The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets 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. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
Search results for "San Diego" ...
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Uncovering Waste and Fraud in Local Government and Public Authorities
7 easy steps to "Uncovering Waste and Fraud in Local Government and Public Authorities". Donohue provides step by step tips for you to uncover the truth.
Tags: local government; fraud; economic waste
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Contacts, Strategies and resources for Border and Immigration Coverage
Olsen provides an extensive lists of resources for covering issues related to immigration - including US Government sites/data, Mexican nonprofit organizations, key journalism sites, think tanks, lawyers, and much more
Tags: immigration; human rights; boarder patrol; boarder states; crime statistics; legal issues; immigrants; immigration studies
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Quick shortcut for using PDFTOTEXT
Milholland discusses shortcuts to converting a PDF to text through the use of the PDFTOTEXT application.
Tags: data extraction; data; PDF to textl; converting PDFs
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Finding and Negotiating for Data
This tipsheet details why you need a data strategy; where to find the data; and how to negotiate for it once you've found it. There are detailed resources and tips for all three topics.
Tags: data; databases; FOIA; open records laws; open meeting laws;
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After Disaster Strikes: Be A Recovery Watchdog
Cervantes details how the Union-Tribune covered the wildfires that ravaged San Diego in October 2007. The city and county governments offered "free" demolition and debris removal for destroyed properties. "We got a tip contractors were charging outrageous rates, so we decided to investigate and analyze the public records and data to see what was being done with taxpayer money."
Tags: disaster; wildfire; Union-Tribune; FEMA; California Public Records Act; FOIA; demolition permit applications; RFP; requests for proposals; Governor's Office of Emergency Services; San Diego; GIS mapping; mapping
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How to Create a Watchdog Culture...While We're Losing Staff, Newshole and Budget
The authors offer advice for maintaining a competitive watchdog presence, even though the news industry is suffering. Their tips range from embracing online outlets to offering lots of newsroom training.
Tags: training; investigative reporting; newsroom management
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Tracking a Wildfire
The authors discuss how to quickly build maps that will enhance coverage of wild fires. They discuss where to find shapefiles of the affected areas and how to acquire incident command structure reports which include valuable information about how fires were started and fought. The authors then describe how to use those two pieces of data (shapefiles and ICS reports) to create a time line of the fire. The tipsheet ends with a list of other resources that might be useful for reporters covering fires.
Tags: fire; GIS; mapping; shapefiles; Google maps; Forest Service
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Excel for beginners: Geek Glossary
This tipsheet explains some basic Microsoft Excel functions, such as "sum" and "percent of total." Cervantes explains not only how to do these calculations, but also how to use them to enhance your reporting.
Tags: data analysis; Excel; spreadsheet; mean; median; mode; average; computer-assisted reporting
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Bulletproofing your data-based stories
This tipsheet is a good guide to doing solid data analysis and avoiding common errors. The authors discuss data integrity checks to make sure that the data is clean and there are no structural problems in the database. The authors go on to discuss analyzing polls and surveys and using the right methodology. Finally, they offer tips from other seasoned CAR reporters.
Tags: data analysis; Microsoft Access; Microsoft Excel; data cleaning; statistics; technology
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ACS: Get Ready for the Every- year Census!
This tipsheet is a guide to help journalists get ready to report on the every- year census. It includes advice about how to plan for those stories, how to focus the stories and how to adapt to the change. Especially useful in this tipsheet is information about how the new census is different from before (ex: it only includes households, so prisons and dorms won't be included in the results).
Tags: American Community Survey; Census Bureau; population demographics; databases