Posts Tagged ‘Drugs’
IRE Radio Podcast | Fighting Fentanyl
Opioid addiction is a decades-long crisis that killed roughly 47,000 people in 2017 alone, largely due to the potency of fentanyl. But despite all the warning signs, Congress didn’t pass any legislation on opioids until 2016. On this week’s episode, we’ll hear how Katie Zezima of the Washington Post tracked inaction in Congress and visited…
Read MoreIRE Radio Podcast | The Human Face of Heroin
Soaring heroin and opioid addiction rates have left journalists across the country looking for new ways to cover the crisis and make the statistics stick. On this episode, we talk to reporters at two papers who found innovative ways to humanize America’s heroin epidemic. Stephen Stirling of NJ Advance Media takes us on a tour…
Read MorePaper makes audacious decision to highlight silent epidemic
By Susannah Nesmith, CJR Editor’s Note: This article first ran on Dec. 2, 2016 on the Columbia Journalism Review’s website. The Palm Beach Post made the bold decision to profile all 216 people who died of an opioid overdose in its coverage area last year, risking the wrath of victims’ families, some of whom were horrified…
Read MoreGoing beyond stereotypes to report on substance abuse and addiction
By Jennifer Lu When writing about a topic as pervasive and complex as heroin addiction, the last thing you want to do is to get it wrong. At the 2016 CAR Conference, Stephen Stirling and Jacquee Petchel, who have reported extensively on this subject, shared their experiences and advice on reporting, quantifying and telling the…
Read MoreBehind the Story: How Reuters investigated the preventable deaths of drug-addicted babies
Duff Wilson Any good reporter knows that keeping your eyes and ears open to the world can spark an idea for an original investigation. That was the case for Duff Wilson, an investigative reporter for Reuters. Wilson came up with the idea for the project “Helpless and Hooked” after reading an article in a Massachusetts…
Read MoreHow to examine fatal car crashes involving drunken drivers
Police typically conduct sober checkpoints around the holidays, especially New Year’s Eve. Add context to your stories about holiday safety and travel by looking to look at trends in fatal crashes where drugs and alcohol were noted as a factor. We’ll walk you through how to quickly gather statistics and come up with story ideas…
Read MoreFrom the IRE Archive: Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance”
Interested in learning more about the story behind the new movie, “Kill the Messenger“? Listen to this panel from the 1997 IRE National Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. titled “Can Investigative Reporting Go Too Far?”. In the early 90’s investigative reporter Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News dug into the CIA’s involvement of cocaine…
Read MoreNews organizations file lawsuits against Missouri for failing to release execution drug records
Missouri’s failure to release records regarding the drugs it uses in executions keeps the public from providing oversight of the death penalty. That’s what the Associated Press and four other news organizations are arguing in a suit filed Thursday against the state. Another suit filed the same day by a reporter for St. Louis Public…
Read MoreBehind the Story: Maine pharmacists get licenses despite history of drug abuse
Would you feel safe if your pharmacist had lost his license because of drug abuse or theft, yet had regained it and was dispensing your prescriptions? What about if he had lost his license twice? Naomi Schalit and John Christie of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting found that since 2003, thirteen pharmacists with…
Read MoreThe details of uncovering performance-enhancing drug abuse
T.J. Quinn leads discussion on “Performance Enhancing Drugs” as Michael Fish looks on. Photo: Travis Hartman. Major League Baseball continues to deal with its performance-enhancing drug issue and the fallout from lengthy suspensions to some of the games most prominent players, such as Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. Want to find out how it got…
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