James Risen delivered the keynote address at the 2015 IRE Conference in Philadelphia. Risen is an investigative reporter for the New York Times, based in Washington. He was the winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and was a member of the New York Times reporting team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. He was also the winner of the 2006 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting. Risen recently prevailed in a lengthy legal battle against the Obama administration, which had been trying to crack down on government officials leaking national security information to reporters.

By Taylor Bembery

Isaiah Thompson of New England Center for Investigative Reporting, Maria Zamudio of The Commercial Appeal, and Hella Winston, an independent journalist, have experienced with the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with being a freelance journalist. At the IRE Conference in Philadelphia, the three discussed strategies for producing stories with impact and navigating the freelance world.

Zamudio, who has won a Peabody Award for some of her work, offered tips on how to find stories with impact.

• Look for trends. Is it an isolated story or part of a bigger problem?
• Are government agencies not ...

Investigating student rights violations - From fraternities to the administration

By Christian Matozzo

Reporters Walt Bogdanich, Samantha Sunne, and Duane Pohlman offered tips on how to cover sexual assault on college campuses during a panel discussion at the annual IRE Conference in Philadelphia. Frank LoMonte from the Student Press Law Center moderated the panel.

Campus sexual assaults have received more coverage recently due to increased public interest and the “secret factor,” meaning universities hiding information from the public.

Bogdanich, of The New York Times, offered five tips on how to report on these cases:

• Don’t approach the story with a ...

At the IRE Conference in Philadelphia, 2015 Knight Scholar Amber Johnson talked with attendee Rachel Lenzi, a sports writer at The Blade in Toledo, Ohio. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity. 

Q: What got you interested in journalism, and why sports? 

A: It was the simple fact that I love to write and I love sports. I grew up not only in a household where we were encouraged to take part in organized sports, but a household where both parents were educators who set high standards: Get good grades, be responsible, set goals for yourself ...

By Andrea Gonzales

Heroic, self-sacrificing with no personal gain or benefit. These are the words Academy Award-winning documentarian Laura Poitras used to describe the actions of Edward Snowden.

Most people know Poitras from her recent film “Citizen Four,” which documented Snowden’s decision to leak classified NSA documents, revealing the agency’s mass surveillance program. Her other films include “My Country, My Country” and “The Oath.”

Poitras said she’s interested in human beings’ actions rather than their words. She originally thought making a documentary would involve a lot of people, but after giving it a try she found that ...

At the IRE Conference in Philadelphia, 2015 Knight Scholar Amber Johnson talked with attendee Jo Ciavaglia, a crime reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity.

Q: What’s your favorite part of your job? 

A: I’m a crime reporter! My favorite part of my job is when I get to do investigations and the daily grind of going to fires and bank robberies and fires and bank robberies…we have a lot of bank robberies.

Q: So how did you get involved in crime reporting ...

A record number of journalists turned out at the annual IRE Conference in Philadelphia this year, so we thought it would be fun to get to know some of our 1,800 attendees. We asked a few of our 2015 IRE Conference Knight Scholars to talk to attendees and share portions of their conversations on this blog. 

Kristin Hussey, independent journalist

Q: What do you do for a living?

A: I live and work in Connecticut. I’m a freelance reporter and I cover Connecticut stories.

Q: How did you become interested in journalism?

A: I think I ...

By Taylor Bembery

According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, a journalist is required to seek and report the truth. At the Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in Philadelphia, journalists discussed methods for making stories airtight. The panel was moderated by Shawn McIntosh of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and included panelists, Alleen Brown of The Intercept and David Donald of American University.

Here are some techniques journalists can use to improve their accuracy:

• Every writer should have a fact-checking process.
• No matter how meticulous the reporter, an editor should always be questioning a reporter’s sourcing.
• Double-check your ...

By LaCrai Mitchell

“Just make sure if you fail, you did what you wanted to do.”

At face value, this David Letterman quote is completely unrelated to telling a good data story. However, during this year’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference, Pulitzer Prize-winning Newsday investigative reporter Bill Dedman related the Letterman quote to writing memorable data stories with a personal touch.

“Make your stories sound like you,” Dedman said during the panel. “Use your voice.”

Dedman, along with ...

By Darian Muka

Panelists David Bornstein, Greg Borowski, Tina Rosenberg and Claudia Rowe spoke about the power of solution journalism during a panel at the 2015 IRE Conference. Dubbed “solution journalism,” positive deviants frame an issue around improvements or best practices.

“The idea is that you’re going to create a lot of awareness and outrage around a topic, but in fact the response to the problem, how people are trying to respond to that problem and the kind of results they're getting is often the stuff that goes under-reported,” said David Bornstein, co-author of the Fixes column in ...