IRE Conference schedule changes and updates - Investigative Reporters & Editors

2016 IRE Conference Addendum

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Schedule changes and additions

THURSDAY

New! Welcome and overview of the conference

8:30-8:50 a.m. in Salon E

IRE Staff

NICAR Commons: How to enter (and win) a duPont Award

10:15-11:15 in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Lisa R. Cohen, Columbia Journalism School

In this session, Lisa R. Cohen will discuss and demystify the duPont Award process. Former award winners will join the session to talk about their work as well.

New Orleans Second Line parade to Welcome Reception

6:45 p.m.

Don't miss the traditional New Orleans Second Line parade that will depart the New Orleans Marriott on Thursday at 6:45 p.m. The parade will head to the Welcome Reception at the Aquarium. Join in the excitement with the band and grab your beads to take part in this New Orleans tradition.

NICAR Commons: Story clinic

11:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m. in Preservation Hall

Speakers: Jaimi Dowdell, Mark Horvit, Liz Lucas, Megan Luther, Alex Richards

Got a question on how to pursue a story? Curious about how to approach a FOIA? Stumped by some data? IRE and NICAR staff will be available to offer advice. Story consultations are confidential and will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

IRE Board Meeting

2-6 p.m. in Riverview (41^st floor)

The meeting is open to all IRE members.

NICAR Commons: How to develop your own hyper personalized organizational system

2:30-3:30 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Jesse Patel, WorkFlowy

In this session, Jesse Patel will work with people one-on-one to create a custom set up in WorkFlowy, the powerful organizational tool he helps develop. He will show you how to create an organizational system perfectly tailored to your way of working and thinking. He'll go through as many people as he can in the time allotted, with everyone watching and contributing ideas. Jesse is happy to keep working with people after the time expires if there isn't enough time to work with everyone who attends.

NICAR Commons: Investigating realities: A VR discussion

3:45-4:45 p.m. in Preservation Hall

NICAR Commons: What to do about talented but troublesome reporters

5-6 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Jennifer Forsyth, The Wall Street Journal

Editors and managers will get together to share notes and compare tips on dealing with investigative journalists who have tremendous skills but who also present management challenges. These types include those who alienate their sources or colleagues, who are overzealous in their conclusions, who refuse to embrace 21st century media or who fight every proposed edit to their work.

FRIDAY

NICAR Commons: What to do about dedicated but frustrating editors

9-10 a.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Alison Young, USA TODAY NETWORK

Reporters will get together to share strategies for pursuing watchdog and investigative stories while working for editors whose management styles can make the work more difficult. These types of editors include those who are unable to prioritize daily and enterprise workloads, as well as those who don't understand how investigative reporting is done. We'll also discuss strategies for dealing with editors who are micromanagers and overzealous rewriters, as well as those who try to push a story's conclusions beyond what the reporting shows. Bring your tips for how you've successfully managed challenging editor situations.

NICAR Commons: The Southern Girls Project

10:15-11:15 a.m. in Preservation Hall

Speakers: Elizabeth Hoekenga, Connor Sheets, Diana Samuels

From obesity to educational-inequity to abortion access to Title IX, so many of our nation’s most pressing issues come to land at the feet of girls in the American Deep South. Yet these very voices are wildly under-represented in today’s media. Who talks to girls? More importantly – who listens?

In a new, open-source Southern Girls Project, journalists across the south are joining with girls, and their advocates, to dive deeper and learn more, examining the issues of the modern south through the eyes of girls from birth to 17 — from generational wealth and crushing poverty, insularity, religion, and the digital divide — and digging into stories too often overlooked.

This session will offer an overview of the project, seek feedback, and explain how news organizations and independent journalists can play a part. The project, stemming from AL.com’s Alabama Investigative Journalism Lab, includes partners from NOLA.com, Mississippi Press, freelance journalists, researchers and girls across the south.

We’re looking for data journalists, reporters, video storytellers, social media experts and all journalists who believe that listening to, and reporting with, an audience makes for better stories.

NICAR Commons: Julia - One language to rule them all

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Daniel Lathrop, University of Iowa

If you follow the buzz on emerging programming languages, the Julia scientific programming language is all the rage. Importantly for data journalists, it is a statistically oriented language with the ability to easily use existing libraries for R, Python, C and even Java.

NICAR Commons: Civility and freedom of speech

2:30-3:30 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Lynn Walsh, Society of Professional Journalists

Are we becoming too PC and sensitive? Is this impacting how we cover issues and produce news content? Join the discussion as we tackle story pitches, how we interview story subjects, and more.

NICAR Commons: Trolls, predatory lending and resegregation: Exploring Livingston Award winning stories with the Knight Foundation

3:45-4:45 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Jennifer Preston, Knight Foundation

Meet the 2016 winners of The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists who will describe how they produced award-winning investigative reporting using data, unusual cross-country partnerships and a trip to Russia to find the trolls wrecking the Internet.

