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 "beat reporting" ...
-
Voter Patrol
The NEWS4 I-Team dug through more than 600 phone and email tips to break three major election stories before, during and immediately after the presidential election. About two weeks before the election, we asked viewers to tell us when they saw problems when they voted. The response was immediate. Our two-man team went through every tip and beat out the AP, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and other local stations on the biggest election stories in our area. Our first story revealed absentee ballots sent out in Maryland were missing their second page, which contained the most contested ballot initiatives including legalized gambling, same-sex marriage and the DREAM Act. This story was picked up across the nation and led to statements made by the Maryland Governor and the various interest groups involved in the ballot issues.
Tags: Elections; presidential elections; votes; presidential reporting; ballot issues
-
Deaf and Tased
A deaf crime victim calls police for help, but instead gets tased, beat-up, and thrown in jail for 60 hours over Easter weekend without access to an interpreter. KIRO 7’s investigative team proves police manipulated their reports to defend their actions. We also uncovered jail guards offered the deaf inmate a broken TTY phone as her only means of communication. We found that device still broken and in service two months later.
-
Sun Sentinel: Speeding Cops
A Miami cop in his marked patrol car set off a public fury in the fall of 2011 when a Florida state trooper clocked him going 120 mph to an off-duty job. Turning to technology and a never-before used tool – highway toll records – the Sun Sentinel produced back-to-back investigations documenting widespread police misconduct and the professional solidarity that allowed it to flourish. In "Above the Law," a three-part series published in February, reporters used police toll records to confirm what many South Florida drivers had witnessed for years: cops were among the worst speeders on the roads, taking advantage of the badge and patrol car to ignore the very laws they enforce. "Short Shifted," a two-part series published in December, used those same toll records to detail how many South Florida cops, paid to serve and protect, were regularly leaving their beats and cities before their shifts ended.
Tags: Police; police speeders
-
Fallen Angel: Joe Gustafson lives above the law in North Minneapolis
Using public documents, confidential sources and internal information from law enforcement, the reporter told the secret history of one of North Minneapolis' organized crime rings.
Tags: Hell's Angel; bondsman; Big Joe; Little Joe; Beat-Down Posse; kidnapping; drug ring
-
Judge Darrell Russell, Jr.
The reporter uncovered a decision by a Baltimore County judge to marry a man accused of beating his fiance.
Tags: Judge Darrell Russell, Jr.; judge; court; decision; physical abuse
-
Victims of Silence
The story reviews dating violence in Florida, as well as the beating of Rihanna by boyfriend Chris Brown. This revealed a number of issues, including “lack of prevention programs, the impact this news had, and that dating violence is under the domestic violence law only to ask for injunction and protection orders”. Further, dating violence isn’t considered a crime and many times is underreported after a physical attack.
Tags: abuse; relationships; physical; police reports; law enforcement; beating; Council and National Crime Forum; emotional violence; sexual violence; law
-
I Lit the Fire: Jared Petrovich Admits His Role in the Killing of John Chamberlain. But why did he target the gay?
These four articles probed the culture of violence at tTheo Lacy Men's Jail in Orange, CA, beginning with an exclusive interview of Jared Petrovich, the accuse ringleader of the Oct. 5, 2006 murder of John Chamberlain, an inmate suspected of child molestation who was brutally beated inside the jail. That story included combined interviews with Petrovich and other inmates and guards at the facility with transcripts and notes of interviews with inmates and guards that the reporter obtained from lawyers representing inmates, including Petrovich, who were charged in the attack. The article contained allegations that Deputy Kevin Taylor, a prison guard who was never charged in the crime, told Petrovich that Chamberlain was a child molester, and that Taylor routinely use inmates like Petrovich to enforce prison rules and mete out punishment to various inmates. Petrovich provided an example of this behavior that I did not include in my original story, alleging that Taylor had known about--and approved--a previous beating of an inmate in Sept. 2006. He only knew the inmate's first name--Mark--but claimed the inmate had been a guitarist for the rock band Kiss. He claimed another inmate, nicknamed "Sick Dog" had witnessed Taylor being informed of the planned attack and, after it was carried out, rewarding the inmates with sack lunches. Through a California Public Records Act request, the reporter obtained the Sheriff Department's jail file on the beaten inmate, Mark Leslie Norton, aka Mark St. John of the rock band Kiss, and found information which corroborated Petrovich's account of the incident, and obtained his death certificate. St. John died of a brain hemorrhage several months after being released.
Tags: prison beatings; rock band Kiss; California; prisoner brutality; bribe; prison regulation
-
Undue Force in Seaside Park
"A band of night-shift cops known as the "Justice League" would kick, beat, abuse and sometimes cripple handcuffed prisoners for little or no reason. Internal reports of abuse were ignored by the mayor and chief of police, even when they came from a dispatcher who witnessed the abuses. The officer that headed the Justice League is from a highly regarded family of judges, lawyers and real estate moguls, who became untouchable in the small town."
Tags: police brutality; Justice League; night-shift cops; prisoner abuse
-
"Shorting Cramer" and "Financial Journalsim with R"
This series examines the investment recommendations by Jim Cramer, celebrity analyst and host of CNBC's show "Mad Money." The reporters tested more than 4,000 of Cramer's recommendations from the past 2 years; the investigation found that Cramer's recommendations did not beat the market at all. In fact, viewers would actually do better by betting against Cramer's recommendations. "Financial Journalism with R" is a continuation of the story, explaining data munging and analysis in the refereed statistical computing publication R News.
Tags: Philip Meyer Award; stocks; stock market; stock picks; investment; index funds; R statistics; event study
-
Fault Found in Scoring of Ohio Schools
"The success of nearly 40 Ohio schools - mostly charters- is inflated by a hidden default in how the state measures them. An analysis by The Repository found that some 30 charter schools and five public schools in Ohio got the state's third-highest designation - 'continuous improvement' - not because of student achievement but because of the state's measure, adapted from federal guidelines, of 'adequate yearly progress.'"
Tags: education; school; standardized tests; state politics; beat reporting; assessment; students; teachers