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Mississippi town could make text messages readily available
A town in Mississippi could soon become the first in the state to archive and make available the text messages of public officials, according to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. The pending policy comes in response to a Mississippi Ethic Commission ruling against Tupelo, after the city had denied the Daily Journal text messages between…
Read MoreAUDIO: The data-driven story from start to finish
New to data reporting? Anthony Cormier, Sarasota Herald-Tribune; Jaeah Lee, Mother Jones; Rob O’Dell, The Arizona Republic; and Shawn McIntosh, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution walked journalists through their tips at the 2014 IRE Conference. Make it your job to develop good reporting habits. Keep track of data in relation to your reporting, like bankruptcy filings for…
Read MoreAppeals court upholds denial of FOIA request for detainee’s photo
A U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a Freedom of Information Act request denial to grant photos and other materials showing Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani to the Center for Constitutional Rights. Al-Qahtani is the alleged would-be 20th hijacker on 9/11 and one of the highest profile U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The panel ruled that…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | Scrutinizing your schools
This week we bring you an education-themed podcast in two acts. First we’ll talk about campus coverage, specifically investigations into Title IX and sexual assault. In Act II we’ll turn to K-12 education with a piece on school segregation. Here’s the lineup: Paula Lavigne and Nicole Noren of ESPN talk about their investigation into Title…
Read MoreNPR releases militarization data ahead of White House analysis
NPR has released analyzed data that shows every military item shipped to local, state and federal agencies from 2006 through April 23, 2014, as a part of the 1033 program. The items from the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office include mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) and assault rifles, among other things. NPR’s analysis also identifies the…
Read MoreIRE remembers CNN photojournalist Sarmad Qaseera
2012 IRE Awards video IRE is saddened to hear about the passing of Sarmad Qaseera, a photojournalist to whom we’d awarded an IRE Medal for his 2012 work in Benghazi. The 42-year-old was a longtime member of CNN’s Baghdad bureau. Qaseera was hired by CNN to cover the war in his home country of Iraq…
Read MoreFive databases at NICAR now offered for free to members
Among some other changes happening at the NICAR Data Library (go here to read more about them), we are now providing five databases for free to IRE members: Federal Election Commission’s Federal Campaign Contributions, updated weekly, contains campaign contribution information for all candidates seeking federal office and all federal political action committees. The individual contributions table includes…
Read MoreNICAR Data Library to lower prices, offer free databases
The NICAR Database Library will be implementing some changes in the coming months: The first of these is a reduction in what we charge IRE members for most of our databases. Additionally, a handful of databases will be free to IRE members. While the amount of work we put into each database remains the same, we…
Read MoreNICAR Data Library releases updated DOE campus crime data
The NICAR Database Library has updated the Department of Education’s Campus Crime data to include the most recent reports on alleged crime, arrests and discipline reported for 2012. Buy it here. What’s in it? The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act is a federal law that requires colleges…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How Kent State tracked student athletes missing class
By Karl Idsvoog, Kent State University How do you get into college if you can only read at a grade-school level? Last January, CNN’s Sara Ganim answered that question in a powerful piece of reporting. In a few short sentences Sara personalized the reality of college athletics at the University of North Carolina as she told…
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