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 "clothing" ...
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Merry-Go-Round: Ernst & Young advised the client, but not about everything. It didn't reveal business ties alleged to pose conflict with its consulting job.
Story explains how retailer Merry-Go-Round got into financial trouble, and was then led astray by Ernst & Young. According to the story, "...months went by as they (Ernst & Young) conducted studies, produced financial projections and developed a cost-saving proposal. Far from proposing immediate store closings, Ernst & Young recommended stocking up stores with a wide-ranging variety of fashions in hopes a sales pickup in the next season's back-to-school shopping. It didn't work. The crisis grew worse."
Tags: Ernst & Young; Ernst and Young; accounting; Merry-Go-Round; Merry Go Round; retail; stores; clothing stores; teenage clothing; bankruptcy; law; lawyers; consultants; money; financial loss
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Bad Apples
KTRK-TV investigates public charter schools in Texas. Some of the schools have spent taxpayers' money inappropriately, and have bought diamond jewelry, women's lingerie and men's clothing with public finds, the investigation reveals. Another major finding is that charter schools fail to check the criminal background of the employees they hire. The investigation exposes a convicted killer and a sex offender with school jobs. The reporters interview former principals and teachers who admit on camera to falsifying school attendance records.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Texas Open Records Law; education; FOIA; embezzlement; crime; criminal records; background checks
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Haysville School Superintendent
A KWCH-TV investigation reveals that a local superintendent embezzled thousands of dollars, paying for personal expenses with the school district credit card. While teachers suffered on a tight budget, Dr. Lynn Stevens spent taxpayers' money on expensive dinners, electronics, clothes and perfumes. This went on for years until a high-school student, running for the school board, looked into his spending and tipped the TV station about the embezzlement. Stevens pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service and restitution payments.
Tags: embezzlement; fraud; parents; students; community; education; teachers; casinos; credit card receipts
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Sweat and Tears (Sweatshop series)
A Daily News investigation reveals that "New York City's garment industry routinely violates federal and state wage and hour laws." All major retailers sell clothes made in New York sweatshops by exploiting illegal Chinese immigrants. Garment workers work long hours for seven days a week, and get wages below the minimum of $5.15 per hour. Federal labor officials, as well as a state labor task force, keep "violations secret from retailers to protect brand name reputations and preserve business for local manufacturers and contractors." The investigation examines the price-making principles of the apparel market, and finds that avoiding illegal practices will have to either raise the clothes' prices, or cut the retailers' profits.
Tags: CAR; business; wages; unions; Chinese immigrants; illegal immigration; Federal Trade Commission; FOI requests; exploitation; teen fashions; Jenna LaneRampage; Dollhouse; Periscope; Asian Americans; civil rights violations; INS; OSHA; workplace safety; database mapping project
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Bribery deal on live broadcast
Show TV exposes two government employees, one of them a senior official in the prime minister's office, accepting bribes in a live broadcast. The corrupt officials were filmed by secret cameras as they negotiated with a journalist posing as a businessman anxious to strike a deal. The bribe-takers agreed to help secure state funding for a tourism project in return for payments of more than $140,000, and were arrested by plain-clothes policemen after they promised to help the bogus businessman to get his hands on government funds.
Tags: undercover investigations; hidden cameras; business; money and politics; public servants
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Wreck the Halls
Because of rising enrollment, construction began on two new dorms on the Middle Tennessee State University campus in 1972. At the time MTSU administrators decided to cut the necessary ventilation system from the dorms, saving the university $26,000 at the time. Two years later after the dorms were completed the director of housing and residential life began getting complaints about moisture problems in the dorms, causing books, clothes, and furniture to mildew. Over the next 27 years the problem worsened, with asbestos being discovered in the dorms, and concrete chunks falling from the ceilings. In 1999 MTSU finally evacuated the dorms, but is unable to renovate or destroy the dorms, while housing students continue to pay for the construction cost from 1972.
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Guilty of Being Weird
Spin tells the story of Jason Jansky, a teenager who has been charged with hoax bombing and terrorist threats without much evidence against him. The report reveals that Jansky has been wrongfully pointed a suspect only because he has showed some of the behavioral traits of the shooters at Columbine. The article details the distribution of unfounded rumors and scare stories about the risks posed by the so-called "goths," students who dress in black, and have their hair dyed and fingernails painted. The reporter finds that "the spurious connection between music and clothes and killing" has already been made in people's mind, and this "may drive the weird kids to make the rumors come true."
Tags: police; guns; felony; bombs; terrorism; school shooting; schools; students; teachers; crime; murder; music
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A Prayer for Tina Marie
GQ Magazine reports on Tina Marie Cornelius, "who will serve a lifetime in a Texas prison for the unthinkable crime she committed on the night of April 14, 1999." Cornelius kissed her 3 year-old daughter and 2 year-old son, told them she loved them and then threw them off a limestone ridge into a creek below. "Over the course of the next five days, she was dancing for tips with her clothes off, smoking pot at a reggae festival, dining at a yacht club, snorting speed and sleeping with three different men." Through an interview with Cornelius, the article reveals her rampant lifestyle and reports on the aftermath of killing her children- living out her days as inmate number 905058.
Tags: prison; murder; children; prostitution; sexual abuse; drugs
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Clothes Encounters: Activists and Economists Clash Over Sweatshops
Lingua Franca reports that the student activist groups who protesting sweatshops in developing countries rarely look at the economic aspects of the issues. Featherstone and Henwood write that, "Though the campus debate over sweatshops is concerned with economic issues, economic analysis has barely played any part in the drama, which has been more about morality and public relations." Now, a recently formed group of economists, calling themselves the Academic Consortium on International Trade, is challenging these student groups on the economics of sweatshops. The student groups have been hard pressed to find economists willing to take up their side of the debate.
Tags: sweatshops; World Trade Organization; free trade; Fair Labor Association; United Students Against Sweatshops; Worker Rights Consortium; Academic Consortium on International Trade
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Money Men Liked Boo and Boo Liked Money; Then It All Went Poof
The Journal takes a look at the case of the internet start-up of Boo.com, an online clothing vendor who went bankrupt a few months after receiving millions in investments from such firms as J.P. Morgan.
Tags: Internet; investing; fashion; internet revenue