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:
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The Deadliest Place in Mexico
The Juarez Valley, a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande, was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the Juarez cartel moved in to set up a lucrative drug smuggling trade. “The Deadliest Place in Mexico” explores untold aspects of Mexico’s drug war as it has played out in the small farming communities of this valley. The violence began in 2008, when the Sinaloa cartel moved in to take over the Juarez cartel’s turf. The Mexican government sent in the military to quell the violence — but instead the murder rate exploded. While the bloodshed in the nearby City of Juarez attracted widespread media attention, the violence spilling into the rural Juarez Valley received far less, eve as the killings began to escalate in brutal ways. Community advocates, elected officials, even police officers were shot down in the streets. Several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. By 2009, the valley, with a population of 20,000, had a murder rate six times higher than Juarez itself. Newspapers began to call the rural farming region the “Valley of Death.” This investigation uses extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents, and difficult-to-obtain interviews in Spanish and English with current and former Juarez Valley residents, Mexican officials, narcotraffickers and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, to reveal that many of these shocking deaths were perpetrated with the participation of Mexican authorities. It shows scenes of devastation — households where six members of a single family were killed, without a single police investigation. It uncovers targeted killings by masked gunmen of community activists and innocent residents for speaking out against violence and repression facilitated by corrupt military and government officials. And it gathers multiple witnesses who describe soldiers themselves, working in league with the Sinaloa cartel, perpetrating violence against civilians. "The cemeteries are all full. There isn't anywhere left to bury the bodies," one former resident said. "You'll find nothing there but ghost towns and soldiers."
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Trail of the Gun
After a wave of gun violence in Seattle, KING 5 examined some of the most basic techniques that police use to solve gun crimes. By analyzing documents received through public records requests the television station learned that most large police departments in Washington state are not conducting routine ballistics tests on the so-called “crime guns” they seize from suspects and crime scenes. This means that guns, that could hold clues to unsolved crimes, are sitting right under investigators’ noses in their own evidence rooms. The investigative series "Trail of the Gun" also unearthed the results of federal firearms “traces”, which police use to determine how a gun ended up in the hands of a criminal. These trace results revealed that a large number of Seattle’s crime guns came from an unexpected place. After the stories aired, several large police departments pledged to begin ballistics testing programs for their crime guns. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms offered to assist local police agencies to test every gun in their evidence rooms. And, the feds unveiled a warrant targeting one of the gun dealers identified in the series.
Tags: Guns; gun crimes; police
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Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals
This story is about one of the most fought-over pieces of property in Los Angeles, the 400 acre Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus in West Los Angeles. It’s in an affluent neighborhood and has been a target of developers. But with many unused buildings, it’s also been coveted as a place to house some of L.A.’s 8,000 homeless veterans. That was the original use of the land, which was donated for an Old Soldiers’ Home in the late 19th century. The VA has not acted on plans announced in 2007 to begin rehabbing unused buildings there for housing for homeless vets. Meanwhile, it’s rented out land and buildings to commercial enterprises. There is no public accounting for this income. Through FOIA and other documents, we found that the VA is renting out the property using a law intended for sharing health care resources, though the renters are non-health related commercial enterprises. We were also able to estimate that the VA has taken in at least 28 million and possibly more than 40 million dollars over the past dozen years, far more than the cost of re-habbing a building to house homeless vets.
Tags: Property; neighborhood; land uses; veterans
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Cyber Espionage: The Chinese Threat
It’s the biggest threat facing American business today but the least talked about by corporate executives. Experts at the highest levels of government agree, cyber espionage is threatening to steal American wealth, American jobs and ultimately America’s economic security and the biggest aggressor is China. Due to the nature of the crime, the cost to American businesses is nearly impossible to pinpoint. Experts say Chinese hackers are constantly probing corporate networks, sifting through endless amounts of data to decipher what is valuable intellectual property, chemical formulas or proprietary technology. One conservative estimate from the National Counter Intelligence Executive puts the cost of economic espionage at up to $400B annually, but the report states such estimates vary “so widely as to be meaningless,” reflecting the scarcity of data available. CNBC’s David Faber and the Investigations Inc. team spoke with many corporate executives about China’s aggressive effort to target American businesses and their most valuable assets, but many refused to comment on camera for our report, citing becoming more vulnerable to attack by speaking publicly about the issue. However, not one executive denied their company is at risk of cyber-attack on a daily basis or the possibility of losing valuable intellectual property to cyber spies. Government and industry experts we spoke with on-camera have witnessed such costly cyber-attacks during their careers and attest to the fact there are only two companies left in America today: Those who know they’ve been hacked and those who don’t. From a whistleblower claiming telecommunications giant Nortel was one of the first casualties of this all-out cyber war, to high profile and public attacks on Google and RSA, its clear defending against cyber espionage is the new normal for American business.
