Skip to content

2014 NICAR conference highlights data journalism’s past, present and future

“When I first attended the annual conference of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) in 2012, it was as a speaker,” writes Alexander Howard, a Tow Fellow at Columbia Journalism School’s center for digital journalism innovation.  “I was there to give a short talk about new data coming from the open governent movement. While it went well,…

Read More

Fugitives Next Door: Police won’t chase 186,000 felony suspects

Across the United States, police and prosecutors are allowing tens of thousands of wanted felons — including more than 3,300 people accused of sexual assaults, robberies and homicides — to escape justice merely by crossing a state border, a USA TODAY investigation found. Those decisions, almost always made in secret, permit fugitives to go free…

Read More

IRE members win awards for health care reporting

Several IRE members were among the winners of the 2013 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. The Association of Health Care Journalists received more than 475 entries across 12 categories. Read more about the awards. The following IRE members received recognition: Alison Young and John Hillkirk, USA TODAY, took second place in the Investigative…

Read More

Poorer families bearing brunt of college price hikes

America’s colleges and universities are quietly shifting the burden of tuition increases onto low-income students, according to The Dallas Morning News and The Hechinger Report. Yet many wealthy families are seeing their costs rise more slowly, or even fall, an analysis of federal data shows. The trend could further widen the gap between the nation’s…

Read More

IRE to offer Watchdog Workshops in 4 states next month

Get the tools and the tricks of the trade you need to be a better, faster watchdog journalist. Each Watchdog Workshop will include several core sessions designed to improve your ability to quickly find information on the Web, work with key documents and data that will help you add depth to your daily work, and…

Read More

Governor Chris Christie cuts private deals and government contracts to his inner circle

The governor has allowed political cronyism to continue and even flourish, rather than stamp it out, with some of his closest confidants enriching themselves through millions of dollars in state contracts, and legal and lobbying fees, an Asbury Park Press review of thousands of pages of campaign, lobbying and contracting documents found.

Read More

Chris Christie cuts private deals and government contracts to his inner circle

The governor has allowed political cronyism to continue and even flourish, rather than stamp it out, with some of his closest confidants enriching themselves through millions of dollars in state contracts, and legal and lobbying fees, an Asbury Park Press review of thousands of pages of campaign, lobbying and contracting documents found.

Read More

Extra Extra Monday: Hospital ‘trauma’ charges, police and fire overtime, toxic chemical danger zones

Image from Newseum Insult to injury | Tampa Bay Times Trauma patients, who have no choice in where the ambulance takes them, are being charged as much as $33,000 the moment they enter a Florida trauma center. That money doesn’t account for X-rays or treatment; it’s just a cover charge, and thousands of patients have…

Read More

National Flood Insurance Program, taxpayers around $24 billion in debt

There are 534 properties in New England alone that are considered Severe Repetitive Loss properties, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages the insurance program. Often, these National Flood Insurance Program-insured properties have had four significant flood claims – two within one decade. Nationwide there are about 12,000. Scituate has 112 of them.…

Read More

Florida trauma centers charging patients expensive ‘trauma response fees’

Trauma patients, who have no choice in where the ambulance takes them, are being charged as much as $33,000 the moment they enter a Florida trauma center. That money doesn’t account for X-rays or treatment; it’s just a cover charge, and thousands of patients have been billed more for it than for their actual medical…

Read More
Scroll To Top