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 "continuous coverage" ...
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Bad to the Bone
When four executives of a medical-device company called Synthes went to jail for illegally marketing a bone cement—five patients had died after it was injected into their spines—Mina Kimes knew there had to be a compelling saga behind a case that had generated little coverage beyond local news articles. So she began digging, first with FOIA requests for never-before-published government documents, and then assembling hundreds of pages of court transcripts and internal company e-mails and reports. She used that foundation to begin the harder challenge: persuading Synthes employees, many of them terrified by the criminal case and the company’s intimidating chairman, to talk to her. With six months of grueling, old-fashioned reporting, Kimes succeeded, and “Bad to the Bone” is the masterful result. Not only did she persuade more than 20 current and former company employees to speak, but she also revealed a story whose disturbing breadth far exceeded the case presented in court. Her tour de force reporting raises profound new questions about the culpability of a key figure who wasn’t charged: Hansjörg Wyss, the reclusive and controlling Swiss founder and chairman—one of the richest people in the world—who made crucial decisions about how to sell the bone cement. This is a classic tale of corporate malfeasance: Warned by the government not to sell its bone cement for use in the spine, Synthes ignored the admonition despite clear evidence of lethal danger—a pig had died within seconds when the cement was tested on it—and encouraged surgeons to use the cement on people, five of whom died soon afterward. But “Bad to the Bone” isn’t just an exposé. It opens a window into a broader issue: how the medical system actually runs. Readers see how salespeople with no medical training advise surgeons—inside the OR during operations—on how to use their devices. They experience the tale of one surgeon who continues using the cement even after two of his patients died. Oh, and what sort of justice does Synthes itself receive? Wyss sells it, for $20 billion, to health care giant Johnson & Johnson, which praises Synthes’s “culture” and “values.” Corporate crime. Death on the operating room table. Secret e-mails. Surgeons on the edge. An imperious multibillionaire CEO. It’s a mesmerizing article, and Kimes’s reporting takes readers on a deeply unsettling journey that ensures they’ll never look at the medical system the same way again.
Tags: Medical devices; bone cement; Synthes
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Big Money 2012
Big Money 2012 is an unprecedented multi-platform project to investigate campaign finance in the post-Citizens United era. Spanning television documentary, radio and online news outlets, this initiative draws on the award-winning talents of some of the best in the industry to dig deep into a story that goes to the foundations of our democracy. FRONTLINE’s pre-election TV broadcast of Big Sky, Big Money in partnership with American Public Media’s Marketplace formed the center of this multiplatform investigation, Big Money 2012, which continued on the radio and on the web. Further coverage of this timely story also continued online as part of ProPublica’s Dark Money series featuring reporting by ProPublica investigative reporter Kim Barker with Rick Young and Emma Schwartz reporting for FRONTLINE. Big Money 2012 tells a tale of money, politics, and intrigue in the remote epicenter of campaign finance, Montana. The investigation led the teams from big sky country—to a meth house in Colorado and to a UPS store in D.C. as they followed a trail of documents. What they find exposes the inner-workings of a dark money group. In all, it’s a unique collaboration a year in the making, which has led to robust journalism with real impact. And, the story is still unfolding.
Tags: campaign finance; politics; politicians
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Campaign Season :The Race for Governor 2010
The "documentary on the fly" series provided an inside look at the 2010 gubernatorial contests in New York. The continuous coverage showed what the campaign meant for New York's future.
Tags: election; New York; gubernatorial; politics; campaign; documentary
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Watchdog website and its web pages
The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com started this project in 2008 with the Right to Know page, a collection of databases developed internally to go along with stories and links to relevant public information. That site became part of the Watchdog page in 2009. In 2010, the staff continued to evolve the Watchdog page with "mini-sites" of investigative topics, such as a political corruption case at the Oklahoma Legislature; the staff's FOI fight over the birth dates of public employees; and allegations of bid-rigging with a married lawmaker and lobbyist for a private company seeking a state juvenile justice contract. Other "mini-sites" under Watchdog include ongoing coverage of the state Department of Human Services and the federal stimulus package.
Tags: continuous coverage; online; watchdog; bid-rigging; Department of Human Services; federal stimulus; FOI; Right to Know
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Oil Spill
The New York Times' continuing coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill documents the vulnerabilities, weaknesses, loopholes, and oversight that led the disaster.
Tags: Gulf Oil Spill; oil spill; BP; Transocean; oil rig
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Scott Rothstein coverage by Bob Norman
Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein over the past few years began amassing fortunes, sweeping the political scene, and donating large sums to charities. New Times reporter Bob Norman broke the story on Rothstein's rise to affluence which was funded by a $1 billion Ponzi scheme. Norman was the first journalist to question Rothstein's legitimacy, and his continued coverage of the Rothstein case broke additional developments. Two months later Rothstein fled to Morocco on a private jet.
Tags: Fort Lauderdale; attorney; Scott Rothstein; fortune; power; charity; Morocco; Bob Norman; scheme; fraud; Ponzi; New Times;
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Home Health Hustler
This investigation exposed a woman using multiple identities to set up and operate fraudulent home health care businesses and bill the government. Their investigation found Irene Anderson, also known as Iya Edwards, was in the country illegally and ordered deported nearly twenty years previous, yet she was able to establish numerous home health care agencies and collect millions of dollars in government money. She received Medicare payments for patients who would not typically qualify for home care coverage and for patients who received no home health care at all. This story exposed lapses in federal healthcare and legal systems as well as in the state regulatory system home health care providers. The news team found several ex-employees who had reported fraud and abuse to the state, but nothing had been done. In fact, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services claimed it conducted an investigation and found nothing, clearing the way for Anderson to continue to fraudulently bill the federal government. The investigation triggered an arrest, a federal raid, criminal charges, repayment of millions of tax dollars and promises of legislative change.
Tags: Texas; home health care; fraud; Medicare fraud; public records
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Blackwater
Continuing the coverage of Blackwater, a private military company, from 2006, the Pilot exposed "several unresolved issues surrounding the unprecedented privatization of warfare that has become a hallmark of the wards in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Tags: private military company; Blackwater; privatization of warfare; wrongful death lawsuits; shooting deaths; privatized warfare
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LNG Controversy Dogs Every Step of the Policy Process
Reporting for the Malibu Times at first, Hans Laetz looks into Australian Energy Conglomerate BHP Billiton's plans to "build a liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal floating off the local coast." But after two months, Laetz was removed from coverage by the Times amid criticism, possibly due to the fact BHP Billiton was an advertising client of the Times. He then was picked up by the Malibu Surfside News, and continued to tell a tale of the various aspects of the deal: how BHP got a smog waiver after White House officials overruled local Environmental Protection Agency officials, the safety and pollution risks of the project; citizens' letters supporting the project to the government, which turned out mostly to be fake; and the opposition of state and federal parks officials to the project.
Tags: BHP Billiton; liquified natural gas; Hans Laetz; environmental issues; Environmental Protection Agency; paddleout protest
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Police Torture in Chicago
A police torture ring existed in Chicago for many years after a 16-year period of ongoing coverage in the Chicago Reader. It turns out that Cook County state's authority, along with mayor Richard M. Daley, allowed the ring to continue for decades.