Tags: Chinese hackers; American businesses; cyber attacks; cyber espionage
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The Lobbies at the Top
The New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics documents spending on lobbying statewide, as reported by the entities seeking influence and the lobbyists they hire. In 2011, companies, advocacy groups and unions spent $220 million on lobbying in the state, a record high. One in four of those dollars targeted New York City officials. This project examines the biggest-spending lobbying clients and the most active lobbying firms and shows what they sought to win — and who actually came out ahead.
Tags: Lobbying; lobbyists; advocacy groups; New York City
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As Mine Protections Fail, Black Lung Cases Surge
A joint investigation by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity mined government databases and analyzed together for the first time ever, coal dust enforcement records and black lung occurrence data. We compiled what appear to be the most comprehensive accounts to date of an unexpected reemergence of black lung, sharp increases among younger miners, rapid progression to the most serious stages, widespread fraudulent coal dust testing by industry, weaknesses and loopholes in federal regulations, and ineffective enforcement by federal regulators. We asked Ken Ward Jr., the veteran coal industry reporter at the Charleston Gazette, to contribute web and print stories about the history of failed government regulation, as well as fraudulent coal dust testing specifically at the Upper Big Branch mine, where 29 miners died in an explosion fueled by coal dust in 2010. Our reporting prompted the Labor Department to establish an internal team to review the agency's enforcement of coal dust regulations, according to internal agency e-mails obtained by NPR. Federal regulators stepped up coal dust enforcement, targeting mines with a history of violations. Members of Congress cited the series in calling for tougher regulations, and one group launched a petition drive demanding action.
Tags: mining; miners; black lung disease; coal dust; government
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A Damaged District
For more than a year, Zahira Torres overcame obstacle after obstacle to document one of the worst school cheating scandals in the nation's history. Where other cheating scandals involved altering accountability tests, the El Paso Independent School District gamed the state and federal accountability systems by targeting Mexican immigrant students. In a number of cases, district officials refused to enroll students or pushed out students already enrolled -- denying countless students their constitutional right to an education. In other cases, they arbitrarily reclassified grade levels or altered transcripts, all in an attempt to keep students out of the testing pool. Torres' reporting sparked numerous results. The superintendent who masterminded the scheme went to federal prison. The state education agency removed the school board. And when Torres' reporting documented that the state was aware of details of the cheating in 2010 and cleared the district anyway, the new education commissioner ordered an independent investigation of how the agency missed the cheating.
Tags: schools; scandals; education; school board
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Inside Pfizer's Palace Coup
The inside story of the abrupt downfall of the leader of one of the world's largest and most important companies. Named CEO of Pfizer at the age of 51, this man was a brilliant litigator who harbored ambitions to join Barack Obama's cabinet or launch his own political career. Instead, he found himself out a job, the target of a sophisticated palace coup. He departed with a $25 million severance package, even as the company's stock declined 36% under his watch.
Tags: Obama; Pfizer; CEO; Barack Obama
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Wired for Repression
Bloomberg's series "Wired for Repression" revealed the extent to which Western companies have sold surveillance systems to authoritarian countries, including Iran, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia, which have used them to track, imprison, torture and kill. The newest newest artillery for reprssive regimes, the gear allows authorities to intercept their citizens' e-mails and text messages, monitor Internet activity and locate political targets through cell phone technology.
Tags: torture; surveillance; imprisonment; censorship
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Terror on the Tracks
"Terror on the Tracks" exposes major gaps in freight rail security. We spent months criss-crossing the state gathering undercover video of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway trains carrying hazardous cargo. We found locomotives idling, unlocked, unmanned, unguarded - with the key, called a reverser, inside. The reverser makes the train move forward or backward on the track. The presence of the reverser would allow any intruder with basic knowledge to steal the train - potentially making them easy targets for terrorists. Our sources - current engineers and conductors working for BNSF with everything to lose by talking to us - say the trains are much more vulnerable than the company or the government is willing to admit. During our investigation we discovered trains had been stolen before - mostly by joy riders - all across the country.
Tags: freight rail security; terrorists; hazardous; cargo; engineers; conductors