Search results for:
National: Home in on top donors, bundlers, super PACs
By Viveca Novak Center for Responsive Politics The 2012 election promises to be the most expensive on record. One important way in which it differs from the 2008 contest: the presence of more outside groups, spending much more money, thanks to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 and subsequent legal…
Read MoreCampaign cash flow at the state level: Look at contributors, ballot measures
By Beverly Magley and Anne Sherwood, National Institute on Money in State Politics For your stories about 2012 state elections, check out free campaign-finance information at The National Institute on Money in State Politics (followthemoney.org), a nonpartisan not-for-profit organization. In addition to downloadable data sets, you can mine reports on trends and anomalies, as well…
Read More2011 IRE Investigative Books List
IRE’s annual list of investigative books can be viewed here and seen below. More than 200 books published in 2011 made the list. The annual list is compiled by Steve Weinberg. If you know of an investigative/explanatory book written by an American journalist published last year for public sale and fail to see it listed, please…
Read MoreCrimes in the classroom
By Susan Snyder and Dylan Purcell, The Philadelphia Inquirer A series of racial attacks at a Philadelphia high school in late 2009 – and the school district’s inadequate response – prompted The Inquirer to launch an investigation into school violence. Its seven-part series, “Assault on Learning“, and follow-up stories published throughout the past year, showed that…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Firefighters disabling the city’s budget
Photo credit:Elie Gardner/Post-Dispatch Social media can be an individual’s nightmare and a reporter’s goldmine. In “Disability pensions allow some firefighters to collect while working elsewhere,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s reporters used an array of investigative tools to publicize a mismanaged disability pension system that is eating away the city’s funds. But even when firefighters are capable…
Read MoreSchool test scores raise questions across the nation
“Suspicious test scores in roughly 200 school districts resemble those that entangled Atlanta in the biggest cheating scandal in American history, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.” To learn how the reporters gathered information click here. “The newspaper analyzed test results for 69,000 public schools and found high concentrations of suspect math or reading…
Read MoreShare your thoughts for IRE’s conference logo
Send us your creative, inspired ideas yearning to be on our website or a T-Shirt. The 2012 IRE Conference is coming to Boston, and we’re looking for your help. After the success of the Computer Assisted Reporting Conference T-shirt contest, we want to hear more design ideas from our members. IRE staff and students are working…
Read MoreCall for IRE Board of Directors candidates
Seven seats up for election on IRE board The filing period has begun for those planning to run for the IRE board of directors. Seven seats on the 13-member board are up for election. The election will be held June 16 at the IRE annual conference in Boston. The IRE board serves as the governing…
Read MoreNYPD using counterterrorism tactics on lawful citizens
Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo, for the Associated Press, report that undercover NYPD officers attended meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on activists who planned protests around the country, according to interviews and documents that show how police have used counterterrorism tactics to monitor even lawful activities.
Read MoreBehind the Story: Investigating questionable police work when documents are redacted
One of the redacted documents California Watch received. In California Watch’s series Broken Shield, Ryan Gabrielson uncovered abuse and unknown injury cases at developmental centers that weren’t reported to the local police or district attorneys’ offices. Despite a number of condemning reports and a decreasing patient population, the number of abuse and unknown injury cases…
Read More