If you fill out the "Forgot Password" form but don't get an email to reset your password within 5-10 minutes, please email logistics@ire.org for assistance.
How many times a year do police kill people? And what happens to officers after they fire a fatal shot? Those were just some of the questions prompted by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. On this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast we’ll be talking to some of the journalists working to answer those questions.
Here’s the lineup:
Rob Barry and Coulter Jones walk through how they found and reported on a problem with the FBI’s system for tracking police killings. The story ran in the Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Ryley, Nolan Hicks and Dareh Gregorian of The New York Daily News discuss their investigation into NYPD-involved deaths.
You can find and download previous podcast episodes on iTunes or our new podcast page.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Part 1: Wall Street Journal
Part 2: New York Daily News
Additional resources for IRE members:
The United States is a world leader in incarceration, with more than 2 million people in prisons and jails. At the 2014 IRE Conference Barry Krisberg, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley Law School, discussed a handful of trends for journalists to follow in the coming year. Here are three to keep an eye on:
Every correctional facility is subject to the ADA, but officials are still figuring out how to comply with it. Journalists can keep tabs on the resulting lawsuits – cases Krisberg says will be a "slam dunk" – as they make their way through the courts. They can also monitor if and how the ADA improves conditions in prisons. Listen to him explain:
Some examples:
The Justice Department is training people to audit prison systems despite resistance by some state officials. Journalists can watch how the law is implemented in their states. Krisberg explains:
Some examples:
Krisberg called the 2011 Brown v. Plata decision “one of the most significant human rights decisions that we’ve seen out of the Supreme Court since Brown v. Board of Education.” Listen to him explain the effect it will have on prison costs and quality of life.
Learn more:
IRE members can listen to the entire discussion, which also includes tips on how to get access to sources behind bars.
Couldn’t make it to one of our Watchdog Workshops this year? We recorded audio from many of our panels and, thanks to a generous grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, have made it available for download online.
We have recordings from the following workshops: Jacksonville, Buffalo, Portland, Washington DC, Tucson, Wyoming, Los Angeles, Iowa City, and New York (limited).
Get tips on covering minority communities from Los Angeles Times reporter Anh Do and MSNBC anchor Richard Lui. Listen to USA TODAY reporter Brad Heath talk about fighting for public records. And get tons of ideas for quick-hit investigations, successful web searches and effective interviews.
How to download:
*We don’t upload sessions done by IRE trainers, although some sessions co-taught by IRE staff have been added.
Americans donate about $300 billion a year to charities, with about 30 percent of that taking place in December. But not all charities are good stewards of donated dollars. For our last podcast of 2014 we’re talking about how to investigate nonprofits and charities. Here’s the lineup:
You can find and download previous podcast episodes on iTunes or our Soundcloud page.
We’ll be back in January with new episodes and guests. Until then, we’d love to hear your ideas for the podcast. Email us at web@ire.org.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
At the 2014 IRE Conference, a panel of three journalists, moderated by New England Center for Investigative Reporting senior investigative reporter Jenifer McKim, talked about finding how they found forgotten victims and tackled overlooked issues. Senior citizens in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Detroit citizens unfairly affected by the city’s recent bankruptcy, black lung-afflicted coal miners unable to receive their medical benefits, and abused children whose voices go continually unheard were all discussed at length by the panel.
While uncovering information about unexpected victims of Detroit’s recent bankruptcy, Azmat Khan, reporter and senior digital producer at America Tonight, Al Jazeera America’s flagship show, had to seriously consider which of the many victims she would use as her main characters in the report. She gave guidance about how to choose the most representative stories and how to best utilize them across many platforms.
A.C. Thompson, a staff reporter with ProPublica, shared his experiences dealing with elder abuse in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. In nursing homes, which are more equipped to tackle the medical needs of the elderly, getting information about the treatment of the residents is much easier.
Thompson also talked about how different assisted living facilities are from nursing homes. He explains how much harder it is to find reports and documentation when investigating assisted living facilities. However, Thompson gives some great tips on who you can talk to in your state in order to find out information that’s not being kept as data.
It’s a special Halloween episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, and this week we’re telling some housing horror stories. Here’s the lineup:
You can find and download previous podcast episodes on iTunes or our Soundcloud page.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
There is no perfect or universal way to classify a mass shooting. As such, reliable, nuanced data on the topic is sparse. And further complicating the reporter’s job is the way even the most human stories can become fuel for the right-versus-left fire.
It’s with these challenges in mind that three reporters and researchers came together at the 2014 IRE conference. Patricia Carbajales, who has worked on Stanford University's journalist-friendly database on mass shootings that dates back more than 45 years, and Mark Follman, a senior editor at Mother Jones who led an award-winning investigation on mass shootings, discussed their techniques for compiling data. Pulitzer Prize winner Trymaine Lee, who covers education, poverty and gun violence for msnbc.com, provided a perspective on how gun violence is reported in black communities.
Follman says his investigative efforts sprung from a post-Aurora shooting realization that no data existed to classify mass shootings of the manner that seemed to be happening more frequently. Follman and his team established criteria, deciding to seek out instances in which at least four people were killed and in which the shooter had an apparent motive to kill indiscriminately. They sorted through years of news reports to compile their data.
But Lee, who was one of the first reporters to cover the case of Trayvon Martin, warns against falling into a pattern of belief that says only some shootings are important.
Later, Carbajales discusses how a similar numbness can take hold from the force of the political left vs. right. She urges reporters to humanize the stories of shooting victims and their families, and to dig deeper.
It's not easy prying information out of hospitals and health departments. On our podcast this week we’ll hear from journalists who successfully negotiated for the data or documents they needed to fuel an investigation. Here’s the lineup:
You can find and download previous podcast episodes on iTunes or our Soundcloud page.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
You've done all of your reporting and now it's time to write, but how do you structure your story?
Jacqui Banaszynski, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, explored this issue during the 2014 IRE Conference in San Francisco, demystifying the process and offering insight on how to think beyond the traditional inverted pyramid format.
One useful structuring device is the broken – or woven – narrative, which allows journalists the ability to weave together narrative material (scenes, characters, dialogue) with expository information. Banaszynski cites Alex Kotlowitz’s book “There Are No Children Here” as an example of how this can work.
As a college intern at the Wall Street Journal, Banaszynski would read stories in the WSJ and draw boxes around each of the sections. She would take notes and try to explain what the journalists were trying to accomplish in each part of their story. Banaszynski shares this deconstruction process and explains the different structural elements of a WSJ article.
Banaszynski also explored how to combine elements of the broken narrative with the Wall Street Journal structure
You don’t have to be a full-time sports reporter to investigate athletes. This week we’re looking at sports investigations on several levels: college, military and professional. Join us for tips on getting around secretive athletics departments and digging deeper when players get in trouble. Here’s the lineup:
You can find and download previous podcast episodes on iTunes or our Soundcloud page.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Looks like you haven't made a choice yet.
