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 "loans" ...
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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
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Higher Ed: Following the money on campus
Utilize the web and these tips provided by reporters all over the country to follow the money on your college campus. Search public records such as the Dept. of Ed's data of student who default on loans and the SEC's data on for-profit colleges.
Tags: for-profit college; higher education; student loan default
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10 Mortgage Default Stories You Can Do At Home
Track the foreclosure money trail with these great tips from Shanklin. See what neighborhoods in your community are at risk, and start searching for the inconsistencies (they're there)!
Tags: mortgage default; foreclosure; inflated values; subprime lending; loans
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Tracking the Economy and Business
Brooks provides suggested resources for tracking: state and local economic data; municipal finance; pensions and 401(k) plans; companies; and the financial crisis.
Tags: Moody's Analytics; federal reserve; securities; loans; U.S. Department of labor;
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Borrowers Betrayed: Covering Business as a Crime Scene
This tipsheet details how a computer-assisted reporting investigation into toxic home loans turned into a crime story when in-depth analysis showed 10,000 people with criminal histories had been licensed as mortgage professionals.
Tags: mortgage; subprime; toxic loans; Florida; criminal justice; shoe-leather reporting; fraud; real estate; brokerage; stolen identity
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Uncovering Financial Traps
Tiernen addresses the financial traps that are arising the the second wave of the financial crisis. He includes information on such traps as: foreclosure services; debt settlement; subprime credit cards; payday loans; uninsured overseas savings accounts; reverse mortgages and much more.
Tags: foreclosure services; debt settlement; subprime credit cards; payday loans; uninsured overseas savings accounts; reverse mortgages; consumer credit; consumer affairs; consumer fraud
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Following the Money
Cochran's powerpoint explores the use of data to cover the financial crisis. He provides an overview of banks, and a link to the BankTracker project, by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, that tracks the quarterly reports each bank submits to the FDIC. He also provides information on how to obtain data from the FDIC, and tips on tracking a bank with some details on the types of data available in this data.
Tags: financial crisis; banking; FDIC; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; assets; loans; securities; real estate; loan losses; interest income; non-interest income
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Consumer Investigations: Going Deeper and holding bad players accountable
This tipsheet is an exhaustive resource for covering the consumer beat. It includes story ideas, links to pertinent government agencies, links to consumer information and much more.
Tags: consumer investigation; automobile industry; finance; mortgage; sub-prime loans; foreclosure; Consumer Product Safety Commission;
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Consumer Investigations: Going Deeper and holding bad players accountable
This tipsheet is an exhaustive resource for covering the consumer beat. It includes story ideas, links to pertinent government agencies, links to consumer information and much more.
Tags: consumer investigation; automobile industry; finance; mortgage; sub-prime loans; foreclosure; Consumer Product Safety Commission;
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10 stories for most anywhere
Herzog provides a list of stories that can be done in almost any community and the data you can use to complete them: overtime for public workers; underground fuel tank issues; emergency service response time; parking tickets; problems with voter rolls; daycare inspections; stimulus spending on bridges; speeding tickets; minority home-loan gap; gas pump accuracy