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:
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Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog
The Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog column that takes on issues faced by individual Iowans who are at wits’ end and can't get answers from public officials, businesses and the justice system. Watchdog reporter Lee Rood's job is to give voice to readers who present important issues, to investigate all sides of those issues and to seek solutions that eluded others. This is a unique effort that both engages readers and values traditional watchdog reporting. At a time when journalists are seeking to remain relevant, build credibility and engage readers, she has launched this initiative that focuses not on the stories that she thinks are important, but on issues that are critical to our readers. In the past year, she wrote more than 60 columns, digging into watchdog issue brought to her by Iowans. Her work has put a new spotlight on wrongs that needed righting. Her work has led state lawmakers to propose legislation that requires Iowans to call 911 if they are present at the scene of an overdose. She has prodded the state attorney general's office to develop a plan to enforce laws that require companies to have worker's compensation insurance. She has fought through red tape for readers who didn't have someone in their corner to do so. Lee Rood's bold move to launch a new form of watchdog journalism for the Des Moines Register has made Iowans' lives better. Online, this body of work lives at DesMoinesRegister.com/ReadersWatchdog.
Tags: Public officials; businesses; justice system
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Profiting from the Auto-Bailout
September, 2012 the Obama campaign launched television ads blasting Romney’s November 2008 New York Times op-ed, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” In an article for The Nation Magazine, funded by The Nation Investigative Fund we discovered that Ann Romney, personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailout—and a few of Romney’s most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romneys’, were astronomical—more than 3,000 percent on their investment. It all starts with Delphi Automotive, a former General Motors subsidiary whose auto parts remain essential to GM’s production lines. No bailout of GM—or Chrysler, for that matter—could have been successful without saving Delphi. So, in addition to making massive loans to automakers in 2009, the federal government sent, directly or indirectly, more than $12.9 billion to Delphi—and to the hedge funds that had gained control over it. One of the hedge funds profiting from that bailout— $1.28 billion at the time of publication — was Elliott Management, directed by Romney supporter, Paul Singer.
Tags: Bailout; political campaign; Obama; Romney; Paul Singer
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Uncounted Casualties
A three-day series that analyzed causes of death for 266 Texas veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The six-month investigation uncovered previously unknown information, pulling data from a variety of federal, state and local sources. The series, which also depended on extensive interviews with family members and fellow service members, revealed the startling number of Texas veterans dying of prescription drug overdoses, suicides and motor vehicle crashes. The newspaper's analysis was hailed by epidemiologists and former Department of Veterans Affairs researchers as an important step in understanding veteran mortality, and led to calls for better government tracking of how veterans are dying.
Tags: Veterans; Iraq; Afghanistan; prescription drug overdoses; suicides; vehicle crashes
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Solano County: Autopsies and Prosecutions
This was a great experience for me in investigative reporting, it required not only shoe-leather reporting and extensive public records requesting, but it also was an exercise in writing as there were a number of revelations I felt were important that were difficult to line up together in a coherent narrative. In the end, I think it turned out well and further solidified full-time investigative reporting as my future career goal.
Tags: Government; autopsies
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Platts: US Companies Guard Drilling Secrets
Chinese oil and natural gas companies are pouring billions of dollars into US shale-drilling projects in an effort to acquire American trade secrets about hydraulic fracturing and other cutting-edge drilling practices. Chinese companies want to obtain this specialized knowledge from US oil and gas firms so China can better develop its own shale plays. But the Chinese companies are largely failing in their quest because their US partners have structured their business dealings so that China cannot appropriate America's most important drilling-related secrets.
Tags: Oil; natural gas; China; U.S.; drilling
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Hidden Wealth of Azerbaijan President
The President of oil-rich Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has been compared to a Mafia crime boss in US diplomatic cables, and man analysts refer to him as a dictator. OCCRP looked deeper than those labels and found that the Aliyev family has systematically grabbed shares of the most profitable businesses in the country. Investigative reports by OCCRP and Radio Free Europe have revealed and more importantly proven for the first time that the ruling family has secret ownership stakes through offshore companies in the country’s largest businesses, including banks, construction companies, gold mines and phone companies. The government Aliyev runs gave these shares. The family also has secretly amassed high-end property in places like the Czech Republic. The Azeri government responded to the revelations first with silence and now claims that OCCRP is an agent of the rival Armenian government. Aliyev’s administration also failed to investigate the harassment and blackmail of OCCRP and RFE journalist Khadija Ismayilova earlier this year. While Azerbaijan has worked at improving its image worldwide, OCCRP’s reporting makes clear that a petty dictatorship remains in control.
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Returning Home to Battle
While the Obama administration declared care for returning U.S. military personnel to be a top priority, reporter Aaron Glantz found something entirely different when he drilled down in the San Francisco Bay Area – home to more than a quarter-million veterans. In a series of stories for The Bay Citizen, which is part of the Center for Investigative Reporting, Glantz exposed an alarming failure inside the Department of Veterans Affairs, where mistakes and massive delays in processing disability claims for ailing veterans were the norm, sometimes leading to tragic consequences. Glantz was the first to detail this trend, finding that tens of thousands of Northern California veterans had been waiting an average of 313 days for a decision from the Oakland office on compensation claims for conditions as serious as traumatic brain injury. The Oakland regional office ranks fifth in the nation for number of veterans served – nearly 1 million veterans from the Oregon border to Bakersfield. The story was so shocking it prompted 16 members of Congress to demand immediate help for veterans filing through Oakland. More action quickly followed. Glantz had found through his reporting that the problem was not limited to the Bay Area. Next he set out to show it. The decision to dig deeper – to go beyond the local story – helped bring greater context to such a critically important issue. Through rich storytelling and clear writing, Glantz ably captured the plight of our veterans in his series, Returning Home to Battle.
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No. 9: The 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster
The 1968 Farmington Coal Mine Disaster prompted Congress to pass the 1969 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, the first law to set meaningful underground safety standards and fines for violations. Despite the importance of the tragedy, which took the lives of 78 men, neither federal nor the state government determined the cause of the disaster. The state did not produce a final report as was required by West Virginia law, and the federal government did not make public its final, inconclusive report until 1990. This book pieces the story together, documenting the dangerous conditions that plagued the No. 9 from 1935 through the first deadly disaster in 1954 that killed 16 men and up to the 1968 tragedy.
Tags: farmington coal mine; virginia; united states; safety; coal
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Inside Pfizer's Palace Coup
The inside story of the abrupt downfall of the leader of one of the world's largest and most important companies. Named CEO of Pfizer at the age of 51, this man was a brilliant litigator who harbored ambitions to join Barack Obama's cabinet or launch his own political career. Instead, he found himself out a job, the target of a sophisticated palace coup. He departed with a $25 million severance package, even as the company's stock declined 36% under his watch.
Tags: Obama; Pfizer; CEO; Barack Obama
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Inside Track
The Wall Street Journal staff exposed how new ways of insider trading have corrupted the U.S. financial, corporate, and political worlds, having enormous impact in the process. The article shows how well-connected investors managed to gain an advantage by getting early clues to the Federal Reserve's forthcoming policy moves, as well as to important legislation from Washington lawmakers.
Tags: Wall Street; insider trading; washington; lawmaker; federal reserve