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The Cruelest Cuts series
On Sunday and Monday, The Charlotte Observer published a two-part series detailing the risks to young workers in dangerous jobs. The stories showed that federal child labor enforcement has waned despite new evidence that many employers are ignoring the rules. Observer reporters also spoke to more than 20 current and former workers at House of…
Read MoreDietary supplements contain undisclosed amounts of prescription drugs
Alison Young of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that some dietary supplements, which are not subject to government regulation, contain amounts of undisclosed prescription drugs, as well as food allergens, bacteria and human placenta. Journal-Constitution reporters were able to obtain one dietary supplement containing prescription drugs, despite the fact that it had been the subject of…
Read MoreDeKalb county loses thousands of traffic tickets
Cameron McWhirter of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that DeKalb County’s traffic court has lost the hundreds of thousands of citations. While no one knows how much the misplaced records could cost the county, estimates range from $90 million to $135 million. In response to inquiries made by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the county has set up…
Read MoreHealth care system allows immigrants to fall through the cracks
Deborah Sontag of The New York Times continued the paper’s “Getting Tough” series with an examination of some hospitals’ practice of repatriating immigrant patients to their native countries without consent. The article offers several vignettes of the difficulties patients and hospitals face in such situations, including the story of Antonio Torres, a nineteen year-old legal…
Read MoreSurge in Democrats turns Dutchess County, N.Y. blue
In October, Dutchess County went from having a Republican majority among registered voters to a Democratic one for the first time in the county’s history. On Nov. 2, the Poughkeepsie Journal published an analysis that not only showed which municipalities were responsible for that growth, but drilled down to see which individual districts had the…
Read MoreCharter schools paid millions for absent students
An investigation by Thomas Hargrove and Gavin Off of Scripps News Service found that “taxpayers pay millions of dollars every month to educate tens of thousands of high school students who rarely or never show up for class, part of a growing trend of high absenteeism at privately operated schools.” Most charter schools are funded…
Read More2008 Election Resources
The 2008 Election Day is upon us! IRE and NICAR have compiled a list of resources to aid in your coverage of stories as they unfold on this historic election day. Included you will find relevant tipsheets and stories, databases, articles on election coverage from Uplink and The IRE Journal, and other helpful websites. Please…
Read MoreUplink sneak peek: Luxury RV crashes raise safety issues
Chris Halse of KIRO-Seattle recently used federal transportation data to uncover design flaws in high-end recreational vehicles. Learn how Halsne obtained and analyzed the data in this article from Uplink, IRE and NICAR’s online computer-assisted reporting newsletter. This story is available as free site content. Uplink subscribers get full access to the articles and blog…
Read MoreUnion workers double-dip costing taxpayers over $1.6 million
An investigation by David Andreatta of the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) revealed that “more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money was paid last year to municipal employees in Monroe County for work they performed strictly for their unions, including dozens of labor leaders who have not toiled in their government jobs in years.” Many…
Read MoreOver 2,000 voters in Allen County, Ind. also registered in Florida
The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind. found that 2,172 voters in Indiana’s Allen County had names and birthdates identical to those in Florida. The newspaper performed its analysis cross-referencing the voter registration databases in Allen County with the Florida secretary of state’s election division. Duplicates were examined by hand. Middle names or initials that…
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