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 "science" ...
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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
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Newscamp: Data science for nerdy journalists
This edition of the "Journal of Statistical Software" looks at the elements that go into using datasets, including data cleaning and maniupulating adata.
Tags: Data journalism; data analysis; programming
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Muse: A tool for working with email archives
Hangal goes through MUSE, the research tool from Stanford Computer Science for browsing large-scale email archives that is being adapted for reporters and researchers.
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Using Testing in Your Stories
The authors of this tipsheet bring to light the potentially strong impact that testing can bring to an investigative story. Some of the information found in this tipsheet includes ways to determine what to test and how to test it, how to choose a testing device, how to keep costs low and suggestions on sample size.
Tags: California Watch; Consumer Reports; consumer-focused; science; samples; lead; lab; testing; tests
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Analyzing PUMS with SPSS
Campbell addresses the complexity of both the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) and the Statistical Package for Socail Sciences (SPSS), but discusses how they belong together "like love and marriage." SPSS was built to deal with massive amounts of information, and PUMS provides just that. Campbell's tipsheet is a step-by-step guide
Tags: PUMS; SPSS; Census; analysis; data; American Community Survey;
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Tweets telling stories; Tweets as data
Marcus explores how twitter can be used to aid in telling stories and collecting data thru the use of tools such as TwitInfo and TweeQL.
Tags: twitter; tweets; SQL; TwitInfo; TweeQL; data; storytelling; structured queries;
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Health Care Survival Guide: Investigating America's Hospitals
Berens tipsheet addresses how to cover the health & science beat. He begins by stressing the 3 F's: "follow the paper; find the expert; and ferret out the research." Berens gives a list of basic public records pertinent to the beat; available databases; and "real world advice" based on his own experience covering health and science.
Tags: health; science; FOIA; medical research; medicine; hospitals; adverse event reporting; MAUDE; Manufacterer and User Facility Device Experience; Excluded Individuals Database
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Quick Hit Science and Health Ideas
Fallik gives 10 quick hit ideas for science and health care stories. Each idea can yield a quick and impressive story, with the potential of a more involved, deeper story.
Tags: health; science; patents; medical boards; adverse event databases; inspections; 990s
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Environment
Morrison discusses how to do a meaningful story on the environment - beginning with pitching a story "with a clear question whose answer is newsworthy." He discusses the use of data in doing the story, and how to validate your findings.
Tags: environment; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; science; expert;
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Criminal Justice: The Flaws of Forensic Science
Kent, from the Maryland Public Defenders Office, lists the problems with forensic science and the unreliability of DNA evidence.
Tags: DNA evidence; nuclear analysis; fingerprinting; forensic science; court; trial;