and a member of the Arizona Project team, died Saturday, June 13, of congestive heart failure. He was 74. Koziol was a longtime police reporter at the Chicago Tribune. In 1975 he helped found IRE, and he was a member of the group of reporters who…
Read MoreReporting uncovers Taser abuse by Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The investigation is about the use of Tasers by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the national police force with a storied history that does most of the front-line policing in the Western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. In the latest installment, we analyzed the 2008 data that we compiled from information from the force’s…
Read MoreAnalysis finds out-of-state travel expenses after Penn. governor ban
We found Pennsylvania state employees spent more than $1.3 million on out-of-state travel last year after the governor banned such travel. How did you get started? (tip, editor assignment, etc.)This was simply a case of the reporter doing a public records check to see whether the travel ban was being followed. Based on past stories…
Read MorePostal Service pays $1.2 million for mansion
At a time when the U.S. Postal Service is experiencing a financial crisis, it purchased a $1.2 million mansion in South Carolina to relocate an employee. The employee, who applied for the new job — a mid-level manager position — qualified for the purchase under the Postal Service’s relocation policy. It turns out this was…
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