By Doug Haddix
IRE Training Director 

Full immersion in local immigrant communities produces the most compelling stories, according to Kirk Semple, an immigration reporter for The New York Times. “It helps to be curious. It helps to be voracious,” Semple told participants at an IRE Better Watchdog Workshop this week in Orlando.

The full-day workshop was held in conjunction with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual convention. Other speakers included Manny Garcia, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald in Miami, who recently was elected as the first Latino president of the IRE board of directors. Also speaking was Mc ...

T. Christian Miller of ProPublica discusses "Disposable Army," his series about contractors in Iraq. The stories won the 2010 Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting. Miller explains how the data analysis -- coupled with 200 interviews -- gave him the goods to break new ground in coverage of civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Miller spoke during an IRE Ethnic Media Watchdog Workshop at the University of Southern California.

By Doug Haddix, IRE Training Director

When she gets e-mails and calls about controversial stories, Claudia Núñez of La Opinion in Los Angeles says some readers ask if she is working against Latinos, even though she herself is a Latina. Her curt reply: “No, I’m not. I’m a journalist.”[/caption] Often, immigrants expect ethnic media journalists to be advocates for their causes rather than independent reporters, she told more than 40 journalists at an IRE Ethnic Media Watchdog Workshop at the University of Southern California. Journalists covering immigrants should focus more time on “King Kong” story ideas ...