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 ...