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 "control groups" ...
-
Benghazi: US Consulate Attack
On September 11, when a militant group overran the US consulate in Benghazi resulting in the death of the ambassador, the initial information was contradictory. Much of it got mixed up with other reports out of the Middle East about anti-American demonstrations over an inflammatory film on the Internet that was said to insult Islam. Damon arrived quickly in Benghazi to sort out the conflicting information and went to the burnt consulate ruins, which, though looted, held valuable clues to the truth. Her reporting revealed that there was not a demonstration and that it appeared to have been a planned attack that unfolded simultaneously from three sides. She discovered that U.S. diplomats had been warned by Libyan officials three days before the attack that the security situation in the city was out of their control. Though her reporting received harsh public criticism from the State Department at the time, the U.S. government’s own investigation later proved her reporting to be accurate in an episode that continues to reverberate politically. Damon also spoke to Libyans that tried to save the ambassador that night, shedding light on what happened to him during his final hours. While she was in Benghazi, demonstrations erupted against the militia believed to be responsible for the attack, and Damon further reported on the rise in extremism in the newly-liberated country. Her reporting provided additional valuable context about the milieu in which the consulate attack occurred.
Tags: Middle East; Libya; U.S. ambassador; Benghazi; militant group
-
"Greed v. Guardianship"
This investigation reveals serious flaws in the Maricopa County Probate Court. Families have complained of being "violated" by their court appointed guardian, which was most often the Sun Valley Group. Families accused SVG of taking control of their finances, selling anything of value and keeping the money. Some were even kept from visiting sick loved ones who had been placed in care facilities.
Tags: Sun Valley Group; probate court; Maricopa County; Arizona Supreme Court; public records; court documents; guardianship
-
3-part Corporate Espionage Series
Between Aptil and August 2008, Mother Jones published an exclusive three-part investigation into corporate espionage on its Web site, MotherJones.com. The groundbreaking series exposed a private security company that spied on activist groups, and it also blew the cover on a mole for the gun lobby who spent more than a decade infiltrating the highest ranks of the gun-control movement.
Tags: gun control; lobbyists; Beckett Brown International; gun control; Mary Lou Sapone
-
Tobacco Underground: The Booming Global Trade in Smuggled Cigarettes
"Tobacco Underground" is groundbreaking series on the global trade in smuggled cigarettes, produced by a team of 14 journalists based in 10 countries. The illicit trafficking of tobacco is a multibillion-dollar business today, fueling organized crime and corruption, robbing governments of needed tax money, and spurring addiction to a deadly product. So profitable is the trade that tobacco is the world's most widely smuggled legal substance. In an interactive, multimedia Web site, ICIJ published a series of nine stories, integrated with undercover footage; audio and video interviews with experts, smugglers and undercover agents; maps and charts; and extensive links to resources ranging from tobacco control groups to repositories of tobacco industry documents.
Tags: tobacco; smuggling; new media; international journalism; cigarette; tobacco
-
On Offense. As democrats learn art of skewering foe, Dan Carol is there. He digs up facts to wield when race gets rough, as this one just might. A list of 'generic attacks'
According to the article, "Mr. Carol isn't appearing in prime time at the Democratic convention. He isn't an employee of the Gore campaign or the Democratic National Committee. But as a consultant to the DNC, Democratic congressional campaigns and allied groups, he is part of a cadre of political warriors whose mastery of Information Age weapons is vital to Democrats' push to elect Al Gore and win control of Congress. Using television attack ads, internet sites, satellite interviews to targeted broadcast markets and blast fax and e-mail messages, they will seek to shred Mr. Bush's gauzy slogans by providing documentation that his Texas record and campaign proposals aren't 'compassionate' at all."
Tags: Al Gore; George Bush; politics; election; democrats; republicans; political attacks; consultant; Dan Carol; internet; campaigns; conventions
-
The Puppeteer
Intelligence Report investigates the U.S. anti-immigration movement and related racist groups. The surprise finding: what looks like a grassroots, popular undertaking is actually controlled by one person, a Montana ophthalmologist named John Tanton. The movement is mostly funded by his creation, the nonprofit organization U.S., Inc. The reporters have discovered most of the links within the hate movement by analyzing 990 tax forms.
Tags: nonprofits; business; immigrants; immigration; racism; lobbying; Congress; violence; human rights
-
A House Divided; The War Within
Beirich and Potok report on the takeover of the Sons of Confederate Veterans by extremist hate groups directed by "a white supremacist lawyer and long-time radical right activist named Kirk Lyons." As a group of extremists has taken control of the board of the "heritage organization" with more than 30,000 members nationwide, the stories warn that some might abandon SCV.
Tags: racism; Civil War; discrimination; Confederate battle flag; minorities; African-Americans; soldiers
-
Seeking Salvation
KSTP-TV investigative reporter Robb Leer uncovered a history of death, mind control and child abuse surrounding one man and his cult in eastern Wisconsin. Rama Behera, a religious leader who got his start in small bible groups in the 1970s, has been leading a cult in the small town of Shawano for more than 20 years. Only now have former followers of the cult began to speak up about how Behera enticed them to join the cult, and how his control over them left them helpless to the child abuses around them.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; cults; religion; Wisconsin
-
River Barons
The Times-Picayune discovers that state-commissioned pilots who navigate the Mississippi River are "letting inexperienced relatives and drug abusers take control of huge oceangoing ships on the most treacherous commercial waterway in North America." The stories examine the dangers involved in allowing river pilots, who are considered state officials, to elect and regulate the members of their three pilot groups that operate the Mississippi. The major findings are that 85% of the new pilots are related to existing members, and that those involved in accidents are rarely, if ever, disciplined. "Efforts to overhaul pilot legislation have routinely failed in the face of aggressive lobbying by river pilots, one of the state's most generous and powerful special interest groups," the Times-Picayne reports.
Tags: transportation; rivers; maritime industry; money and politics; regulation; lobbying; FOI requests; Louisiana Public Service Commission
-
Painting over Danger: How the government fails to protect children from lead poisoning
A Post-Standard investigation reveals that in Syracuse, at least 48 children since 1995 were poisoned by lead in homes that government inspectors previously had declared safe. "In each case, a child has been poisoned earlier in the home, the landlord made repairs, the county declared the property safe, tenants returned and second child was poisoned," Perez reports. Small children and pregnant women are the two risk groups most vulnerable to lead poisoning.
Tags: safety; FOI requests; Onondaga county; housing; HUD; landlords; property records; EPA; environment; Center for Disease Control; construction; CAR; database mapping project