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 "publishers" ...
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The Dalí Sculpture Mess
The story describes the burgeoning industry in posthumous sculptures attributed to Salvador Dalí and the continuing difficulties experienced by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Spain, which has responsibility for managing Dalí’s estate and legacy, in slowing the spread of these questionable works. The sculptures are often bought and sold as original works by the artist. The story demonstrates that, in fact, most of the sculptures were authorized by Dalí’s wife and business managers, either posthumously or when the artist and his wife were old and infirm, and continue to be produced long after the artist’s death, in 1989. Dalí had little or no direct involvement in the creation of many of them. The story also demonstrates that new, apparently fake versions of the sculptures continue to appear, some of them openly marketed by a Chinese foundry that has no license to make the sculptures. The story updates an investigation published in ARTnews in December 2008 that for the first time described the Dalí sculpture industry and identified the producers of the sculptures.
Tags: Sculptures; Salvador Dali; estate
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Fishy Business
Boston Globe reporters Jenn Abelson and Beth Daley captured the attention of consumers across the nation with their 2011 “Fishy Business” series, which revealed widespread mislabeling of seafood at restaurants. DNA testing commissioned by the Globe showed diners frequently – and unwittingly -- overpaid for less desirable species. In 2012, the Globe produced two more “Fishy Business” installments to expand and follow up on the initial investigation. First, Abelson spent several months examining how fish processors add water to seafood to increase profits. The Globe hired an independent lab to conduct an analysis of 43 fish samples collected from supermarkets across Massachusetts. The results, presented in a multimedia package in September 2012, showed consumers often pay for excess water when they buy scallops and frozen fish. About 1 in 5 of the samples weighed less than what was stated on packages. The testing also showed 66 percent of the fish from one supplier had too much ice. The Globe also wanted to verify restaurants and wholesalers had changed their ways following the newspaper’s 2011 investigation and resulting calls for reform. Daley and Abelson returned to 58 restaurants that served the wrong fish in 2011 to collect new samples. DNA tests showed 76 percent did not match what restaurants advertised on their menus. The resulting third installment of “Fishy Business,” published in December 2012, detailed these findings. In addition, Abelson and Daley explained how accountability is lost in the fish supply chain by investigating a major wholesaler that provided mislabeled fish to some of the region’s best-known restaurants.
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Bad to the Bone
When four executives of a medical-device company called Synthes went to jail for illegally marketing a bone cement—five patients had died after it was injected into their spines—Mina Kimes knew there had to be a compelling saga behind a case that had generated little coverage beyond local news articles. So she began digging, first with FOIA requests for never-before-published government documents, and then assembling hundreds of pages of court transcripts and internal company e-mails and reports. She used that foundation to begin the harder challenge: persuading Synthes employees, many of them terrified by the criminal case and the company’s intimidating chairman, to talk to her. With six months of grueling, old-fashioned reporting, Kimes succeeded, and “Bad to the Bone” is the masterful result. Not only did she persuade more than 20 current and former company employees to speak, but she also revealed a story whose disturbing breadth far exceeded the case presented in court. Her tour de force reporting raises profound new questions about the culpability of a key figure who wasn’t charged: Hansjörg Wyss, the reclusive and controlling Swiss founder and chairman—one of the richest people in the world—who made crucial decisions about how to sell the bone cement. This is a classic tale of corporate malfeasance: Warned by the government not to sell its bone cement for use in the spine, Synthes ignored the admonition despite clear evidence of lethal danger—a pig had died within seconds when the cement was tested on it—and encouraged surgeons to use the cement on people, five of whom died soon afterward. But “Bad to the Bone” isn’t just an exposé. It opens a window into a broader issue: how the medical system actually runs. Readers see how salespeople with no medical training advise surgeons—inside the OR during operations—on how to use their devices. They experience the tale of one surgeon who continues using the cement even after two of his patients died. Oh, and what sort of justice does Synthes itself receive? Wyss sells it, for $20 billion, to health care giant Johnson & Johnson, which praises Synthes’s “culture” and “values.” Corporate crime. Death on the operating room table. Secret e-mails. Surgeons on the edge. An imperious multibillionaire CEO. It’s a mesmerizing article, and Kimes’s reporting takes readers on a deeply unsettling journey that ensures they’ll never look at the medical system the same way again.
Tags: Medical devices; bone cement; Synthes
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The Curious Case of Sgt. Drenth
A decorated and highly respected Phoenix police sergeant is found dead on the ground in an alley near the State Capitol complex, the victim of a shotgun blast to the head. The weapon is discovered on his body in a manner which several first-responders later claim looked "staged" by another party or parties. Almost a year after Sgt. Sean Drenth's death, the county Medical Examiner rules that the manner of his death was a "suicide," not a "homicide" or "undetermined." The enclosed two-part series was published after the reporter investigated this complex and ultimately tragic case for several months. A few weeks ago, the county Medical Examiner personally told Sgt. Drenth's widow that he personally will revisit the case in light of the revelations in the story and other relevant reasons.
