IRE News
Run for the IRE board
We are now accepting applications for candidates for the IRE Board of Directors. Below you’ll find an article written for the current IRE Journal by Board member Sarah Cohen explaining more about what it means to serve on IRE’s Board, and details on how to file. If you have questions, you can contact me at mark@ire.org.…
Read MoreGuardian data blog explores history of data journalism
How far back do the roots of data journalism go? Simon Rogers of the The Guardian’s Data Blog can traces them pretty far. In a video this week on the blog, he explains that “journalists have been working with – and visualising – data since the Guardian first published in 1821.” The video is the second…
Read MoreFraud in the classroom: Cooking the books to make grades better
Test scores rocketed and plunged over several years at Annette Officer Elementary School in East St. Louis, Ill., often a telltale sign of tampering. The school district determined that cheating was “accepted practice. Photo: Hyosub Shin, AJC In Atlanta, 35 educators were indicted in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, all but three of whom…
Read MoreInternational collaboration enhances investigation into Canadians’ role in Cuba’s child sex market
The Toronto Star and El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Miami Herald, recently collaborated on an investigation that found Canadians are travelling to Cuba in surprising numbers to sexually exploit young people trapped in the socialist country’s underground sex tourism industry. Havana’s conspicuous scenes of street-level prostitution are the public face of a hidden, sordid trade…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Sweeping FOIAs, document-mining reveal problems with Norway kindergartens
By John Bones, Verdens Gang Rather than a traditional front page, VG created this cover, which reads “Mom and dad think I am safe in the kindergarten, but is it true?” It started like an ordinary news story last October. One of our reporters, Frank Haugsbo, made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the…
Read MoreMobile apps for investigative journalists
Journalists can now carry many of the essential reporting tools — camera, voice recorder, notepad, phone, police scanner — with them in one hand-held device. But that same device can carry a police scanner, a document scanner, a photo editor, a video camera and a flight tracker. You can record audio and take time-stamped notes.…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Tax forms and FEC filings reveal nonprofit’s political activity
Learning about sources of political spending can be “like unpacking a Russian nesting doll,” says Michael Beckel, a politics reporter for the Center for Public Integrity. Using tax filings as his primary source, Beckel investigated the third most politically-active nonprofit in 2012 as part of the Center for Public Integrity’s Consider the Source project. “In…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Simple math reveals errors in lucrative speed camera system
This car received a ticket from a Baltimore area camera while stopped at a red light. This case was one of the errors uncovered in the Baltimore Sun’s series on red light cameras. The Baltimore Sun’s investigation of red light cameras over the past year prompted changes to the system a city task force to…
Read MoreIRE members take home first and second prize of the Nakkula Award
IRE would like to congratulate IRE member Ryan Gabrielson of California Watch for winning the first place prize of the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting From the press release: “Gabrielson won for “Broken Shield,” an investigative series that exposed shoddy police work at California institutions for the disabled. His stories chronicle the activities of…
Read MoreLa Nacion efforts bring open data to Argentina
After taking an introductory data journalism course, a small group in Argentina set out to transform the way data journalism was done in their country, a country where data was barely updated, let alone public. They fought for open data and analyze it in the public interest. The result of their efforts is La Nacion…
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