Diversity & Inclusion

Investigative Reporters & Editors is committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of race, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, age, appearance or religion.

IRE supports vigorous debate and welcomes disagreement, while maintaining a civil and respectful community. Discriminatory or harassing behavior is not permitted.

IRE may take any action it deems appropriate to deal with those who violate our principles, including exclusion from our events, forums, listservs and the organization itself.

IRE is an organization that believes in the skills of students and entry-level journalists as much as its established or seasoned journalists — it is in fact at the very heart of building a diverse pipeline of journalists.

IRE weaves in examples of culturally competent reporting throughout our training materials, undergoing a massive overhaul in 2022 to make sure the work was including people from all backgrounds and centering more discussions on framing that tend to harm historically marginalized communities. In 2024, we've added more topical sessions including religion and immigration given global tensions and now offer up to a day of training on DBEI for newsrooms and classrooms. We have updated those materials for 2025 given the changes we have seen in this area of work.

We also work to ensure regional diversity as well: training organizations throughout the country and world through virtual and in-person trainings. For example, our Total Newsroom Training has visited nearly every state in the U.S., and territories such as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands since its inception almost a decade ago - with more to come.

In the wake of the racial reckoning in 2020, we also developed a presentation on the urgency of creating a more inclusive newsroom. The 90-minute training session was developed, vetted, and led by our members and trainers from historically marginalized backgrounds. In it, we provide concrete steps that newsrooms can take to foster an environment that benefits journalists as well as the public. This has become one of the more popular trainings we offer, and in late 2022, we expanded our DBEI-focused 90-minute training sessions to other topics such as sourcing and how to ethically and accurately cover those historically marginalized. We further expanded those offerings to up to 12 hours of training in 2024 on various DBEI topics.

We also have offered more accessible training such as webinars on diversity and inclusion, including our best attended session of our 2020 webinar series during the COVID-19 era. You can still view that free session online; IRE membership is not required.

Speakers don't always fill out their demographic data so we only get snapshots of "at least" data. At minimum though, journalists of color comprised at least 30 percent of speakers and trainers at the most recent annual NICAR and IRE national conferences but that number is likely higher. For the DBEI symposium and at AccessFest, that diversified racial representation was higher at around 40 percent from data we do have, and again likely much higher for JOCs in reality - since only half of the speakers usually fill out their demographic form.

Women comprised half of speakers at the NICAR data journalism conference and roughly 60 percent of speakers at the most recent IRE national investigative journalism conference. IRE typically features more than 350 speakers and trainers for each conference.

In addition, IRE regularly features a diverse slate of speakers at its regional workshops and online training.

Cheryl W. Thompson served as IRE’s first Black board president from 2018-2021. Following her time as president, she was succeeded by Mark Walker, who also is Black, from 2021-2023. Nearly half of the board is comprised of journalists of color- with six folks representing different racial and ethnic communities including the full BIPOC spectrum - and also includes two queer people. Women make up the majority of the IRE board now, reflecting gender parity of both the U.S. and our overall worldwide membership. All board committees include journalists of color. In addition, journalists of color comprised about one third of the regional planning committees for the most recent in-person NICAR and IRE national conferences.

Of the seven judges for the 2023 IRE Awards, three were journalists of color and three were women. The makeup of judges has reflected similar parity in recent years consistently.

In 2021, IRE’s board of directors created a diversity task force that has since become a permanent diversity and inclusion committee. The board also has convened an international committee with our member from South Korea, Hyuntaek "Tag" Lee,  leading the group and is helping plan a workshop in Canada in 2024.

IRE's Executive Director Diana Fuentes is Latina, and in 2021, IRE promoted Francisco Vara-Orta, who is Mexican-American and gay, from training director to director of diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion. In 2022, Adam Rhodes and Laura Moscoso made history as they joined IRE's training staff. Rhodes, who is half Cuban, is IRE's first non-binary staff member. Moscoso is Puerto Rican and Dominican and is the first woman of color on the IRE training staff. Vara-Orta and Rhodes also represent different parts of the LGBTQ+ community on staff. In late 2024, they were joined by Laura Kurtzberg, who is Mexican-American, Jewish and part of the LGBTQ+ community.

The IRE board and staff received training from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education during their respective retreats in August of 2022. Maynard instructor Jean Marie Brown led the Fault Lines trainings which is based on addressing personal bias Fault Lines® of race, gender, sexual orientation, generation, geography and class, as they apply to journalists, newsroom collaboration and coverage. The majority of the staff also has taken the Freedom Forum's Workplace Integrity Training led by Jill Geisler to better "produce environments free of harassment, discrimination, and incivility, and filled with opportunity, especially for those who have traditionally been denied it." In 2024, IRE staff underwent accessibility training led by Patrick Garvin at a retreat in order make the organization's work more accessible to disabled members and partners.