Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal

Bankruptcy Maze

Understanding the process In a Chapter 7 case, the debtor files a bankruptcy petition and accompanying "schedules" that lay out their debts, assets and exemptions (more on this in breakout boxes on Page 8), and the case is assigned to a trustee. The trustee uses a lot of the same tools we use - reviewing the court documents the debtor has filed (called schedules) and searching public records such as property records, vehicle registrations, airplane registrations and corporate filings. [...]...

Connecting the Dots

According to official Justice Department estimates, slightly more than 565,000 Americans were murdered from Jan. (The SPSS syntax command file used in this study also is available online at our website.) Scripps Howard also found that it's common for police to stay mum about suspected serial murders. A team of researchers from the University of Tennessee -under the supervision of computer science professor David Icove, a former member of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit - asked for and wa...

Dialysis Database

Clinic ownership patterns differ state to state, so 1 also chose where I looked with a view toward seeing if there would be divides in practice between chain-owned facilities and independents, or between for-profits and nonprofits. Since dialysis clinics are typically inspected no more than once every three years, I obtained reports from 2002 to 2009 to capture as many facilities as possible and to see if the same problems cropped up at clinics that had been previously cited.

Ire Welcomes New Development Officer

Ire's Long Reach, Wide Impact

We also expanded our online training with a series of webinars, and we conducted data analysis jobs for news organizations large and small, providing key elements of major investigative projects. [...] we Increased our collection of online tip sheets and our vast library of investigative stories and projects. [...] many of those managing the purse strings understand that a small investment in training makes a huge difference in the quality of the coverage they can provide. * The foundation ...

Keeping On Track

[...] the good news: How can I do some (or do more) quality investigative reporting a with fewer resources, b while filling my other daily responsibilities, or maybe even c on my own or in a startup company? I spent 20 years doing investigative reporting for daily newspapers ranging from small communities to major metros.

Member News

Nate Carlisle, Matthew D. LaPlante and Tony Semerad of the Salt Lake Tribune won the 201 0 Don Baker Investigative Reporting Award from the Utah Headliners Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.They won the award for their investigation of the Logan Northern Canal, which collapsed and killed three people in 2009. Brian Ross, chief investigative correspondent for ABC News' 20/20, received the award for his investigation into the failure of USA Swimming, the national governing boa...

Memorable Books Make an Impact

No policymaker is certain how to fix such a vastly broken system. [...] there is no ridding the financial realm of greed - the ultimate explanation for the financial crisis. By the end of Philipps' expose, it is difficult to know whom to fear and despise more - the rampaging soldiers apparently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or their commanders whose immersion in a macho culture led them to deny obvious problems.

Six Seats Up for Election On Ire Board

Directors serve on committees and task forces made up of board members and appointed non-board IRE members. A board position is unpaid; board members and their news organizations are expected to pay all, or a substantial amount, of travel expenses to board meetings.

Snapshots From Our Blogs

Gilbert discussed several of his favorite resources for watchdogging stories in rural areas, including: * www.Footnotecl.com, for leads on juicy items buried in corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. * Government Accountability Office reports, which can offer a blueprint for an investigation. * Accident and safety data maintained by the Mine Safety Health Administration. * Wastewater discharges and other data in the Envirofacts Data Warehouse. Berkes also shared links...

Sun Finally Shines On Subcontractor Data

The data will prove to be a goldmine for local reporting, because it allows the researcher to drill down to the granular level, revealing contract relationships that took months to unravel the old-fashioned way: one time-consuming FOI request at a time. [...] the federal government reported only the companies that won major, or prime, government contracts - even if those companies then turned around and hired a small army of subcontractors to do most of the job on the ground.

Team Coverage

CNN - as it does for most breaking news events - created an e-mail alias so all involved in the coverage were kept abreast of coverage plans, ranging from which reporting team was covering which angle to what event was coming in on what routers. If we have time before getting on a plane, one of the first things we check is the state's Open Records Laws (or alternatively, call a CNN lawyer) to make sure we can get a records request ready. [...] while it may sound obvious, we also check to se...

Three Projects Win Philip Meyer Journalism Awards

Three major investigative reports that used social science research methods as key parts of their probes have won the 2010 Philip Meyer journalism Award. * The Los Angeles Times took first place for its project "Grading the Teachers."

Tracking Guns

The Posf succeeded in breaking that secrecy by: * Assembling databases of more than 35,000 guns traced to crimes by mining unpublicized state databases and local police evidence logs obtained under public-record requests from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. * Assembling the first comprehensive database of 51 1 police officers killed by firearms. The Post's database enabled the first nationwide analysis of how guns ended up in the hands of cop killers. * Obtaining lists of th...

Tracking the Spill

[...] we raised questions about the drilling moratorium imposed by the Obama administration in the wake of the accident, which dealt another economic blow to a region whose crucial fisheries and tourism sectors already were hurting. Just to name a couple of other things we were juggling when the Deepwater Horizon exploded: A new mayor was about to take over from the unpopular Ray Nagin; a huge police scandal was gradually unfurling, involving widespread violence and cover-ups by New Orleans ...

Two Tracks

Leaving his patrol car, the cop hurries after him, yelling for him to stop and drop the weapon. [...] a nimble line editor working with one or two reporters can take feeds and continually write through the story. With few public records to work with - tribal records and health care documents are beyond public disclosure - and no working telephones or fixed addresses for several family members, none of the usual tools were going to work. We learned that Williams was arrested and charged mor...

Welfare Waste

Here's the ironic part: I probably would not have had the department's exact quote about "we block access at casinos, tobacco shops, cruise ships and liquor stores," if officials had not tried to foil every attempt I made to talk to someone in person or on the phone about this story - on the record or on background. After the first part aired, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who appointed the department commissioner who refused to talk to us, fired off a letter ordering him immediately to re-ne...