Join IRE
The need for quality journalists has never been greater. Fulfill your full potential with indispensable resources from Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Eligibility
IRE has six options for membership:
- Professional
- General ($75/year): Journalists who are substantially engaged in news gathering, presentation and/or production.
- Early Career ($50/year): Journalists who are substantially engaged in news gathering, presentation and/or production, and are in their first five years in professional journalism.
- Academic ($75/year): People who work full-time in research and/or teaching in the field of journalism.
- Retiree (
$75/year$50 in 2025 to celebrate IRE's 50th Anniversary): People who have retired from journalism and are no longer working full-time. - Associate ($75/year): Former IRE Members who are not retired; people engaged part-time in news gathering, presentation and/or production; or individuals recognized by the organization for their contributions to the field of investigative journalism.
- Student ($25/yr): College students pursuing a degree, or recent graduates who are not yet working (up to one year after graduation).
Benefits
Thousands of tipsheets and other resources
Learn from some of the best reporters in the business when you search through our database of tipsheets, conference recordings, contest entries and other resources to help you with your reporting.
An improved resources search interface is coming soon!
Member listservs
Communicate with some of the biggest names in investigative journalism on one of the IRE listservs. Get tips, share your knowledge and make connections.
The IRE Journal
Keep up with the latest and greatest investigations and tips through our online magazine, The IRE Journal.
Premium reporting tools
Here’s a recap of our current partnerships, how you can benefit and instructions on getting access to these premium tools.
FOIAengine : Free 1-Year Subscription for IRE Professional members
This deal is limited to members with a professional membership.
FOIAengine, a tool created by PoliScio Analytics co-founders Randy Miller, an attorney, and John Jenkins, a journalist, searches requests made through the federal Freedom of Information Act nationwide. It helps replace the public record request database previously available at FOIAonline.gov, until the federal government shut it down in October 2023.
Like the government’s database, FOIAengine provides data about the requests themselves not the files, in essence creating a FOIA log to help users see what has already been requested. The new tool has more robust functionality and searching capabilities, and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. You can search and filter records by agency, requester's organization or type (news media, law firm, financial institution, etc.), requester’s name, date or text of the request. You can also copy or export 100 records at a time to analyze in other tools, including Microsoft Excel. FOIAengine provides one-click links to LinkedIn (for researching requester backgrounds) and real-time stock-market data (for publicly traded companies)
What does this mean to you? As an IRE professional member, you can receive a free 1-year subscription to access FOIAengine, a searchable database with more than 230,000 FOIA record requests from 2021 to the present. It is updated in as close to real time as availability allows. This special subscription is the only way an individual can access the database. IRE is the only media association authorized to access this resource.
To request a subscription: Current IRE members with a professional membership should email amy@ire.org. If you’re not a current IRE member, you can join here. If you need to renew, sign into your IRE account and click "Members Dashboard" located in the upper right corner of the page.
Note: If you have questions about FOIAengine, please contact David Meyers, david@poliscio.com.
SmartProcure/GovSpend: Discounted subscription for IRE members
Receive a discounted subscription to the largest government purchasing database. The database contains more than 1.08 billion purchase orders from more than 21,000 local, state and federal government agencies in the U.S. SmartProcure is now GovSpend. Read more about GovSpend.
What does this mean to you: As an IRE member, you can receive a SmartProcure/GovSpend subscription for $1,500 annually (an 86 percent discount from their subscription rate of $11,000 per year). Your subscription will give you “SmartSearch” access to SmartProcure/GovSpend. This includes unlimited searches in SmartProcure/GovSpend’s database, government and vendor profiles and key contacts, email alerts for saved search updates and more.
To get a subscription: Current IRE members should email smartprocure@ire.org. If you’re not a current IRE member, you can join or renew here. If you need to renew, you will need to sign into your IRE account and click "Members Dashboard" located in the upper right corner of the page.
Note: If you have questions about SmartProcure/GovSpend, please contact mdigeronimo@govspend.com.
PacerMonitor: Discounted subscription for IRE members
A legal research tool created to help people follow federal court cases, PacerMonitor has expanded from its initial focus on bankruptcy and now includes all federal courts, making it a useful tool for many reporters and editors. It has a database of more than 140 million PACER documents. PacerMonitor also allows users to set new case filing and docket alerts to stay on top of cases proactively. Read more about PacerMonitor.
What does this mean to you: As an IRE member, you receive a 50% discount which is $24.50/mo for the Plus plan and $49.50 for the Professional plan, which includes full database access, advanced searching capabilities and the ability to set up alerts.
To request a subscription: First, requesters need their own PACER credentials to get started (to set up those credentials, go here). Current IRE members should email amy@ire.org. If you’re not a current IRE member, you can join or renew here. If you need to renew, you will need to sign into your IRE account and click "Members Dashboard" located in the upper right corner of the page.
Note: If you have questions about PacerMonitor, please contact christopher@pacermonitor.com.
And more!
Help logging in
asdf
Help signing up
asfsadfsadf
Purchasing a membership
asdfsadf
IRE is committed to developing the next generation of investigative reporters by introducing more students to the organization. To do this, we need your help. Please consider sponsoring a $25 student membership for your alma mater, college media or for an intern at your news organization. You can also donate a membership to help support IRE’s efforts to build a more diverse organization.
You can sponsor a student membership in three ways:
1. Sponsor an individual student. That student will receive an email that you have sponsored them for one year. If they already have an active membership, it will be extended for another year.
2. Donate a general student membership. This option allows you to donate a membership to your alma mater or college media organization. IRE will work with professors and other campus leaders to find a student. That student will receive an email that you have sponsored their membership for one year. If you happen to know of a professor, adviser or student editor at your chosen institution, you can list their name and email on the form. This would be greatly appreciated, but is not required.
You can also choose to direct your student sponsorship to support IRE’s efforts to build a more diverse organization. IRE will work with a variety of universities to match these donations with students.
3. Donate to our student fund. Make a general donation of any amount to help send students of color, those who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, or with disabilities to IRE training.
Apply for a free IRE membership renewal
Current and former IRE professional and academic members who are unable to renew their memberships due to layoffs, furloughs or job terminations, can apply to receive a complimentary one-year membership renewal through IRE’s Support a Journalist Program.
The program is for professional and academic members only whose memberships have expired or are going to expire within 60 days who are struggling to find work. If you would like to apply for membership assistance, please fill out this form.
Membership assistance will be awarded as funds are available.
If you would like to help support this program, please donate here. and put "Support a Journalist" in the specify fund line.
Pay it forward by donating to an existing fellowship or scholarship. Fellowships provide a year-long membership, support to attend trainings and so much more. Make a donation.
If you're interested in creating a new fellowship or scholarship, contact us at fellowships@ire.org.