A stellar group of investigative reporters is lining up to speak at the annual IRE conference, June 11-14, in Baltimore. Jon Klein, president of CNN-U.S., will deliver the keynote address. Other speakers participating in conference panels include Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Jill Abramson and Dean Baquet of The New York Times, Brian Ross of ABC News, Armen Keteyian of CBS News, Don Barlett and James Steele of Vanity Fair and David Simon, a veteran Baltimore journalist and television producer. To see the latest speakers list, visit the conference Web site, www.ire.org/training/conference/baltimore09 The ... Read more ...

Miramax studio and Idealogy production company are in talks with Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. to acquire the movie rights to the Arizona Project Series. IRE owns the copyright to the series, published in 1977. Talks began after IRE was contacted several months ago regarding the possibility of a film being produced that would tell the story of the Arizona Project. The film would focus on the team of journalists assembled by IRE to continue the investigative work of reporter Don Bolles after he was killed. (Learn more about the Arizona Project) Miramax and Idealogy also are seeking IRE's ... Read more ...

IRE and NICAR are once again offering substantial discounts on ArcView mapping software. And your first opportunity to take advantage of the almost $2,000 in savings comes next month. ESRI is offering ArcView single-use licenses at no charge to IRE members who agree to attend a GIS training event conducted by IRE and NICAR or ESRI. Purchasers must sign a three-year maintenance agreement with ESRI at a cost of $400 a year — with the first year’s fee waived. ArcView, the GIS program most widely used by journalists, lists for $1,500. During the maintenance agreement period purchasers will ... Read more ...

Holly Whisenhunt Stephen was the best executive producer an investigative reporter could ever ask for. [caption id="attachment_149" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Holly Whisenhunt Stephen"][/caption] Holly, an award-winning journalist and a longtime IRE member, died Nov. 28 after a long battle with cancer. She was 38. Holly spent much of her career in Texas, working for TV newsrooms in Stephenville, Waco, Austin, Houston and San Antonio, before moving to WTHR in Indianapolis. While in Indianapolis for the past three years, Holly helped lead WTHR’s 13 Investigates unit to national recognition, including an IRE Award, a Peabody award ... Read more ...

As IRE has grown and evolved, so have the services offered to our members. Just a few years ago, one of the most common requests of our Database Library was a conversion of electronic information from tape to disc. Nowadays, Database Library staffers are working with open-source database technology, Web scraping and dynamic mapping. Recently  we reached yet another milestone in the services we are offering our members: the Database Library can now create interactive maps for news Web sites connected to investigative projects. In our first venture, we worked with reporter and IRE board member Phil Williams and created ... Read more ...

When Tisha Thompson of WTTG in Washington, D.C., gets a call from a tipster who’s afraid to leave a name or phone number, she has a surefire way of staying in touch. [caption id="attachment_103" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tisha Thompson of WTTG-Washington, D.C."][/caption] Thompson suggests that the source set up an e-mail account with an alias on AOL, Google or another national provider. To help protect potential whistleblowers, she reminds them not to communicate with her from a work computer or telephone.  Once the source e-mails her from the new account, she has a ...

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The members of the Board of Directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors would like to express our regret and indignation over the murder of veteran crime reporter Armando Rodriguez. His complete coverage of more than 1,300 murders in Ciudad Juarez this year provided key information to all of us about the changing nature of the violent attacks launched by drug traffickers in Mexico. We recognize that it has become increasingly difficult for newspapers to cover what is happening on the border, especially since civilians and journalists are now frequent targets of these attacks. Because of this alarming trend, it ... Read more ...

Today in Ciudad Juarez, Armando Rodriguez, the crime reporter at the Diario de Juarez, was murdered in front of his own home this morning as he got in his car to drive his daughter to school. Rodriguez has covered nearly every murder in the unprecedented wave of violence in Ciudad Juarez -- which is right next to El Paso, Texas. His work was important since no one else had the courage to document these crimes. His stories -- 800 this year alone -- appeared in one of the largest and best newspapers on either side of the U.S. Border - Diario de Juarez ... Read more ...

Chris Halse of KIRO-Seattle recently used federal transportation data to uncover design flaws in high-end recreational vehicles. Learn how Halsne obtained and analyzed the data in this article from Uplink, IRE and NICAR's online computer-assisted reporting newsletter. This story is available as free site content.  Uplink subscribers get full access to the articles and blog posts added to the site weekly and the archive of stories back to March 2007. Not a subscriber?  Sign up online

The 2008 Election Day is upon us! IRE and NICAR have compiled a list of resources to aid in your coverage of stories as they unfold on this historic election day.  Included you will find relevant tipsheets and stories, databases, articles on election coverage from Uplink and The IRE Journal, and other helpful websites. Please contact the IRE Resource Center (573-882-3364 or email) or the Database Library (573-884-7711) for additional assistance.