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 "background" ...
-
Backgrounding Candidates
Frank provides some good sources to use when gathering background information on candidates for election in Colorado.
-
Mining the Private Parts of Public Officials
Ptacek provides tons of websites to utilize when digging into the private lives of public officials.
Tags: backgrounding; public officials
-
Campaign 2012: Tips for backgrounding candidates
Use this tipsheet to help you cover the candidates this election season. Gillum provides the strategies you'll need and gives tips on how to use documents and data to your advantage.
Tags: political candidates; campaign coverage; following the money
-
Social Media Tools
"Learn new ways to find sources, background people and companies, and break stories before the competition" with this Powerpoint from Haddix.
Tags: social media; Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn;
-
Uncovering the private parts of public figures
This Powerpoint shows you what to look for when investigating a public official's private life.
Tags: backgrounding; public officials
-
Consumer Investigation
"You can master consumer investigations whether it’s your regular beat or an area in which you dabble on occasion. The key is knowing where to look and how to organize." This tipsheet by Galli, Limor and Savio will tell you just what you need to know.
Tags: backgrounding; consumer story
-
Backgrounding Candidates
Grimaldi gives great tips on how to run a background investigation on this year's presidential candidates, as well as anyone else you're backgrounding.
Tags: backgrounding; 2012; presidential election; PowerPoint
-
Investigating Politicians
Grimaldi covers basics for backgrounding politicians, but goes into depth about some of the things you should look for in their property records, etc. He also details how to explore their campaign finances and various lobbying and travel reports.
Tags: politics; politicians; lobbyists; campaign finance; House of Representatives; Senate; Congress;
-
Go beyond Google - Gathering Internet Intelligence
This tipsheet describes how to dig deeper on the web - from profiling businesses to people. It highlights a variety of resources available online that help direct your searches and find information you might not otherwise realize was available.
Tags: internet; web; backgrounding; businesses; people; LinkedIn; social media; twitter; google;
-
The Web as an Investigative Tool
Dowdell outlines how to make the most of the internet as an investigative tool - from creating a search strategy to taking full advantage of the search abilities of the search engine you use. She references public record portals; government information portals; useful social media tools; and other useful tips. She also touches on searching the dead web for archived/cached materials
Tags: deep web; search engines; public records; backgrounding; government information; social media; Boolean logic; RSS feeds