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 "population" ...
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The Deadliest Place in Mexico
The Juarez Valley, a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande, was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the Juarez cartel moved in to set up a lucrative drug smuggling trade. “The Deadliest Place in Mexico” explores untold aspects of Mexico’s drug war as it has played out in the small farming communities of this valley. The violence began in 2008, when the Sinaloa cartel moved in to take over the Juarez cartel’s turf. The Mexican government sent in the military to quell the violence — but instead the murder rate exploded. While the bloodshed in the nearby City of Juarez attracted widespread media attention, the violence spilling into the rural Juarez Valley received far less, eve as the killings began to escalate in brutal ways. Community advocates, elected officials, even police officers were shot down in the streets. Several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. By 2009, the valley, with a population of 20,000, had a murder rate six times higher than Juarez itself. Newspapers began to call the rural farming region the “Valley of Death.” This investigation uses extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, and difficult-to-obtain interviews in Spanish and English with current and former Juarez Valley residents, Mexican officials, narcotraffickers and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, to reveal that many of these shocking deaths were perpetrated with the participation of Mexican authorities. It shows scenes of devastation — households where six members of a single family were killed, without a single police investigation. It uncovers targeted killings by masked gunmen of community activists and innocent residents for speaking out against violence and repression facilitated by corrupt military and government officials. And it gathers multiple witnesses who describe soldiers themselves, working in league with the Sinaloa cartel, perpetrating violence against civilians. "The cemeteries are all full. There isn't anywhere left to bury the bodies," one former resident said. "You'll find nothing there but ghost towns and soldiers."
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Rural slide
In this three-day series, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (WCIJ) explored rural population losses in three Wisconsin counties — and potential statewide solutions.
Tags: Rural population; losses; solutions
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WSJ China's Troubled Transition
During his years in China, British businessman Neil Heywood cut a rather eccentric figure, cruising around Beijing in a silver Jaguar with “007” license plates and boasting implausibly about his connections to senior Communist Party officials. When he was found dead in a second-rate provincial hotel room in November 2011—of “excessive alcohol consumption,” according to local authorities—he was immediately cremated and seemingly just as quickly forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until Wall Street Journal reporter Jeremy Page began digging into the case. Using his wide network of local and foreign contacts, the Beijing correspondent discovered that this was much more than a sad case of expat overindulgence. It turned out that Mr. Heywood was in fact very close to the wife of Bo Xilai, a Communist Party rising star—and that he had told friends he feared she might do him harm. The investigation lifted the lid on the extravagant, and often lawless, private lives of the country's elite—a forbidden topic for Chinese media, and one rarely touched on by the foreign press. Mr. Page’s reports, devoured by China’s vast population of Internet users, sparked massive public debate and may even have altered the course of China’s once-a-decade leadership transition.
Tags: Bo Xilai; China; Communist Party; death
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Catch and Release
California, using the term "realignment", chose to lessen the overcrowded prison population by paroling what corrections officials said were the least violent offenders on parole. Yet parole officers told KCRA that even sex offenders were now breaking the law - living with kids, near schools, even cutting off their GPS anklets - and facing no time in prison. Our investigation reviewed more than 8,000 parolees and their re-offenses over the last year. We also used internal sources to find that the state was preparing to review nearly ten thousand absconders in order to wipe them off the prison books.
Tags: Prison realignment; parole; sex offenders; parolees
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St. Bernard Voting Fraud
In an effort to preserve the sense of community in St. Bernard, and other similar parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina, the state passed legislation allowing residents to continue to vote at their previous residences, even if they were living outside of the parish during the rebuilding process. Fast forward six years. 2011. The rebuilding of St. Bernard continues, but with a post-Katrina population of 35,000, the parish has a fraction of its former residents. While some property owners have returned, many have moved to St. Tammany Parish. This is where WVUE's investigation begins. The investigative team received a tip that a St. Bernard Sheriff's Department employee lived in St. Tammany Parish, but was still voting in St. Bernard. This tip came right after the primary in St. Bernard's critical fall elections. The WVUE-TV team requested all voting records for the election, and found out that the deputy was the tip of the iceberg; illegal voting was widespread.
Tags: broadcast; voter fraud; Hurricane Katrina
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Failure to Aid
Over the last year, I spent a lot of time researching and reporting on stories pertaining to the mental health treatment of people in prison. More specifically, I have successfully fought to gain access to public records in order to tell the story of Tony Lester. Tony was a young man who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He committed an assault and was sentenced to serve time at the Arizona State Prison in Tucson. Tragically, Tony committed suicide while in prison. Staff in the prison failed to render aid when they discovered him in his cell bleeding. My investigation not only revealed that he was improperly placed in with the general population against a judge's order and a court-ordered psychiatrist order...but he was also mistakenly given razors as part of a hygiene kit.
Tags: prison; paranoid schizophrenia; suicide; mental health
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Help Wanted
The series explored work opportunities for those in one of the state's most vulnerable populations. It explained a little-known federal law that allows workers with disabilities to earn than less than minimum wage and took readers inside sheltered workshops where more than 80 percent of workers earn less than half of the minimum wage.
Tags: minimum wage; sheltered workers
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Methadone and the Politics of Pain
The Seattle Times has found that since 2003, at least 2,173 people in Washington have fatally overdosed on methadone, a narcotic that is both cheap and unpredictable. More so, Medicaid recipients account for about 8% of Washington's adult population but 48% of the methadone deaths.
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"Arrested Developments: Crime Streets of Athens"
The staff of The Red & Black spent several months collecting and compiling crime documents from law enforcement departments throughout Athens, Ga. The student reporters wanted to find and report current information on the "most crime-ridden residential streets in Athens-Clarke County," which is where the University of Georgia is located. The UGA population (students, faculty and staff) makes up a "big chunk" of Athens. The Red & Black takes a look at crime in the area to see whether or not the higher crime areas have an affect on those who "attend and work" at the university.
Tags: UGA; University of Georgia; Athens; Athens-Clarke County; Athens Housing Authority
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Poisoned
“Africa’s lions are in trouble” and the reason why was because they are being poisoned. The lions are found outside protected game reserves, where they mingle with cattle. The lions kill the cattle and eat them; the cattle are a large percent of revenue for the population and puts food on the table. As a solution, cattle herders have begun using pesticides to kill the lions and protect their cattle.
Tags: Kenya; meat; market; Furadan; animals; protection; rights; wildlife; conservationists; creature