SATURDAY

NICAR Commons: The good, bad & the ugly parts of newsrooom on-boarding processes (and how can we make them better)

9-10 a.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Sandhya Kambhampati, Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellow

Knight-Mozilla OpenNews fellow, Sandhya, wants to hear about how your newsroom is dealing with institutional knowledge that is lost when a person leaves your newsroom. Let's have a discussion about how we can work through ways to make these processes more efficient and useful for the future. You can also take her survey: bit.ly/newsroomonboarding

NICAR Commons: Meet and greet - Accessing closed religious communities

10:15-11:15 a.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Hans Peter Blicher, TV2 Denmark

What goes on inside conservative religious communities? How do we access parallel societies? Why do young boys turn into Isis fighters? And how can we help each other cover these stories and share information?

TV 2 Denmark invites you to an informal meet and greet session. We hope to meet and exchange contact information with other reporters from around the globe who share the interest in covering these subjects. We think that forming an international network of journalists could be useful and hopefully we will be able to help each other in the future. TV 2 Denmark has worked extensively with closed religious communities -- over the past months the station has aired four documentaries based on hidden-camera recordings by two moles installed in a conservative religious community in Denmark. A short excerpt from the series will be played.

NICAR Commons: How to have "the talk" with your editor

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. in Preservation Hall

**Moderated by Steven Rich, The Washington Post

Great news: there's data out there on nearly every possible subject! Bad news: a lot of it is basically unusable for any number of reasons. It can be difficult to tell your editor that the data doesn't exist or is too poor to use. Let's talk about strategies to help have this conversation in both our newsrooms and in the data journalism community.

NICAR Commons: Story clinic (repeat)

3-4 p.m. in Preservation Hall

Speakers: Mark Horvit, Megan Luther, Denise Malan

NICAR Commons: Knight workshop - 10 campus investigations you can start today

4:15-5:15 p.m. in Preservation Hall

Speaker: Sarah Hutchins

Learn how to hold the powerful accountable at your university. At this session, we'll introduce 10 story ideas and discuss the sources, documents and data needed for each. Learn how to expose problems with student housing, independent study classes and Greek life. Get the ammunition you need to follow your student fees, investigate your campus police and background your school's trustees.

IRE Membership meeting

Saturday, 5:30-6:15 p.m. in a new location: Carondelet (3rd floor)

Speaker changes

THURSDAY

Investigating billionaires: Reg Chua, Reuters (moderator) replaces Len Downie. Brian Ross will not be attending.

Tracking down investigative threads: Dan Kane, The News & Observer, replaces Scott Bronstein.

Educators: Doing investigations with students: Brandon Quester, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, replaces Len Downie.

Uncovering stories on the health beat: Jenn Abelson, The Boston Globe, joins the panel. Ellen Gabler will moderate.

From lone wolf to team player: The evolution of the investigative reporter: James Grimaldi, The Wall Street Journal, replaces Len Downie.

Investigating inequality: Susan Smith Richardson will not be attending.

Campus coverage: The cost of going to college: Alex Richards, IRE/NICAR, replaces Jill Riepenhoff.

Investigating in the wake of disaster (Sponsored by Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma): Irwin Redlener, National Center for Disaster Preparedness, is added to this session.

#Black(media)matters (Sponsored by The Louisiana Weekly): Kristal Brent Zook, Hofstra University, and David Baker, The Louisiana Weekly has been added to the session.

Investigating supply chains (Sponsored by Knight Foundation): Martha Mendoza and Peter Klein will not be speaking.

Investigating inequality: Kristal Brent Zook, Hofstra University, has been added to this session.

Broadcast showcase: The changing network landscape: Rhonda Schwartz will not be attending.

Broadcast Show & Tell: Dave Savini, CBS/WBBM Chicago, replaces Patricia DiCarlo, CNN, from 5:00-5:55 p.m.

FRIDAY

Reporting on guns: Jonathan Bullington, The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com, replaces Michael Luo.

Seafood from Slaves: The story behind an IRE Medal winner: Martha Mendoza, AP, is not attending.

Showcase panel: Brian Ross will be replaced by Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica, as moderator.

SATURDAY

Broadcast: Feeding the beast: Aaron Diamant, WSB-Atlanta, replaces Erica Proffer.

Broadcast: 60 stories in 60 minutes: Jennifer Cobb, KHOU-Houston, replaces Eva Parks.

Human rights investigations (Sponsored by Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma): Angela Kocherga, Cronkite News and Arizona PBS, has been added to the session.

When journalism and security research collide (Sponsored by Knight Foundation): Yael Grauer, independent journalist, has been added to the session.

Uncovering stories on the schools beat: Francisco Vara-Orta, University of Missouri, replaces Susan Ferriss.

Broadcast Show & Tell: Sarah Buduson, WEWS-Cleveland, will replace Jeff Harris as the moderator from 4:15-5:15 p.m. Patricia DiCarlo, CNN, replaces Dave Savini, CBS/WBBM Chicago, from 10:15-11:25 a.m.

SUNDAY

Hot emerging environmental topics to take home with you (Sponsored by Society of Environmental Journalists): Ingrid Lobet, inewsource will replace Liz Szabo

New sponsors

TEGNA Foundation

New exhibitors

Trivago