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 "the University of Chicago" ...
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Campus Security
ChicagoTalks reporters found only a handful of the 63 colleges and universities in Cook County are following an Illinois law -- the Campus Security Enhancement Act of 2008 (SB 2691) -- aimed to make campuses safe. Under the law, colleges and universities are required to create all-hazard emergency and violence prevention plans, along with threat assessment teams and violence prevention committees. The schools are also required to hold annual security trainings. ChicagoTalks reporters contacted, often repeatedly, every public and private, two and four-year college and university in Cook County, and determined that 11 schools appear to be violating the law, while 45 schools provided conflicting or incomplete information -- or no information at all. Reporters found just seven schools in compliance.
Tags: campus security; Cook County; violence prevention; colleges; universities
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Maxwell Street: The New Moneymakers
This series spotlights the redevelopment of Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market and found a number of surprising details. These details reveal that the housing available for the poor, the poor are unable to afford and most of the housing goes to those who are well-connected and well-off. Also, with help from City Hall, the developers with political connections end up making large profits.
Tags: Mayor Daley; property tax; condos; real estate; homes; University Village; property; city officials; taxpayers; market
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Unoriginal Sin
A graduate student exposed an offcial at Argosy University in Chicago as having plagiarized large sections of her doctoral project when she earned that degree from Argosy. School officials at first reprimanded the student, finally allowing her to graduate but noting it would go on her permanent academic record. Meanwhile, there was no initial punishment for the official, Bindu Ganga. In the wake of the stories, Ganga was first suspended and then fired and stripped of her doctorate.
Tags: Bindu Ganga; academic fraud; Argosy University-Chicago; plagiarism
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Labor's front lines
The story tells the struggles of workers in Chicago -many of them Latinos-, a struggle to become unionized and have access to better salaries and working conditions. Franklin explains the unions have lost a great part of the power and influence they had in the 1950's. In the struggle to gain power and influence back, Chicago is a key city because it is "an old-time labor town." In the story, Franklin introduces several leaders of the new union movement, Margarita Klein, Joe Romano, Kina McAfee, Joe Isobaker and Javier Ramirez.
Tags: Jewish Workers Committee; National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; DePaul University Students Against Sweatshops; Union of Needle and Textile Employees; National Production Workers Union Food and Commercial Workers Union; United Steelworkers of America; American Federation of Labor; U.S. Justice Department; Chicago and North Illinois District Council of Carpenters; Northwestern University; University of Illinois; Service Employees International Union
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"For your eyes only"
The story analyzes the cooperation between CIA and American academia to solve intelligence problems. Some scholars, like Bruce Cummings (University of Chicago) and David Gibbs (University of Arizona) criticize this cooperation. The cooperation grants scholars access to classified information. The intelligence-academia relationship is sometimes a source of conflict; some universities have explicit rules that forbid faculty members to conduct classified research, and one of the most controversial CIA policies is "its insistence that scholars sign a lifetime secrecy agreement before receiving a security clearance", Mooney says. Contrary to Cummings and Gibbs' opinion, Joseph Nye (Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School) says his intelligence ties with CIA, State Dept., Defense Dept. and National Security Council have not prejudiced his scholarship.
