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 "briefings" ...
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Investigating Poverty
Murphy explains why it's important to cover poverty and gives a brief history of what it entails and how the U.S. defines it.
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Follow the Money: The Coming Boom in Toll Roads
Use this Powerpoint presentation to learn how to follow the toll road money. Overberg gives a brief history and explains how highway design, finance, construction and operation is changing.
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Execel Formulas- A Quick List
A brief cheat sheet of formulas commonly used on Microsoft Excel. Scroll to the fourth page of this tipsheet for the Bengali translation.
Tags: Excel
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Understanding the American Community Survey
This extensive presentation provides great detail about the American Community Survey. The authors give a brief history on the ACS and the basics about the survey. They also provide suggestions on how to get the most from the data that is made available.
Tags: census; ACS; survey; geographic; population
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CAR for Business Reporting
Dowdell provides helpful links for journalists covering business. From ready reference to directories and deep web searchs. Dowdell also points to data available on the web. She also gives a brief overview of some advanced search strategies. Included in the tipsheet are story examples and the types of data used.
Tags: business; reference; search strategies; data
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Using data to police the police
Mahr's tipsheet begins with a brief description of a story completed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Then he outlines some of the challenges of covering the police, with recommendations for addressing said challenges.
Tags: police; law enforcement; data; documents; FOIA; cops; crime;
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Watchdog Investigations in Tough Times
Collister offers suggestions for watchdog stories to do during these tough times. Included: following stimulus funds; Congressional spending; discretionary spending of governments; farm subsidies; and many others. He also gives brief accounts of good investigative work being done across the country using these as suggestions for similar watchdog reporting in your own newsroom.
Tags: investigative reporting; broadcast; government spending; watchdog reporting;
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Penetrating the underbelly of a government agency
Santana gives advice on effective coverage of government agencies. He stresses the importance of vigorous sourcing. He explains how to cultivate sources and get a full picture of the agencies you\\\'re covering
Tags: government; briefings; gate keepers; unions; public records;
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From Database to Network
This tipsheet discusses the most effective way of getting data into social network software such as UCINET. "The most convenient, consistent and simplest way to get larger files into UCINET is to first work with a database manager and then create text files that are readable in UCINET. This handout will give a brief introduction to DL files (text files readable in UCINET) including creating, importing and displaying them in UCINET. Please note that this handout assumes reasonable knowledge of UCINET, Microsoft Access or Microsoft FoxPro."
Tags: UCINET; social network; social network analysis; text file; Microsoft; Access; FoxPro
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Bank, Finance and Lobbying Data
This tipsheet lists resources for covering information related to finance. Included is a brief summation of the information contained on each site. Subjects covered on the tipsheet include: banks, finance, and lobbying; inflation; labor and employment data; consumer data.
Tags: banks; finance; lobbying; consumer data; inflation; labor; employment; hedge funds; short selling; CPI-U; CPI-U-RS; Center for Responsible Lending; National Consumer Law Center; Consumer Federation of America