IRE News
Let IRE help you report on every stage of Hurricane Isaac
Cover the storm from every angle with help from the Covering Natural Disasters story pack. Compiled of tipsheets, stories with questionnaires and helpful databases to provide the most information you need to give your audience the full story.
Read MoreThe benefits of using data in your reporting
Alex Remington, a research assistant for Journalist’s Resource and a Harvard Kennedy School graduate student, sat down with Steve Doig, Knight Chair in Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, to ask him about the pros and cons of doing data journalism. Doig thoroughly recounts the limits…
Read MorePANDA Project Turns 1.0
If you were at NICAR 2012 in February you may remember a man in a PANDA suit wandering the conference halls, flanked by a small group of news developers. At that time the PANDA Project was still a young project. We demoed our first beta release and helped folks install it using our very first…
Read MoreIRE, Google create new grant program for data journalism projects
A new fund that will provide crucial support for journalists working on data projects will be launched this fall. Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) will award grants thanks to a $50,000 donation from Google Ideas. IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit said the fund will allow more news organizations to do in-depth reporting. “Digging into data…
Read MoreThe New Cold War Between the Media and National Security Establishment
Josh Meyer, IRE Board member and director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, wrote today about tension between the media and the national security establishment for the initiative’s website: Is this really the worst time ever to be a journalist covering national security issues, especially in Washington? Maybe the best…
Read More2012 IRE Conference audio now available
You can now purchase a DVD with over 100 hours of recorded panels from the 2012 IRE Conference in Boston. Please go here to place your order today. Conference attendees can obtain a copy for $5 (to cover shipping/handling) by using the discount code received via email. Additional copies can be ordered for $25 each.…
Read MoreThe 2012 IRE Conference tiphseet and presentation CD now available
Even though the IRE Conference has come and gone, you can still access all that valuable information from the tipsheets and presentations we compiled. With over 100 files available you’ll have all the tips and tools you need for not only your daily reporting but also long-term projects. Available on one handy CD, you can…
Read MorePennsylvania open records laws exempt Penn State
Despite being supported by tax dollars, Penn State University is not subject to the state’s open records laws. Penn State’s records, including police records, e-mail, phone records, calendars and memos, are closed. Poynter’s Al Tompkins writes about how that exemption played a role in surpressing information in the Jerry Sandusky case. Tompkins quotes Sara Ganim, who won…
Read MoreThe value of adding CAR to your arsenal
John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recalls the moment everything clicked for him with computer-assisted reporting, at an IRE Boot Camp in 2010. When crash-course training didn’t stick with him, he convinced his bosses to send him to Columbia, Mo. What Diedrich left with were the skills that allowed him to produce ‘Wiped Clean‘,…
Read MoreSchool Test Scores data now available at the Database Library
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, after releasing its “Cheating Our Children” series that identified suspicious test scores around the country, provided the NICAR Database Library with test scores data gathered from state education departments. From the AJC: “The data include state testing data paired in approximate cohorts by school, test subject and grade. An approximate cohort would…
Read More