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2002 IRE National Conference Show and Tell Tape #1,
2002 IRE National Conference (San Francisco) Show and Tell Tape #1 features the following stories: 1) Mark Greenblatt (KOAA-Colorado Springs) Knives and other weapons are brought into area schools, but local authorities do a poor job of keeping track of the infractions. 2) Joe Ducey (KRON-San Francisco) A loophole in food transportation laws in California allows small wholesalers to truck food that should be kept cold in hot vehicles without facing any penalties. 3) Anna Werner (KHOU-Houston) presents short clips of broadcasts that illustrate good use of graphics and sound. 4) Dave Savini (WMAQ-Chicago) Area firefighters and police officers are allowed to continue patrolling the streets despite DUI convictions. 5) Jim Strickland (WSB-Atlanta) The American Biographical Institute sells dubious awards like "Man of the Year" to Regular Joes for exuberant prices. 6) Dan Noyes (ABC 7-San Francisco) A local towing company illegally tows cars that have been parked for only a half hour, instead of waiting the required hour before towing. 7) Tony Kovaleski (ABC 7-Denver) Jefferson County school bus drivers are forced to drive unsafe buses. 8) Bill Sheil (Fox 8-Cleveland) A local Muslim leader is found to have an indirect tie to an organization linked to Osama Bin Laden. 9) Twenty-five clips from various broadcasts showing camera techniques. 10) Mark Lagerkvist (News 12-Long Island) Malpractice lawsuits have a statute of limitations of two year and six months. This can harm certain patients who don't know they've been injured until five or 10 years later. 11) Darcy Spears (KVBC-Las Vegas) A local lasik eye surgery clinic recommends the surgery to all its patients -- even those who shouldn't undergo the procedure. 12) Phil Williams (WTVF-Nashville, Tenn.) A local county clerk makes one of his employees buy him beer and mow his lawn. 13) Sandra Chapman (WISH-Indianapolis) A local doctor gives out highly addictive narcotics to patients without examining them. Many of her patients are simply "dopers" who've found an easy place to buy their drugs. 14) Glen Meek (KTNV-Las Vegas) The former UCLA men's soccer coach, Todd Saldana, received his undergraduate degree from a fake university. Saldana resigned after the story broke. 15) Larry Yellen (WFLD-Chicago) Security guards at a local federal building sleep on the job.
Tags: TAPE; San Francisco; conference; no transcripts; IRE
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Avi Ben Abraham series
Chicago Tribune tells the story of an "ingratiating charmer," Avi Ben-Abraham, 43, who persuaded some of the smartest world's investors to finance a nonexistent vaccine for AIDS. To gain access to the circles of wealth and power on three continents, Ben-Abraham purported to be the youngest doctor in the world with an unbelievable IQ and a degree from an Italian university. The investigation revealed that Ben-Abraham is not a doctor at all, and that he received his diploma by deception. The want-to-be doctor recently announced a project to clone the first human being, the series reports, but other doctors in the cloning consortium denounced him as a fraud.
Tags: medicine; business; politics; Israeli parliament; biotechnology; HIV
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The Early-Decision Racket
The Atlantic Monthly examines how the early-decision programs offered by most universities "have added an insane intensity to middle-class obsessions about college." The reporter reveals that these programs "distort the admissions process, rewarding the richest students from the most exclusive high schools and penalizing nearly everyone else." One of the findings is that "the incentives fro many colleges and students are as irresistible as they are perverse."
Tags: education; universities; students; Princeton; Harvard; MIT; Georgetown; the University of Chicago; Notre Dame; Cal Tech; University of California; Yale; University of Pennsylvania; Washington University
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Shortcut to Failure
More people than ever are taking the General Education Development (GED) test in America, but some are beginning to say the 60 year-old program is becoming useless. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago (where the program was originally created during WWII) believe the test to be at an 8th-grade reading and writing level, not that of a high school equivalency. Unfortunately many employers and universities recognize the GED certificate as equal to a high school diploma, "making the GED, in effect, the nation's largest high school." Murphy investigates how the GED has become the choice for many people, ages 16 - 24; and why some researchers believe the people with a GED are more likely to break rules, drop out of college, and have a higher job turnover rate.
Tags: Education; GED; high school
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Deadly Silence: The government's betrayal of A-bomb pioneers
The Daily Southtown reports that "During World War II, hundreds of scientists, tradesmen and secretaries at the Manhattan Project metallurgical lab at the University of Chicago were carelessly exposed to large quantities of toxic metal beryllium, then for 45 years intentionally kept in the dark about the potentially deadly health consequences... For decades the federal government joined with university officials to fight workers' compensation claims filed by those dying of beryllium disease. Then, facing a 1986 expose by a Los Angeles TV station, Energy Department officials promised on-camera to provide testing and treatment for Manhattan Project workers. But testing and treatment was never provided, based on interviews with Manhattan Project survivors located by the Daily Southtown."