Tags: Death; police sergeant; shotguns
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Mercury News: Loss of Trust
The San Jose Mercury News IRE contest entry "Loss of Trust" consists of an original two-part series published July 1 and July 2, 2012, and the series' remarkable aftermath. The series exposed the eye-popping fees charged by private professionals working as court-appointed conservators and trustees for dependent adults in Silicon Valley - exorbitant rates that together with attorneys' fees threaten to force their vulnerable clients onto government assistance to survive. Within days of publication, the Santa Clara County Superior Court launched an overhaul of its local rules, and state legislation was pledged for the coming year to rein in the abuses.
Tags: Conservators; Trustees; attorneys; overcharged fees
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Need to Know: Crossing the Line at the Border Parts 1 & 2
Few, if any, pieces published or broadcast in 2012 had as much impact as “Crossing the Line at the Border,” a joint project of the weekly PBS newsmagazine, “Need to Know,” and the Nation Institute that was in the best tradition of American investigative journalism. Within days of its broadcast, 16 members of Congress demanded that the U.S. Justice Department investigate the killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, a 42-year-old Mexican whose death at the hands of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents was detailed in our report. A few months later, a U.S. attorney in convened a federal grand jury. It is currently considering criminal charges in the case. And months after that, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the incident had prompted it to launch a full-scale review of its use of force. Hernandez Rojas had a fatal heart attack shortly after being subdued by agents, beaten, and shot with a Taser gun at the San Ysidro border crossing on May 28th, 2010. His death was largely ignored until the "Need to Know” team, in partnership with the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, unearthed never-before-seen eyewitness video of the incident.
Tags: U.S. Justice Department; border; killing; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Taser
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Empty-desk epidemic
For years, Chicago officials published upbeat statistics that masked a crisis in the city's schools: Nearly 32,000 of the city's K-8 grade students — or roughly 1 in 8 —miss a month or more of class per year, while others simply vanish from school without a trace. This devastating pattern of absenteeism, which disproportionately affects African-Americans and children with disabilities, came to light only after Chicago Tribune reporters dug it out during a years-long FOIA battle to obtain internal district data.
Tags: K-12 education; schools; absenteesim; Chicago; statistics manipulation
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Our Money, Their Failures
A six-week investigation by The Virgin Islands Daily News into the people and the money connected to the U.S. Virgin Islands governor's proposal for a $55 million sports complex. The investigative report was published on one day across 11 pages and achieved the result of stopping the project and forcing the governor to pledge no further contracts without vetting the principals. In the case of the sports complex that the governor and some V.I. senators were trying to push through, the investigation uncovered misrepresentations and a string of financial failures by a number of the private parties in the deal with the governor.
Tags: Government; governor; Virgin Islands
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Sun Sentinel: Speeding Cops
A Miami cop in his marked patrol car set off a public fury in the fall of 2011 when a Florida state trooper clocked him going 120 mph to an off-duty job. Turning to technology and a never-before used tool – highway toll records – the Sun Sentinel produced back-to-back investigations documenting widespread police misconduct and the professional solidarity that allowed it to flourish. In "Above the Law," a three-part series published in February, reporters used police toll records to confirm what many South Florida drivers had witnessed for years: cops were among the worst speeders on the roads, taking advantage of the badge and patrol car to ignore the very laws they enforce. "Short Shifted," a two-part series published in December, used those same toll records to detail how many South Florida cops, paid to serve and protect, were regularly leaving their beats and cities before their shifts ended.
Tags: Police; police speeders
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D.C. Tax Office Scandal
The District of Columbia struck an unprecedented number of deals behind closed doors this year with prominent commercial property owners who had appealed their tax assessments, reducing the city's tax base by $2.6 billion. The settlements were kept from the public for months until The Washington Post started mining public records and filing FOIAs, which the city routinely denied until the newspaper's lawyers got involved. The Post also learned that city leaders had kept critical internal audits about the tax office in "draft" format to prevent their release under FOIA. Through sources, The Post obtained the undisclosed reports -- along with a dozen other audits that had been kept from public view -- and published the findings for the first time. The series prompted the City Council to change the law to require the tax office to immediately make public all of its reports -- bringing a new level of transparency to a once secretive agency. The Securities and Exchange Commission also launched a probe to see if the city had kept critical findings from audits used to determine bond ratings. The inquiry is ongoing.
Tags: tax fraud; taxes; taxpayers; tax office