IRE News
Knight grant supports DocumentCloud improvements, sustainability
DocumentCloud, a free, open source tool used by hundreds of newsrooms to analyze and publish documents, will improve its offerings and develop a plan toward sustainability with $1.4 million in new support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The two-year support will focus on strengthening the future of DocumentCloud and introducing enhancements…
Read MoreFinalists announced for 2014 Golden Padlock award
Investigative Reporters and Editors is proud to announce the finalists for its 2014 Golden Padlock Award celebrating the most secretive government agency or individual in the United States. “The spirit of secrecy is alive and well across the United States at all levels of government,” said IRE president David Cay Johnston. “Efforts to hold power…
Read MoreOnline voting begins this afternoon in Board of Directors election
Starting today IRE members can vote online for the IRE Board of Directors. Ballots will be sent to the primary e-mail as listed in your membership profile. We expect voting to open around 4 p.m. (Central). So far 13 people have declared candidacy; seven of the board’s 13 seats are up for election this year. To…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How KSHB-Kansas City uncovered a trail of dirty deeds
Video by Ryan Kath and John Woods, KSHB KSHB-Kansas City’s year-long investigation into a widespread real estate fraud scheme started simple – with a tip from an observant neighbor. But when reporter Ryan Kath started looking into the housing documents, he spotted a bigger problem. Someone had been stealing homes by forging signature of both the living…
Read MoreLearn to write code, build a web scraper at our September workshop
IRE and the University of Missouri Journalism School are offering a special workshop Sept. 4-7 that will introduce the basics of newsroom programming by teaching how to build one of the simplest but most useful tools in a data journalist’s toolbox: a web scraper designed to automate the downloading of data. The workshop will also…
Read MoreBehind the Story: The Desert Sun’s investigation into off-duty Marine deaths
Brett Kelman | The Desert Sun In 2011, three car crashes caught the attention of Greg Burton, executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California. The first involved a 100 mile-per-hour road race that led to a deadly wreck at a park. The other two also ended with fatalities. All three involved Marines. The news…
Read MoreIRE and Esri mapping fellowships awarded
IRE and Esri, the leading commercial publisher of geographic information system (GIS) software, have awarded 13 fellowships to attend Esri’s annual International User Conference and IRE’s mapping bootcamp. Fellowships to the User Conference July 13-17 in San Diego were awarded to: Leslie Griffy, Independent journalist Chris Hanson, KTRK-Houston Glenn Howatt, The Star Tribune Ingrid Lobet, Houston Chronicle Hoa Nguyen,…
Read MoreIRE announces winners of Freelance Fellowship competition
Projects investigating segregation, health care and cold cases have been awarded IRE Freelance Fellowships this year. Winners of the 2014 competition are: Maya Dukmasova, for her work on segregation and public housing in Chicago. Arthur Kane, for his work investigating the Affordable Care Act as well as marijuana legalization in Colorado. Lee van der…
Read MoreNew webinar focuses on data journalism for broadcasters
KTVB-Boise investigative reporter Jamie Grey explains how to get started on data projects, offering story ideas and tips for visualizing data on air. She walks through several examples including: Finding stories in airport and flight data Analyzing interstate crash data using basic Excel techniques Charting population change using driver’s license data Using county jail data…
Read MoreNICAR releases updated Death Master File, for cheap
The NICAR Database Library has just updated the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File (DMF), which is now current as of Nov. 30, 2013. We purchased the last full copy of the data available before the Social Security Administration changed the rule around access, limiting the most recent three years of data (and most likely…
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