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.
Every reporter has their own version of the story bucket list – a collection of ideas or issues they can’t die without covering. On this episode, we’ll hear how G.W. Schulz of The Center for Investigative Reporting crossed one off of his. G.W. spent nearly eight years reporting on America’s missing and unidentified dead, unearthing stories about the victims, their loved ones and the sleuths trying to close their cases for good.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
EPISODE NOTES
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
CREDITS
Shawn Shinneman reported and produced this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
MUSIC
“You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive" is performed by the Ruby Friedman Orchestra
Cylinder Six (Chris Zabriskie) / CC BY 4.0
Strange Bird (Instrumental) (Lisa Germano) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Jettisoned (Podington Bear) / CC BY-NC 3.0
IMF (Dot) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
There are some phone calls that will always be hard to make as a reporter. Reaching out to grieving relatives in the wake of a death is one of them. On this episode, Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Jeff Meitrodt discusses what it was like to do that over and over again as he pieced together a powerful four-part investigation on deaths on family farms.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
EPISODE NOTES
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
CREDITS
Aaron Pellish reported and produced this episode. Shawn Shinneman is our host. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear and Kai Engel.
Meet Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada. You might have guessed from their names that they’re brothers. They’re also both investigative journalists working for ESPN. On this episode, we’re sharing pieces of our conversations with the brothers during their recent trip to the University of Missouri. We talk about everything from their reporting on the NFL’s concussion crisis to the much-discussed relationship between ESPN and the NFL, and how they decide when to team up on a reporting project.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Shawn Shinneman produced this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear.
How do you get the truth out of a liar? On this bonus episode, experts weigh in on just that. You’ll hear from investigative reporter Matt Apuzzo, former CIA polygraph examiner Barry McManus, and former FBI counterterrorism agent Don Borelli. In this audio pulled from the 2015 IRE Conference, the three discuss how to develop rapport, when to get confrontational and how to spot kernels of truth hidden in all those lies.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
EPISODE NOTES
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
CREDITS
Adam Aton produced this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear.
The CIA’s former chief polygrapher, an ex-FBI counterterrorism expert and a Pulitzer-winning reporter walk into a bar.
Ok, that’s not true. But the three did come together for a panel at IRE’s 2015 conference in Philadelphia called "Interviewing Liars."
Matt Apuzzo, a New York Times reporter who was on the Associated Press team that revealed how the NYPD spied on muslim communities, moderated the panel. He was joined by Don Borelli, who was the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, and Dr. Barry McManus, who worked as a CIA polygraph examiner for more than 20 years.
The three of them talked about how to get sources to open up, the upsides and downsides of getting confrontational, and what it takes to bluff a liar.
Creating doubt
McManus starts by describing what liars need to do during an interview: create doubt. With that in mind, Borelli cautions against treating an interview as your primary reporting tool. A confrontational interview might be the centerpiece of an article or broadcast, he says, but often it’s all the work before and after an interview that gives an investigation its potency.
Building rapport
Apuzzo knows reporters can make people uneasy. So how do you move past that? Borelli prefers to start with props, like photos, because it makes the source feel like they’re helping you. McManus says the more you know about a source, the easier it should be to find some shared interest or experience that can power the conversation, at least in the beginning.
Venue matters. But how much?
It’s foolish to think people will dish about their workplace when they’re still at the office, Apuzzo says. But, Borelli points out, knocking on someone’s door also has its drawbacks. McManus says that, realistically, you need to be ready to interview anywhere.
Challenge the lies
Sometimes you’ve just got to get aggressive — but recognizing when that will work isn’t so clear cut. Your facts are your leverage, and Borelli describes how he uses them to confront people. McManus cautions against making the person feel cornered.
...or keep your powder dry
Lies give you information too, McManus says. What motivates someone to lie? Who do they lie to? How do their lies evolve? All of that can give you insight into a person. The important thing, McManus says, is to keep them talking.
Repeat questions
If you can catch a person changing their answers, you can use that opening as leverage to get the rest of the story. It doesn’t need to be confrontational, Borelli says, especially if the two of you have built up a good rapport.
Bluff carefully
Presumptive questions are a great tool, McManus says, as long as you’re basing them off facts. If the source recognizes you’re fishing for information, you’ve probably lost whatever leverage or trust you had with them.
Members can download the entire hour-long panel and McManus’ tipsheet here.
For years, the U.S. has pushed education as one of its major triumphs in Afghanistan. The government helped build schools, train teachers, issue textbooks and educate scores of girls. And for years, that legacy went relatively unchecked. But when Azmat Khan of BuzzFeed News began questioning the numbers and visiting schools in the region this year, she found a very different reality. On this episode, Azmat walks us through her reporting into Afghanistan’s "ghost schools."
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
EPISODE NOTES
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
CREDITS
Shawn Shinneman wrote and reported this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear and Blear Moon.
You don’t want to have a run-in with a police dog in North Port, Florida. A year-long investigation by Michael Davidson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune found that North Port’s canines have been biting people at an alarming rate. And the dogs aren’t just drawing a little blood. Many of suspects on the receiving end of K-9 unit attacks have been left with serious, lasting injuries. On this episode, Davidson takes us behind the story and explains how he tackled the reporting while covering other assignments.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Aaron Pellish reported this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast. Shawn Shinneman is your host.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear.
At the 2015 IRE Conference in Philadelphia, Scott Friedman, Keli Rabon, and Scott Zamost gave their best tips for convincing unsure or powerful sources to sit down for television interviews. Here are excerpts from the panel that outline their best pieces of advice.
Scott Friedman, a Senior Investigative Reporter at NBC5/Dallas-Fort Worth, spells out his three essential tips for pre-interview meetings. Mentioned in this clip are two stories that his team has produced: an investigation into the cause of a house fire in north Texas, and a former soldier suffering from PTSD interviewed for a story about mistreatment at Army Warrior Transition Units.
Appealing to a source’s sense of right and wrong can help tremendously when dealing with nervous sources, explains Friedman.
“You have to be a human first and a reporter second,” explains Keli Rabon, an investigative reporter at KTRK in Houston, Texas. Engage with sources on a personal level.
Scott Zamost, a senior investigative producer at CNN, emphasizes that reporters should always stay transparent when convincing unsure sources to talk.
What happens to immigrants convicted of sex crimes? The answer, Maria Sacchetti found out, is often unsettling. Her investigation for the Boston Globe revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was quietly releasing violent offenders back into the U.S. when their home countries wouldn’t take them. On this episode, Sacchetti talks about the reporting process – including a lawsuit that forced ICE to give up the names of released criminals.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
EPISODE NOTES
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
CREDITS
Shawn Shinneman wrote and produced this episode. IRE Web Editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear.
With students across the country heading back to campus, we thought it was time to take a behind-the-scenes look at a student investigation. This week we’re talking to Megan Jula, a journalism student at Indiana University, about her reporting on the school’s mental health care services. Megan found that Indiana (and many other large public universities) wasn’t meeting nationally recommended student-to-counselor ratios, resulting in scheduling delays that put students at risk.
As always, you can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Shelby Mann reported this episode. Aaron Pellish wrote the script. The episode was voiced and produced by Shawn Shinneman. IRE web editor Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast.
Music in this episode is by Podington Bear and Broke For Free.
Looks like you haven't made a choice yet.
