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 "society" ...
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No Small Thing
The Poughkeepsie Journal series “No Small Thing” goes where no other newspaper or media outlet has – it challenges the mainstream medical dogma on Lyme disease. In rigorously documented articles, Projects Writer Mary Beth Pfeiffer concludes that the major actors in this public health scandal -- chiefly the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Infectious Disease Society of America – have minimized and mismanaged a burgeoning epidemic of tick-borne disease at great harm to thousands of infected people. These two powerful institutions have held – in policy and pronouncement -- that Lyme disease is easy to diagnose and easy to cure. It is neither.
Tags: Media coverage; public health; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; CDC
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Broken Shield: Police force fails to protect state’s most vulnerable residents
Decades ago, California created a special police force to investigate crimes and unexplained injuries inflicted upon some of society’s most vulnerable citizens – men and women with severe autism and cerebral palsy living in taxpayer-funded institutions. This police force, the Office of Protective Services, works exclusively at state developmental centers that have been the scene of horrific abuses. We sought to bring this story to readers in many forms, from working on all platforms, distributing condensed versions and delivering broadcast video stories to our partners, to creating a graphic novel video on one particularly human story -- a woman who was raped, apparently by a janitor. We also created an ebook of the series of stories and an interactive tracker that detailed key milestones of legislation drafted and signed into law. Producing this work on every platform helped to maximize audience reach and heighten the impact.
Tags: Autism; cerebral palsy; taxes; taxpayers; Office of Protective Services; abuse
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Broken Shield
Decades ago, California created a special police force to patrol exclusively at its five state developmental centers – taxpayer-funded institutions where patients with severe autism and cerebral palsy have been beaten, tortured and raped by staff members. But California Watch found that this state force, the Office of Protective Services, does an abysmal job bringing perpetrators to justice. Reporter Ryan Gabrielson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, exposed the depths of the abuse inside these developmental centers while showing how sworn officers and detectives wait too long to start investigations, fail to collect evidence and ignore key witnesses – leading to an alarming inability to solve crimes inflicted upon some of society’s most vulnerable citizens. Dozens of women were sexually assaulted inside state centers, but police investigators didn’t order “rape kits” to collect evidence, a standard law enforcement tool. Police waited so long to investigate one sexual assault that the staff janitor accused of rape fled the country, leaving behind a pregnant patient incapable of caring for a child. The police force’s inaction also allowed abusive caregivers to continue molesting patients – even after the department had evidence that could have stopped future assaults. Many of the victims chronicled by California Watch are so disabled they cannot utter a word. Gabrielson gave them a resounding voice. Our Broken Shield series prompted far-reaching change, including a criminal investigation, staff retraining and new laws – all intended to bring greater safeguards and accountability.
Tags: California; police; autism; cerebral palsy; abuse; children
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Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America
The books details the startling rise since 1955 in the number of "disabled" mentally ill adults in our society. The book asks if if the "drug-based paradigm of care" in the U.S. is fueling the epidemic of mental illness.
Tags: mental illness; disabled; drugs
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Hope or Hype in Harlem?
This publication examines the Harlem Children's Zone, which is the "model for President Obama's signature anti-poverty program, Promise Neighborhoods." While there has been an abundance of press on the project, little has been done to examine if the HCZ is working, and what, if any, impact it has on the area. The City Limits team seeks to answer those questions.
Tags: Harlem; poverty; Obama; Harlem Children's Zone; low-income; Great Society; government programs
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The Hidden Life of Guns
The investigation details the way guns move through society, from retail sales to street crimes. The Post set out to break the secrecy imposed by Congress and an examination of how gunes are used in crimes. Their investigation included creating a database of more than 35,000 guns traced to crimes; a comprehensive database of 511 police officers killed by firearms; lists from confidential sources of the top 12 gun dealers who have sold the most weapons trace from Mexican crime scenes over the past two years.
Tags: guns; gun laws; crime; gun dealer; illegal gun trade; Mexico; criminal statistics; Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; National Shooting Sports Foundation; Tiahrt Amendment;
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"Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America"
In this book, author Anne-Marie Cusac reveals how America has become a nation of victims searching for revenge, rather that a "community that cares for its own." The cultural shift has impacted the criminal justice system, causing even "law-abiding" citizens at risk of "suffering retribution in American jails." The book illustrates how cultural trends have "transformed" America into a "society of punishment."
Tags: prison; jail; punishment; inmates; capital punishment; punitive physical pain; corporal punishment; Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo
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The Swedish Crusade
The interview of Bishop Richard Williamson led to the most serious conflict between the Jewish and the Catholic communities. In the interview the Bishop denied the existence of the Holocaust, who was excommunicated from the Church. Though, after the Pope lifted this excommunication, criticism of the Pope and the Vatican began. The follow-up revealed that the "persons responsible within the Vatican could have avoided the upcoming crisis, but decided to neglect the information".
Tags: Society of St. Pius X(SSPX); Protestant Sweden; neo-Nazi; conservative; Cardinal; church; religion; Catholic
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Biggest Nonprofit Fraud of our Time
Sandy Frost uncovers a network of prostitution, human trafficking and child sex tourism in the secret Masonic subgroup, the Royal Order of Jesters (ROJ). Frost found that Jester groups paid for prostitution rooms and the society was linked to Richard Schair, a former fishing tour operator who brought North American into the Amazon for sex with minor, Indigenous girls.
Tags: Richard Schair; Royal Order of Jesters; Jesters; Mason; Sandy Frost; prostitution; child abuse; human trafficking; sex;
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Distracted
Distracted explores the steep societal and individual costs to our split-focus, hyper-mobile, cyber-centric lives. In our "knowledge" economy, the average worker switches tasks every three minutes on average, and a third of workers say they are so interrupted and busy that they don't have time to reflect on the work they do. We eat on the run, keep one eye on a gadget, and process the world in snippets. It's rare to pay attention to anyone or anything in full or for long. In this climate of diffused and splintered attention, workers, parents and children alike have less time to reflect, create and connect."
Tags: distracted; multitask; society; switch; busy; technology, tasking;