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 "federal" ...
-
Campaign finance the data science way
The Center for Investigative Reporting and IRE teamed up with the San Francisco data science company Kaggle to help bridge the gap in journalism between hacking, math and substantive expertise. They challenged data scientists to approach a database journalists have looked at a million times over: federal campaign contributions. We'll introduce you to the winner of the competition and discuss the tools the data scientists used and their results.
Tags: hacking; math; data; campaign contributions; campaign finance
-
My friend FRED: Using Fed data tools to add context to stories
Federal Reserve Economic Data, or FRED, is the signature database at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Learn from Taylor how to find and use the economic database to add context to economic reporting.
Tags: Database; economic database; FRED
-
Paying for Political Favor
A guide on how to employ websites and search engines in your investigation of political contributions and lobbying.
Tags: Federal Elections Committee; Political Contributions; Lobbying; President; Open Secret
-
Analysis Tools at FollowTheMoney.org
Roth Barber highlights the many great tools at FollowTheMoney.org in this tipsheet. There's everything from an independent spending database to "A unique view of the top 10,000 donors to political campaigns at both the state and federal level—information that exists nowhere else."
Tags: campaign spending; donors; tracking the money; L-CAT; contributors
-
Investigating Higher Education
Use this tipsheet from award winning reporter, Perez, when you need to cover the higher education beat. She gives great resources for where to look and story ideas for the data you receive.
Tags: higher education; property records; IRS; grants; student federal loans
-
Fighting for records and access
Ritvo provides resources and websites for where and how to get records you need.
Tags: open records; FOIA; ACLU; Federal Open Government Guide
-
Now is TIFIA's Time
Expanding popular federal credit assistance program will encourage infrastructure investment and enhance the effectiveness of available transportation funding.
-
Federal Data for Local Stories
Use federal data to amplify local stories quickly and easily with this tipsheet.
Tags: Federal Data
-
Getting intimate with government data to produce hard-hitting stories
Torres gives advice on how to dig into government data to leverage stories covering areas such as government budgets, contracts, payroll, campaign contributions, and elections.
Tags: government data; data; federal government; public records
-
Contracts, Strategies and Resources for Border and Immigration Cover
Olsen provides tons of links for covering border and immigration (in English and español). From links to the Federal Court websites to the ACLU’s immigrant rights page; your story will not lack the information needed to provide a good investigative story.
Tags: bilingual; español; immigration