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 "symbols" ...
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The Forgotten
This story is an inside look at the systematic warehousing of more than 17,000 adults and children in Serbia's mental institutions. Dateline NBC gained unprecedented access to remote, government-run facilities and found alarming and sometimes life-threatening conditions. The institutions are remnants of Serbia's communist past and symbols of a deeply ingrained prejudice against the mentally disabled and their families. Serbia's medical establishment continues to advise parents to put their mentally disabled newborns into institutions, and the government provides virtually no support for those who choose not to. In mental institutions throughout Serbia, Dateline found adults and children crammed into fetid rooms and metal cribs, their bodies emaciated, atrophied and disfigured. Some residents appeared to be children but they were actually young adults whose growth had been stunted by years of institutionalization. One of our most disturbing discoveries came while staying overnight in a dangerously overcrowded institution. There we learned that children are routinely tied to their bed railings for long periods of time - a practice that one disability rights organization says meets the legal definition of torture under international law.
Tags: mental health; Serbia; child abuse; patient abuse; patient rights; mental institutions
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Orthodox Bulldozer
Artists who use religious imagery in Russia as a form of satire are subject to having their work destroyed by Orthodox vandals. ARTnews found that the vandals were hailed and martyrs and often not even punished for their crimes.
Tags: art; Russia; Orthodox; religion; Moscow; exhibition; symbols; satire; neo-Nazi; nationalist; fundamentalist; Duma; anti Semite; Soviet; St. Petersburg
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The Lynndie England Interview.
Lynndie England, an army private whose photograph symbolized the Abu Ghraib prison scandal interviewed with this CBS affiliated TV station for the first time. Excerpts from this interview made headlines and was aired in many other TV stations across the world. As England says in the interview, she was merely following orders by posing with and smiling at the prisoners.
Tags: Lynndie England; Abu Ghraib prison inmates; Aby Ghraib; interview with Lyndie England; Iraq
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John Geoghan: Abuser, Inmate, Victim
"John Geoghan was the face of the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in 2002. The defrocked priest's record of molesting nearly 150 children over the course of three decades came to symbolize the church's unwillingness to confront the misdeeds of pedophile clerics. Yet the horror surrounding Geoghan took a shocking new turn when he was murdered in his prison cell." Boston Globe reporter Thomas Farragher "set out to investigate how such a thing could have happened to one of the most conspicuous inmates ever to enter the state prison system." Although almost no records were disclosed about Geoghan's death by the Department of Corrections, and despite a warning put out by the prison that any correctional officer who spoke to the media would be fired, Farragher was able to obtain Geoghan's complete disciplinary records, confidential reports on his murder, and even some personal prison correspondence. He also developed sources both inside and outside the prison, including Geoghan's own family members, to construct a portrait of the former priest and the events leading up to his death.
Tags: molest; molestation; abuse; abuser; priest; catholic church; prison; crime; murder; FOI; corrections; guard; inmate; prisoner; scandal; children; child; parish
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Sometimes, Settling is the Best Policy: Districts Often Decide Not to Fight Lawsuits
Palm Beach High School student Peter Riera wore a Cuban-flag necklace to school but the school district said he couldn't wear the necklace because they viewed it as a gang symbol.
Tags: Palm Beach High School; Peter Riera; Cuban; freedom of speech; first amendment; high school; free expression in the classroom; education
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Swarthmore Passes on Football
"Rich colleges almost never drop their football teams. But Swarthmore did." Mike Jensen reports on this elite college's choice to "repudiate one of the greatest symbols of modern America-not because football was too expensive . . . but because it might tarnish the academic excellence Swarthmore holds dear."
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The Crossroad
"'The Crossroad' is the story of the intersection between the main Gaza highway trafficked by Palestinians and the road from Israel to the Jewish settlement of Netzarim. This crossroad has gained infamy over the past few months not only for the number of people killed there, but also for being the place where 12-year-old Mohammad al-Dura was killed in his father's arms - a television image which has come to symbolize the current conflict. ... We hold up the crossroad as an emblem of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By using two mothers - one a Jewish settler and the other a Palestinian resident - as our main characters, our story makes some sense of a conflict that seems to make no sense at all."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Israeli-Palestinian conflict; international reporting
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Fire and Ice
Gudmundur Pall Olafsson, an Icelandic researcher, has succeeded in bringing a governmental attempt to dam wilderness areas for hydroelectric power to the public's attention. A personal symbolic gesture of planting a half-mast flag in the middle of an endangered area turned into a media symbol. The government is still trying to bring heavy industry into the area despite environmental risks.
Tags: Iceland; dam; Gudmundur Pall Olafsson
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UL: Still Safety's Symbol
The UL symbol is stamped on more than 15 billion products and small appliances a year. Yet troubling incidents and documents from the CPSC indicate that the typical seal of Underwriters Laboratories, the independent testing service that examines appliances and other items to make sure they're are functioning safely, may be little more than decoration.
Tags: consumer product safety; appliances; fire hazard; federal regulation FOIA
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Vernon School
The Oregonian's four-part series reports that "Through the school year, The Oregonian followed the efforts of Vernon Elementary School and its principal, Lessie Houston, to turn around student performance. Threatened by a possible overhaul by Portland school leaders, Vernon symbolized the efforts nationwide to rescue urban schools struggling to help students succeed."
Tags: principal; teacher; student; parent; testing; school administration; community activists