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 "aspirations" ...
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"Political misuse of a public database, a collection of stories by Harford Courant staff writer Jon Lender"
Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz exploited an extensive yet recondite database of "36,000 Connecticut citizens" by submitting a FOI request within her office. By using her own staff and a "taxpayer-funded budget," she tracked and documented citizen's "political and personal information" and created the database to boost her aspiration of reaching higher office.
Tags: Susan Bysiewicz; FOI; Richard Blumenthal; campaign; taxpayers; Democrat; state attorney general; governor
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Test Questions: Aspiring teachers in Massachusetts became the butt of jokes when more than half failed a new series of tests. But many educators and assessment experts are wondering if the tests themselves measure up.
This story details and explains the controversy surrounding an exam given to aspiring Massachusetts teachers. When the test was first given, 59 percent of the prospective teachers who took the test failed. Some say the test was unfair, others say it's a great way to select future teachers.
Tags: Massachusetts; teachers; teaching exam; future teachers; prospective teachers; test; teaching license
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A True Test Case for ALJs
While most of the country has become used to lawsuits challenging hirings on the basis of race and religion, Ann Azdell is the lead plaintiff in a different kind of discrimination case. She, and 1,250 other aspiring administrative law judges, are challenging the way in which the government applies its veterans preference policy. They argue the government unreasonably gave veterans the chance to be administrative law judges before them, even though they were more qualified for the position.
Tags: Law; judges; lawsuit; Administrative law
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Dying in darkness, Ugly Results of State Care Revealed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on mental retardation deaths in Georgia. The series documents 163 deaths since late 1997 "when Georgia aggressively transferred people from state institutions to community settings." Many deaths in these privately managed group homes resulted from abuse and neglect. Mentally retarded victims suffocated, choked, drowned in bathtubs, or were dehydrated and malnourished. Deaths were usually reported late, and bodies were rarely autopsied. The stories find that the state has been "ill-equipped to protect the people it moved into these privately-run homes." The findings are based on database analysis of records of people with mental retardation in Georgia, and death certificates.
Tags: Georgia's Open Records Act; FOI requests; wrongful death lawsuits; health care; aspiration pneumonia; mental health
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Responsible Journalism: a practical guide for working and aspiring journalists
This book is a primer for journalists to help them be more responsible and "stay out of trouble." Being a responsible journalist means, in part, taking the audience and those affected by the story into consideration as you report. This practical guide is filled with questions and answers to many tough ethical questions.
Tags: BOOK; responsible journalism; libel; press freedom; interviewing
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The College Connection
Education Week reports on how minority students have taken advantage of their high-schools' partnerships with colleges. A two-story package reveals that the ties between colleges and K-12 schools bring positive influence in the lives of students most of whom are at the same time facing family and economic problems. Most students in these high-schools aspire to get college education, after they graduate. The report features two specific examples of such successful partnerships - between Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem and Ithaca College in upstate New York, and between Syracuse University and High School for Leadership and Public Service in the so-called Spanish Harlem in Manhattan.
Tags: secondary; postsecondary institutions; universities; college-application process; academy; inner-city students; poverty; minorities; low income; teaching; learning
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A Darker Shade of Rose
In 1977, 19-year-old Tommy Gioiosa's life would change forever after meeting major-league slugger Pete Rose at a motel in Tampa, Florida. Over the course of the next 10 years the two would become inseparable as Rose took in the young aspiring baseball player and give him a life outside of "dead-ending" in his home town of New Bedford, Mass. In over 100 hours of interview with Gioiosa, Vanity Fair's Buzz Bissinger dissects the relationship between the two, ending with Rose being banned from baseball and investigated for tax fraud and gambling and Gioiosa being sentenced to five years in prison in 1990. As Bissinger writes, "The relationship between Rose and Gioiosa reveals a tale quintessentially American in all its hues - about the tantalizing power of money and materialism, about hero worship and the false immunity it creates, about the price of loyalty."
Tags: Sports; Major League Baseball; Pete Rose
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Model Prisoner: Was an Aspiring Actress Wrongly Implicated In Murder of TV Host
The Wall Street Journal looks at the circumstances surrounding the apprehension of Paola Durante, a 23-year-old aspiring actress, in Mexico city. Durante has been accused of complicity in the killing of the popular Mexican TV host Francisco "Paco" Stanley. The story reveals that Mexico City police arrested the actress on the basis of an inconsistent description, and points out that politics might be one possible explanation for the prosecutors' persistence with the case against Durante. The reporter finds that "due process of law remains a missing link as Mexico evolves into a democracy."
Tags: Mario Bezares; Paola Durante; Fransisco "Paco" Stanley; Mexican President Vicente Fox; crime; courts; Luis Gabriel Valencia; human rights
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Over and Back
One of former President Clinton's pardon's on his last day of office went to Derrick Curry, an aspiring pro basketball player from Kansas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack in the late 1980s. Curry was playing Division II basketball at Prince George Community College hoping to make the transition to the NBA or the ABA when he got caught up in an investigation of a county-wide drug ring. ESPN the Magazine's Chad Millman looks at how Curry endured the prime years of his basketball career in prison and how he's now trying to teach younger players the lessons he learned early on in life.
Tags: Basketball; crime
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Midnight Run
High school basketball coach Joel Hopkins knew "how to work people, especially young people. The more troubled they are, the more convincing he is." Hopkins talent for luring young players away from their high schools and into his program earned him the name "Coach Midnight." While working out of Durham, N.C., Hopkins would systematically "kidnap" young players from various high schools to join his program, promising them merchandising deals with the likes of Adidas and Nike, and prospects of going to schools like Kentucky or Alabama, or directly into the NBA. Prospects going into Hopkins program come with aspirations of emulating direct-to-NBA player Tracy McGrady, whom Hopkins coached at Durham's Mount Zion Christian Academy. When Hopkins felt he was done with one program he would move on to create another, taking all of his players with him. In this article Bruce Feldman examines the history of "Coach Midnight," and the problems he has left in his wake.
Tags: High School Basketball; sports; Durham; N.C.