In October, the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting sent an email over its listserv announcing that updated data were available from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.  Ron Shawgo of the Journal Gazette of Indiana then realized the paper had never examined OSHA data for Indiana.  So he requested the data. Through his analysis, he discovered that Indiana’s inspection numbers have been declining, resulting in a backlog of businesses that have never been inspected.

Shawgo began with 21 tables of data for Indiana, dating back to 1972.  He linked the tables and ran queries in Microsoft Access.  “I started ...

Melody Petersen of The Orange County Register has two pieces of advice to offer reporters: stay patient and follow the money trail. Petersen investigated school bonds in Orange County after realizing schools were opting for expensive agreements that would push costs onto taxpayers decades after the initial bond was distributed. She found that school districts were accepting deals that would cost taxpayers more than 10 times the original amount in a special bond known as a capital appreciation bond.

Other reports from the Orange County Register state that the bond deals will cost Orange County districts $2 billion over the ...

In the wake of the budget reforms proposed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2011, known as Wisconsin Act 10, Eric Litke of the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team felt the public debate over salary was all rhetoric with little factual backing.  In February, Litke tried to change the public dialog by publishing the salary data for Wisconsin public sector employees making more than $25,000 a year.  The five-week report entitled

“What We Pay:  Your Tax Dollars and the Salaries They Support” took six months of research and cost almost $9000 in reimbursements for data.  By the end of ...

From the time NPR corresondent Quil Lawrence spent in Iraq before covering veterans issues, he could tell women in the military were doing more than ...

By John Bones, Verdens Gang

It started like an ordinary news story last October. One of our reporters, Frank Haugsbo, made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the five biggest cities in Norway to get access to the kindergarten inspection reports. While reading them, he saw a pattern of violation of law.

This gave VG the idea to investigate the whole country. The inspections are done by the different municipalities, so Frank Haugsbo ...

Learning about sources of political spending can be “like unpacking a Russian nesting doll,” says Michael Beckel, a politics reporter for the Center for Public Integrity.

Using tax filings as his primary source, Beckel investigated the third most politically-active nonprofit in 2012 as part of the Center for Public Integrity’s Consider the Source project.

 “In all, we examined records from the Internal Revenue Service, Federal Election Commission, Federal Communications Commission, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office and the California Secretary of State’s office,”  Beckel said. The tax documents contained information the FEC filings didn’t have ...

The Baltimore Sun’s investigation of red light cameras over the past year prompted changes to the system a city task force to study the cameras, a lawsuit and draft legislation. Though officials have refused to credit the paper’s reporting for the policy changes, the Sun’s findings exposed wrongful tickets -- including idling vehicles cited for moving violations -- that the city is now working to ...

John Diedrich and Raquel Rutledge of the Journal Sentinel had an opportunity to gain rare insight into an undercover government operation in 2012. Their watchdog reporting on the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' sting operation in Milwaukee revealed the operation may have done more harm than good in the neighborhood it was intended to help. The operation’s problems raise further questions about  the agency’s competency in light of the Fast and Furious operation, in which agents sold guns to gun traffickers in Arizona from 2006 to 2011 ...

In January, Jeffrey Meitrodt, Investigations Editor at the Star Tribune, reported on problematic contract-for-deed sales of homes in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The sales are frequently used to sell homes to low-income buyers who have been unable to secure financing from a bank.  Since 2007, Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen a more than 50 percent increase in the number of contract-for-deed sales of property.  These homes may have existing ...

In December, Tim Steller, a reporter and now columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, reported on the increasing number of shootings occurring between Border Patrol and illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border.  The victims in some cases appear to have been unarmed.  This fact and the lack of transparency in the investigations has cast doubt on the nature of the shootings, especially for victims’ families.  Steller’s investigation shows that in some incidents, the families’ concerns might be justified.

How did you get the idea to report on shootings by Border Patrol agents?
On Oct. 10, there was ...