The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "1980s" ...
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Pure Greed: Why are so many San Franciscans losing their homes to the Ellis Act? So their landlords can make even more money.
According to the article, "When the Ellis Act was winding through the state legislature in the late 1980s, no one except the most seasoned tenant activists saw the danger....And while property owners may claim that the act simply allows them to get out of the landlord business, one thing's for sure: the more money they can make, the more owners take advantage of it. Between 1988 and 1995, San Francisco landlords used the law to take 25 buildings off the rental market. Between 1996 and 1999, as property values rose, they emptied 305 buildings -- evicting tenants from more than a thousand units."
Tags: Ellis Act; state legislature; California; housing; rental housing; apartments; landlord; property owners; tenants
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Special Delivery. How Medicare altered its rules after hearing a very desperate plea. Hepatitis B patient is refused coverage for transplant, until Capitol Hill calls. 'Informally' changing policy.
According to the article, "Medicare, the federal health program for 39 million elderly and disabled people, has long taken a conservative approach to covering liver transplants. Pioneered in the early 1980s, the operations weren't covered by Medicare until 1991, and then just for a few diagnoses. Five years ago, Medicare expanded coverage to all beneficiaries with "end-stage liver disease," with two exceptions: patients with liver cancer or with hepatitis B." This article explains why.
Tags: Medicare; federal health program; health care; hepatitis b; liver cancer; cancer; doctors; hospitals; treatment; sickness; medicine
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Retirement Wrinkle: Employers Win Big With a Pension Shift; Employees Often Lose
The Journal reports how employees lose pension money while companies profit from a new pension system. "The switch to cash-balance pension plans ... is the biggest development in the pension world for years, so big that some consultants call it revolutionary. Certainly, many call it lucrative; one says such a pension plan ought to be thought of as a profit center. Not since companies dipped into pension funds in the 1980s to finance leveraged buyouts have corporate treasurers been so abuzz over a pension technique."
Tags: finance; employment benefits; banking; Central & South West Corp. (CSW)
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Don't Walk: Why Labor Unions Have Grown Reluctant To Use the 'S' Word
The Journal reports on the decline in the number of strikes and union protests in the 1980s and 1990s. "...For many unions, using the sword can get a lot of people hurt -- starting with union members. The calculus of labor relations is indeed different these days. Workers have become shareholders. Technology and globalization can put jobs at risk even when a union has "job security" written into its contract."
Tags: employment; labor; workers; stocks; Ford; GM; Chrysler
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Medicaid Hemorrhages Money
"The nation's Medicaid program is rife with stories of fraud and abuse, but nothing quite tops the scam Dr. Surinder Singh Panshi ran from New York. For two years during the 1980s, he purchased blood from addicts, then falsely charged the state for thousands of blood tests that had never been ordered, referred or authorized. By the time he was caught and convicted, Panshi had stolen more than $3.6 million from the state's Medicaid program."
Tags: Medicaid; fraud; blood tests; Medicaid fraud; health-care scam; HCFA
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Sins of the Father
An investigation by WFTS-TV revealed that the St. Petersburg Diocese refuses to do a credible independent investigation of one of the Bishop's favorite high ranking priests who is accused of sexual misconduct by a fellow priest, a woman who was studying to be a nun and the victim of sexual misconduct. Moreover, the church claims the priest took and passed a polygraph but they refused repeated requests to allow (WFTS-TV) to examine the questions and results. The three highly credible witnesses insist the abuse occurred when Father Robert Morris was a seminary student in the late 1980s. Father Morris, designated by the bishop to counsel all troubled priests, denied the allegations. Yet, because of our investigation and subsequent reports he is cleared. The bishop then conducts a sham investigation into the charges and clears Father Morris. The church investigation did not include interviews with two of the three credible witnesses: a priest and a woman who at the time of the misconduct was studying to be a nun."
Tags: St. Petersburg; Diocese; investigation; sexual misconduct; Catholic Church; Father Robert Morris; tape; transcript
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The Cotter Files
The Cotter Corporation in Canon City, Colorado tried to import 470, 000 tons of waste nuclear waste from a New Jersey Superfund site. "The company intended to dispose of the material on its facility which is a Superfund site itself" The company was sued by Colorado during the 1980s. After some investigation, numerous safety and environment problems were discovered with the site.
Tags: environment; nuclear waste; superfund; cotter corporation; cotter; Colorado; waste; EPA; department of energy; New Jersey
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Bush, Harken and the Public's Right to Know
National media outlets reported on President George W. Bush's activities as a director with Texas oil company Harken Energy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The stories referenced documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity during the course of research for the book, "The Buying of the President 2000" and two other Center investigative reports. Now, the Center has released new documents--and a series of stories--that shed additional light on what transpired at Harken while Bush was a director, a chronicle of Bush's Harken tenure, and the close relationship between Harvard Management and Harken.
Tags: IRE FOI AWARD CATEGORY; Bush; George W. Bush; Harken; Harvard; Enron; SEC
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Enron's Original Sins
Bloomberg Markets reveals that since the mid-1980s Enron executives played fast and loose with the rules. The magazine quotes a University of Michigan professor and former CEO of American Motors Corp. as saying "Enron for years was a swashbuckling, buccaneering, wild-eyed group of self-satisfied renegades. They acted as if rules didn't apply to them." Among other things, Markets reveals that Michael Milken had connections to Enron.
Tags: business; Enron; Michael Milken; Houston; scandal
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Fueling the Flames
A KSTP-TV Eyewitness news investigation found a serious design flaw in the Jeep brand automobiles. In low-speed, rear-impact collisions, passenger doors have tended to jam and the gas tank tears loose, emptying into the passenger compartment. KSTP-TV's investigative reporter Jay Kolls found that five people have died in slow speed crashes because of trapped doors, but Daimler-Chrysler and American Motors (the company that formerly made Jeep vehicles) knew about the defect since the 1980s and failed to make any changes.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; transportation; accidents; Jeep; CAR; NHTSA; FARS