Resource Center

Stories

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 "propaganda" ...

  • Message Machine

    The series explained the Pentagon's campaign to use retired officers that work as military analysts for major networks to act as an extension on President Bush's wartime public relations machine.

    Tags: propaganda; analysis; radio;

    By David Barstow

    New York Times

    2008

  • From Russia with Hate

    Putzel traveled to Russia to "find the source of the viral videos" online that come from Russian neo-Nazis. In Russia immigrants are often attacked, and these videos posted on the Internet were being used to spread propaganda. While there, Putzel also went to a camp where Russian neo-Nazis "train for an anticipated uprising."

    Tags: Russia; immigrants; neo-Nazi; skinheads; training camps; Internet; viral videos; videos

    By Christof Putzel; Lauren Cerre; Mike Shen

    Current TV

    2007

  • Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back

    A sister and brother reporting team examine the history of deception and use of propaganda by the U.S. Government and "major corporate media outlets". "We also investigate violations of civil liberties, and international law, and interview people intimately involved in or affected by torture, the Iraq War, and the crackdown on political dissent. We conclude by interviewing creative resisters, both in the media, the military, the government and civil society."

    Tags: www.democracynow.org; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; FAIR; Abu Ghraib; torture; CIA; President Geaorge W. Bush; New York Times; Washington Post; FEMA; dissent; propaganda; Eduardo Galeano; Cindy Crawford; Coleen Rowley; Arundhati Roy; Amira Hass; Mukhtar Mai; Robert Fisk; Allister Sparks; Alice Walker; Stephen Colbert; truthiness; Tony Lagouranis

    By Amy Goodman; David Goodman

    Hyperion Books (New York)

    2006

  • Federal Government Propaganda

    The series began with the breaking news that the Bush administration paid pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 to endorse its "No Child Left Behind" education law. The authors extended their investigation to look at how the government spends millions of dollars in taxpayer money to secretly sell America on a few of its most controversial policies.

    Tags: Federal government; handouts; No Child Left Behind; education; FOIA; propaganda; Education Department

    By Greg Toppo;Jim Drinkard;Mark Memmott;Matt Kelley

    USA Today (McLean, Va.)

    2005

  • A call for "Holy War"

    Since 1991, an Arabic magazine called "Assarat Al Mustaqeem" started publishing in Pittsburgh, distributing over 2,000 copies in the United States and some all over the world. The reporters uncovered ties between the magazine and other influential radical Muslim groups, and discovered the magazine to contain militant articles, advocating jihad and the killing of Jews.

    Tags: jihad; terrorism; propaganda; militant Muslim; Islam

    By Betsy Hiel;Chuck Plunkett;Jr.

    Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh, PA)

    2002

  • FBI Files

    CBS News reports on a little known decade-long surveillance operation designed to spy on American citizens. FBI started the operation in the late 1970s under the Reagan's administration. It was conceived as an anti-Soviet initiative to limit the communist propaganda in the United States but eventually turned into a widespread domestic spying, CBS reports. Surprisingly, central to the program was then-undercover Soviet spy Robert Hanssen.

    Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; FOI requests; intelligence; unclassified records; Soviet Union; cold war

    By Jim Murphy;Dan Rather;George Osterkamp

    CBS News

    2002

  • Hollywood Wars

    Brill's Content looks at "the history of a Hollywood-Pentagon alliance that can often blur the line between entertainment and propaganda." The investigation is based on hundreds of pages of military documents that have made "the nature and scope of the Pentagon's dealings with Hollywood filmmakers ... suddenly more vivid." The article reveals that "filmmamkers who want their movies about the military to look real seek assistance from the Pentagon, but the military imprimatur comes with a price." Filmmakers can get "nearly cost-free access to the military's equipment", if they implement changes to the script "to ensure ... that the military is presented accurately and in positive light." The story includes a list of well-known movies that either exemplify the military's influence, or have been disapproved by the Pentagon. The author points to the CIA as another government organization that tries to influence filmmakers.

    Tags: movies; film industry; Armed Forces; Pentagon; CIA; screenplay; screenwriters; producers; Apocalypse now; Catch-22; Independence Day; Forrest Gump; Goldeneye; Born on the Fourth of July; Armageddon

    By David Robb

    Brill's Content

    2001

  • Spin Cycle; Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine

    Spin Cycle reveals the inside workings of Clinton's well-oiled propaganda machine, arguably the most successful team of White House spin doctors in history. The author takes the reader into closed-door meetings where Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Mike McCurry, Lanny Davis, and other top officials plot strategy to manage the media.

    Tags: BOOK; president; politics

    By Howard Kurtz

    Free Press (New York)

    1998

  • No title (id: 14001)

    Emerge magazine investigates new conservative and libertarian think tanks which call themselves civil rights groups, but in reality, are closer to anit-civil-rights groups. With names like Institute for Justice, Campaign for a Color-Blind America, Landmark Legal Foundation or Center for New Black Leadership, the think tanks pose as champions of minority rights, but fight against job "quotas" or minority districting in an effort to correct reverse discrimination. (Sept. 1996)

    Tags: Holmes Propaganda Machine Racism Equal rights Right-wing 5 pgs.

    By None

    Emerge Magazine

    1996

  • No title (id: 10905)

    "Shattered Image: Is The Body Shop Too Good to Be True?" exposed the arrogance and hypocrisy of the company widely regarded as the model, socially responsible business. The founder of the Body Shop cosmetic company, Anita Roddick, has been praised as the icon of progressive business and a feminist role model. Roddick has been featured in hundreds of newspapers and magazines and has been given dozens of awards for her supposedly progressive business practices. This investigation broke through the veil of company propaganda to tell the remarkable story of a myth built on fabrications and exaggerations and sustained by libel threats and the cult-like blindness of a public desperate for heroes. The article suggests a troubling thesis: green consumerism is baby boom agitprop propagated by and for a generation filled with illusion of its own moral destiny - and eager to make money. The misleading hype surrounding "cause related marketing" appears so broad and calculated, and has required the silent complicity of so many social activists, fair trade groups, environmentalists, and progressive business leaders as to raise doubts about the ethics of the entire movement for social responsibility. (September 1, 1994)

    Tags: Entine Shattered image: is the body shop too good to be true

    By None

    Business Ethics

    1994