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 "presidential races" ...
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Shades of Mercy: Presidential Pardons
Reporters obtained exclusive access to thousands of internal documents and conducted scores of interviews with pardon applicants, Justice Department, and top legal advisers to every president since Ronald Reagan. What the documents showed were repeated instances in which white applicants with serious criminal records received pardons, while minority applicants who committed lesser crimes were rejected.
Tags: presidential pardons; justice department; pardon; race; discrimination
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Presidential Pardons: Shades of Mercy
The investigation exposed a system in which race, privledge and bureaucracy combine to frustrate justice. The story takes the reader inside the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney where a small group of career prosecutors choose whom the president will consider for a pardon.
Tags: Justice Department; prosectors; pardon
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The Numbers Guy
"Polls Foresaw Future, Which Looks Tough for Polling" came out two days after the 2008 Presidential Election, and examined the pollsters surveying the race state-by-state. Analysis did a good job of projecting Obama's victory. "Price Drop: Stocks, Homes, Now Triple-Word Scores" examined how point values in games can be skewed when rules change.
Tags: surveys; polling; statistics; The Numbers Guy;
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Secret Money Project
The Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio launched the "Secret Money Project" as a joint initiative to track the hidden money in the election season. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisements hurt Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign. In the 2008 presidential campaign, independent groups also did everything possible -- sometimes well under the radar -- to influence the election. Independent groups raised and spent tens of millions of dollars, unleashing attack ads, robocalls and direct mail across the country. Although NPR is best known as a radio network, the primary venue for the Secret MOney Project was npr.org. The project Web site featured a blog of breaking news and analysis. It serves as a searchable database of independent groups and attack ads, which provided a real-time public resource during the election and will continue to be a research tool that can shed light on future political races.
Tags: campaign finance; attack advertisements; new media; political reporting; Senate races; presidential races
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Huckabee, Morris Keep Lines Open
Politico reporter Jonathan Martin revealed that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had received private consultation from Bill Clinton’s strategist Dick Morris.
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Politifact.com
Politifact is a fact-checking website that focuses on the statements of the 2008 Presidential candidates, and rates the truth of each fact stated by the candidates. Statements are rated via the "Truth-O-Meter," a scale that used terms such as Pants on Fire, or Mostly True to verify what is being said. The St. Petersburg Times analyzes in further detail the truth of said facts that Politifact rates.
Tags: Lie detector; Mitt Romney; Hillary Clinton; 2008 Presidential Race; Rudy Giuliani; Barack Obama; Mike Huckabee
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Campaign Consultants: The Price of Democracy
A look at the 2003-04 presidential and congressional races reveals the major campaign consultants, "the hired guns who determine how negative, loud and expensive they will be." The investigation found that $1.85 billion went through 600 professional consultants, "more than half of the total spending by presidential candidates, national party committees, general election candidates for Congress and so-called "527" independent political groups."
Tags: Campaigns; consultants; professional campaign consultants
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Will Your Vote Count?
WISH-TV took a look into voting technology changes since the closely contested presidential race of 2000. In 2002, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act, which, among other things, mandates updating voting equipment by 2006. The federally-funded mandate puts billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of a handful of companies that manufacture complicatd technology that few state and local election officials understand. Local election officials today are not so happy with the equipment or their vendors. And they're concerned about the integrity of future elections.
Tags: butterfly ballot; hanging chad; voting technology; Help America Vote Act; electronic voting systems
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Karl Rove in a Corner
This story, written shortly before the 2004 presidential election, is an in-depth look at Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove. It examines his early successes, including a very close judicial race in Alabama, and notes patterns in the way he runs campaigns. That article shows how his experiences working in Texas affected the rest of his career. The purpose of the article was to "try and give Atlantic readers a deeper insight into arguably the most important political strategist in a generation..."
Tags: political campaigns; George Bush; Federal Election Commission; Perry O. Hooper
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The Buying of the Bench
In the thirty-nine states that elect judges at some level, the cost of judicial races is rising at least as fast as that of either Congressional races or presidential campaigns, as candidates for the bench pay for sophisticated ads, polls and consultants.
Tags: Judges; elections; campaign; state courts; campaign contributions