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 "consulting" ...
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A Neighborhood Built to Fail
Mellnik discusses how to identify foreclosures, starter homes and lenders from various public records. He explains how to use the register of deeds, county property records, FHA data, building permits, bankruptcy filings, and consultant reports to find data for a story about property records. He also includes some tips about mapping foreclosures.
Tags: property; foreclosure; mapping; data analysis; public records; real estate; beat reporting
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Info merchants and influence peddlers: tracking lobbyists, consultants and fund-raisers
Wilkinson and Drew's tipsheet focuses on obtaining campaign finance records in Ohio, but they also address federal campaign finance records, and their principles can be applied to other states, as well. They also advise on how to effectively pursue FOI requests.
Tags: campaign finance; public records; open records; FOI; politics; lobbying; lobbyists; 527; government contracting; political contributions; state government; federal government
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The basics of business investigations
Wethe lists various records to search when investigating businesses, as well as reports and archives to consult. The tipsheet organizes public records by type, such as real estate, police, court, etc.
Tags: open records; public records; business; legal records; financial records; audits; government; finance
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Six tips to help you dig deeper
Waite offers suggestions for constructing environmental investigations. His tips cover conceptual issues, data gathering techniques, sources to consult and project management methods
Tags: environment; pollution; databases; data analysis; environmental reporting
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Being the government watchdog: legislative corruption
Williams shares lessons he learned and techniques he used while investigating the Tennessee state legislature. He lists sources and on-line resources to examine, expenditures to scrutinize and tricks lawmakers use to collect and distribute money.
Tags: state government; legislature; legislators; corruption; campaign finance; open records; public records; state funds; consulting; regulation; lawmakers; influence; graft
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Steroids in Sports: A primer to covering the never-ending saga (And, how to penetrate a federal grand jury in 3 easy steps)
This tipsheet is an extremely detailed guide to investigating steroids. It lists six websites, with descriptions of what information can be found at each one. It also lists six experts that reporters could consult. Finally, the tipsheet lists six story ideas about steroids that any reporter could do, and most of them could be localized. The tipsheet ends with a brief guide to getting information out of a grand jury.
Tags: sports; athletics; BALCO; steroids; internet; athletes; cheating
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Do It Yourself Environmental Testing: When CAR becomes Computer - Assisted Research
Cappiello offers five steps for doing a very thorough investigation of pollution. She covers everything from deciding that the investigation is necessary (Step 1) to making sense of the numbers (Step 5). In between are tips on designing an experiment, consulting with experts and using databases to focus research. Cappiello includes a very detailed description of each step, along with useful information and websites that are helpful for each stage of the investigation.
Tags: environment; pollution; science; experiment; databases; analysis
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The Border: From immigration to crime data
This tipsheet lists helpful resources to consult when reporting on various topics related to the U.S. - Mexico border. The resources (mostly websites) are organized into 6 categories: Immigration and other population issues; Justice, Transparency, Corruption; Health and Environment; Economic and other Statistics; General Border and Mexico-US Information; and, Agricultural and rural issues.
Tags: Latin America; foreign relations; globalization; trade; foreign aid
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Project tips for urban growth stories
O'Reilly provides a number of recommendations on writing for urban growth projects. This tipsheet includes resources about developers and other enterprise reporting issues.
Tags: GIS software; Census Bureau; mapping
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Test Yourself Before Deciding to Test
There are many potential pitfalls to consider when deciding whether to use expert scientific testing for an investigative project. Taylor outlines some of these issues and offers ideas for finding experts and collecting samples.
Tags: consultants; investigative reporting; science; experts; research; contamination; methodology