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Posts Tagged ‘audio’
How to investigate subsidized tutoring
Florida’s mandated tutoring program used taxpayer dollars to hire firms run by criminals, cheaters and profiteers. Last year Tampa Bay Times reporter Michael LaForgia used invoice records, complaint reports, audits and interviews to report on the industry, which goes virtually unchecked by state regulators. In this series of clips LaForgia walks through how to investigate…
Read MoreHow to identify – and expose – inflated student enrollment statistics
Will Evans of The Center for Investigative Reporting explains how he started investigating an Oakland, Calif. church school that appears to have vastly inflated its enrollment numbers to collect extra taxpayer funding. “The place was in total disrepair, but the pastor drove an Escalade,” Evans said. In this first clip, Evans explains how he found…
Read MoreInvestigating money in politics on foot and online
By George Varney Fredreka Schouten presented a campaign finance panel at the 2014 CAR Conference in Baltimore with fellow USA TODAY reporter Chris Schnaars and AP reporter Jack Gillum. The panel focused on different techniques for investigating political conventions and using online databases. Schouten gets to conventions two days early, before security shows up, to…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How KDNK investigated gas spills on private property
Photo courtesy of KDNK Oil and gas companies reported about 90 spills last year in heavily-drilled Garfield County, Colorado. Many of the leaks happened on private properties leased to drilling companies, said Ed Williams, a reporter at community radio station KDNK. But when unsafe levels of dangerous chemicals like arsenic and benzene contaminated the land,…
Read MoreHow to use inspection data to drive your stories
By Hannah Schmidt Joce Sterman of WMAR-Baltimore and Michael Pell of Reuters explain where reporters can find inspection data and how they can incorporate it into investigative pieces. Where do you find inspection data? Pell suggested reporters check the following organizations: U.S. Government Accountability Office U.S. Chemical Safety Board National Transportation Safety Board Office of Inspector…
Read MoreComplaints: A road map for killer investigations
By Hannah Schmidt Jill Riepenhoff, a projects reporter at The Columbus Dispatch, and Tisha Thompson, an investigative reporter for WRC-Washington D.C., use consumer and professional complaints to fuel their investigations. In these audio clips the two reporters offer advice on where to look for complaints and how to use them. In Columbus, Ohio, landlords allowing homes…
Read MoreHow to use CDC data to report on gun deaths
Dan Keating of the Washington Post used the CDC Wonder database to explore the racial breakdowns of gun deaths. What he found challenges the idea of having a gun for protection — at least for some. “A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a…
Read MoreInvestigating the mental health system? We’ve got tips from a pro.
Tasked with reporting on mental health? Take a few minutes to listen to tips from Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Kissinger attended a recent Watchdog Workshop to talk about her series of award-winning stories investigating caregivers. “We found people living in squalor,” Kissinger said. “It really upset people.” So how did she find…
Read MoreWelcome to IRE Radio, our new audio blog
If you’ve been spending time on our site recently, you’ve likely noticed something new – audio. For the last three months we’ve been working with a team of Mizzou journalism students to highlight and share our extensive library of audio recordings. On IRE Radio you’ll find a collection of short audio clips pulled from our…
Read MoreInside the IRE Awards: Secrecy for Sale
This week on IRE Radio we’ll be taking you inside the 2013 IRE Awards with audio from some of the reporters, editors and producers who worked on prize-winning stories. View the complete list of winners here. Secrecy for Sale The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) “Secrecy For Sale: Inside The Global Offshore Money Maze” is one…
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