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 "university ethics" ...
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iLied: Exposing Mike Daisey’s Fabrications of Apple’s Supply Chain in China
This two-part investigation exposed fabrications in American monologuist Mike Daisey’s narrative about the Chinese factory workers who make Apple products, and also gave a voice to the Chinese men and women who were at the center of the international debate about factory conditions. Daisey had gained a worldwide platform as Apple’s most prominent critic; Reporter Rob Schmitz’s investigation proved that the details on which Daisey had built his compelling story were fabricated. Schmitz’s investigation aired on Marketplace and This American Life on March 16, 2012 and made international headlines, sparking a debate about journalistic truth. Schmitz’s April 2012 follow-up stories broadcast the points-of-view of actual Chinese factory workers and their employers, and helped re-shape the narrative about working conditions at Apple suppliers. Schmitz’s investigation became the most downloaded story in each program’s history. Hundreds of media organizations covered the work, sparking thousands of news articles and commentaries about the findings and the issues it raised. Online components of the work – which included podcasts, photo, and video – demonstrated the reach and longevity of multimedia storytelling; a video Schmitz shot of an iPad assembly line went viral with more than 2 million views on Youtube. The work continues to be discussed in case study format at journalism schools around the U.S., including an ethics class at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Tags: journalism; journalism education; multimedia storytelling
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"Making a Killing"
A 26-year-old bipolar student enrolled in a drug trial at the University of Minnesota. However, Carl Elliott reveals that the professors who were ran the study knew that the student was probably "not competent to give his consent" because he suffered from "severe psychotic delusions." He was given a powerful antipsychotic and eventually stabbed himself to death. Elliott is "a professor of medical ethics at the University of Minnesota," and believes that the professors who were running the drug study would profit from it and that the student who committed suicide was "coerced" into participating.
Tags: bipolar; drug trial; antipsychotic; Seroquel; University of Minnesota; AstraZeneca
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Primetime Thursday -- Caught Cheating
This Primetime investigation examined highschools and colleges across the United States, and found that cheating is all too common. Reporters talked with students who cheat and administrators who have to dole out the punishment. The investigation exposed new, high tech methods of cheating such as text messaging or hand-held internet devices. On the other hand, it also exposed new high-tech methods of catching cheaters, such as a website that scans documents for plagiarism. The investigators talked with students and parents to offer possible reasons for this trend.
Tags: high school; secondary school; college; university; testing; exams; finals; academic honesty; ethics; professors
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NewsChannel 5 Investigates: Perks of Power
Focusing on the ethical conduct of Tennessee public officials, Channel 5's hidden-camera investigation provides a peek into the cozy relationships between Tennessee lawmakers and special interest groups. The investigation also takes the blankets off on the self-dealing by a powerful Senate Chairman and how he used the state's tax dollars to help him sell a piece of land. Furthermore, the 2-documentary series exposed the extravagant spending by the head of the state's flagship university system, the University of Tennessee. These disclosures include personal flights on a state plane, personal charges on a state credit card and no-bid contracts awarded to the President's friends.
Tags: Tape; transcripts; Knoxville
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Selling Out: A Textbook Example
Relegating academic ethics to the backburner, professors are receiving kickbacks from publishers in return for requiring students to purchase the latter's textbooks. Running on a tip from an executive at a textbook company, the article investigates the world of under-the-table payoffs in textbook sales in higher education. The story also cites concrete examples of cases, for example, when a certain publishing company paid professors a hefty $4,000 in turn for requiring his/her students to buy those books.
Tags: James Williams; Middle Tennessee State University; Amy Staples; North West Publishing; Francine M. Butler; Gerhard Gyrtz; Anna Bates; Aquina College; W.W.Norton; Daniel Bartell; Henry Rosovsky; Winthrop Jordan; Steve Tressler; Pearson Longmann
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On my Honor...
When word of a cheating scandal leaked out from the University of Virginia, it shook the very basis on which the institution stood. The honor code, one of the pillars of the University's ethics, had been crushed. And what's more, it wasn't even done by a handful of students. In one class alone, 158 papers turned in were all plagiarized, mostly from the works of previous students. This story investigates how the honor system has changed, and if it even still exists.
Tags: University; Virginia; Academics; cheating
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Bitter Aftertaste
Antonia Demas, a graduate student, feared that some professor might steal her idea--and in this case, one did. Hers is a cautionary tale of a nutrition expert obsessed with justice, the professor who took credit for her work, and a university unwilling to do much about it . The Chronicle of Higher Education calls it a "stark case of academic misappropriation."
Tags: Cornell University; Antonia Demas; academic misappropriation; USDA; research; David A. Levitsky; university ethics
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Ethics & Orphans: the Monster Study
In 1939, speech pathologist Wendell Johnson and a graduate student conducted an experiment on a group of orphans near the University of Iowa. Their theory: "Stuttering begins in the ear of the listener, not in the mouth of the child." To test the hypothesis, the researchers conducted a psychological experiment on children starved for attention. Those who stuttered improved with positive speech therapy, but the children who had no trouble speaking were given negative therapy and became chronic stutterers for life. The research was never published and was known at the University as "The Monster Study" for the harm it did to the parentless children.
Tags: stutter; ethics; morality; science; institutional review; orphans; unethical study; human experiments; pathology; Iowa State Board of Control; children; control groups
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A Medical Researcher Pays For Challenging Drug Industry Funding
The Journal chronicles University of Pittsburgh's Erdem Cantekin's battle against convention. The director of research declared a war of ethics on the university's Medical Center where he had a promising future. Dr. Cantekin believes that in 1986 a fellow researcher manipulated the results of a study on children's antibiotics to benefit drug companies. The move brought Dr Cantekin's career down and he is now known as a "trouble making whistle blower."
Tags: medical research; antibiotics; children; ear infection; drug companies
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The Genetic Surprise
Should people with genetic predisposition for certain diseases be charged more for health insurance? In 20 states, laws are on the books to preserve the privacy of genetic testing, but potential employers can still ask for a genetic profile. Is it really fair? Forced anti-discriminatory insurance rates, such as those that are in place in New York, force insurance companies to raise rates to cover costs of the outliers. It also prices many -- mostly younger people -- out of insurance. Is it "genetic discrimination" or "just another form of predictive information, like sex, age, weight, and past medical history?"
Tags: Genetic testing; insurance; Stanford Program in Genomics; Ethics; and Society; Risk Management and Insurance Program at U.T. -Austin; Denter for Biomedical Ethics at teh University of Pennsylvania; privacy