Investigator’s Toolbox
Investigator’s Toolbox: Four starters
By Nakylah Carter, IRE & NICAR Disability is often excluded from conversations about diversity, but there are many resources available to help journalists address this problem. Although not an exhaustive list, IRE has gathered the following four guides as a helpful starting point for improving your newsroom’s disability coverage. As social norms rapidly change regarding…
Read More3 ideas for covering America’s booming prison population
The United States is a world leader in incarceration, with more than 2 million people in prisons and jails. At the 2014 IRE Conference Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley Law School, discussed a handful of trends for journalists to follow in the coming year. Here are three to keep an eye on:…
Read MoreHow 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 MoreReporter finds hundreds of unpunished water violations in Minnesota
By Mark Steil, Minnesota Public Radio I’ve always enjoyed looking through large piles of data in my job as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio. My primary beats are the agriculture and energy sectors. I’ve been on the job 35 years now, and for most of that time a document hunt generally meant one thing:…
Read MoreOvercoming obstacles to investigate public officials
By Andy Curliss, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) Our running investigation has focused on former Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina. We have revealed numerous instances of unreported gifts, favors or other perks provided to the governor while he was in office and shown how many of those people who made the gifts benefited…
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