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.
The IRE and NICAR offices will be closed Monday, Dec. 24, through Tuesday, Jan. 1. The University of Missouri is on winter break leave during this time. We appreciate your patience and will see you in the new year.
As podcast audiences continue to grow, more newsrooms are making the leap to telling stories with sound. Podcasts can be a great vehicle for investigations, allowing journalists to reach interested audiences around the world. But the format also presents challenges, especially when it comes to working with watchdog staples like data and documents. On this episode, Robin Amer takes us behind her USA TODAY podcast "The City" and shares how she made the 10-episode investigation work for audio.
You can find the podcast on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play. 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 and resources we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Roundpine (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Borough  (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Bogo (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Ultima-Thule (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Balti (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Clay Pawn Shop (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Gullwing Sailor (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Abby Ivory-Ganja reported this episode. Tessa Weinberg is our host. IRE Editorial Director Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri.
How to enter the IRE Awards from IRE/NICAR on Vimeo.
It's time to gather your best stories of the year! The 2018 IRE Awards contest is now open for submissions, and we can't wait to see what you've done. Please consider entering your best investigative work.
Among the most prestigious in journalism, the IRE Awards recognize outstanding investigative reporting across all media, including print, TV, radio, student work and new to this year's contest — sports investigations.
Eligible entries must have been published or aired between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2018. The deadline for submissions is January 11, 2019.
For details on how to enter, go here. To view past winners, go here.
Thanks to the generosity of many, IRE is fortunate to have funding available to provide fellowships for financial assistance to its CAR boot camps. This month, IRE awarded ten fellowships for the January 2019 CAR Boot Camp.
Rachelle Younglai of the Globe and Mail (Toronto) and Priya Sridhar of KPBS (San Diego) received the Ottoway Fellowship.
Established by David Ottaway and the Ottaway Family Fund, the Ottoway Fellowship is aimed at increasing the diversity of IRE's membership.
Megan Heaton of PennLive, Eve Byron of the Missoulian (Missoula, Montana) and Andrew Bowen of KPBS (San Diego) received the Total Newsroom Training Fellowship.
Total Newsroom Training (TNT) Fellowships are open to those who have completed two days of TNT training between 2013 and 2018.
Emily Siegel of NBC (New York) received the Holly Whisenhunt Stephen Fellowship.
Established by WTHR-Indianapolis to honor Holly Whisenhunt Stephen, an award-winning journalist and longtime IRE member, who died November 2008 after a long battle with cancer.
Lori Jane Gliha of Rocky Mountain PBS (Denver, Colorado), Kevin Rothstein of WCVB-TV (Needham, Massachusetts) and Carter Coyle of WCSC-TV (Charleston, South Carolina) received the Knight TV Data Fellowship.
Funded by the Knight Foundation to strengthen data watchdog skills at local TV stations across the United States.
Marina Riker of the Victoria Advocate (Victoria, Texas) received the R-CAR Fellowship.
Established by IRE member Daniel Gilbert, the fellowship is intended to provide rural reporters with training they may not otherwise receive. The fellowship is offered in conjunction with the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
If you are interested in applying for a fellowship for financial assistance for future IRE boot camps, go here for more information and due dates. The next due date is Jan. 28 to attend the March CAR Boot Camp. IRE also offers financial assistance to its two annual conferences. The next deadline is Jan. 7. More information can be found here.
IRE wants your ideas for the upcoming IRE Conference in Houston next June. We’re also starting an email list so you can keep up with news about the conference.
Use this form to share ideas, suggestions and other comments to help us plan the best possible #IRE19 conference. No suggestion is too big or too small.
Here are a few ways you can use this form:
Have several ideas? Great! Fill out the form as many times as you’d like. And help us spread the word by sharing this form with friends and colleagues.
Keep in mind that IRE retains editorial control over the content of its conferences. If we use your idea, our team will take care of reaching out to speakers and finalizing details. Here are some other tips we put together to help you make the best pitch and understand our process.
Make sure to get your ideas in by Jan. 11. Please direct questions to conference@ire.org.
You can also sign up here for a special 2019 IRE Conference email list to receive details as we announce them. We'll let you know any time we make a major announcement, update you on the planning process and remind you of key dates/deadlines surrounding the conference.
Bracey Harris of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, will serve as IRE’s first Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellow. Harris, an education reporter, has been at the paper since September 2015. She previously worked at WLBT News in Jackson as an associate morning producer. She is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.
IRE's new yearlong fellowship is designed to increase the range of backgrounds, experiences and interests within the field of investigative journalism, where diverse perspectives are critically important. The 2019 fellowship was open to U.S. journalists of color with at least three years of post-college work experience.
As part of her fellowship, Harris will explore the effects of school integration on black families in Mississippi.
Harris will receive a suite of IRE resources and training opportunities. These include complimentary registration and travel assistance for an IRE boot camp and both annual conferences. She also will receive complimentary IRE data services and a mentor network of IRE members. Mentors include Megan Luther of InvestigateTV, Daarel Burnette of Education Week and Sarah Cohen of ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
"We are thrilled IRE has chosen Bracey Harris for its Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship," said Sam R. Hall, executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger. "This is a great honor for a deserving reporter."
The IRE Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship is made possible thanks to generous donations from IRE members Meghan Hoyer, Megan Luther, Mike Tahani and Mike Gruss.
Applications for the 2020 IRE Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship will be available in October 2019.
If you are interested in participating in IRE training events, you can check them out here. If you are looking for financial assistance to attend any of these events, you can find details here.
Want to get more involved with IRE but aren't sure how? Consider volunteering your time as an IRE Awards screener.
As a screener, you’d be part of a team of journalists looking for the best investigative reporting in a single category, which means that you may have to read, listen to, or watch a couple dozen entries. It’s a bit of a time commitment, but most screeners find the process rewarding. A bonus: The majority of the work is done in January and early February when the weather is less-than-inviting in many parts of the world. Yes, that means we’re appealing to our international members as well.
Being a screener does not disqualify you from entering the awards. If you have questions, feel free to contact Jill Riepenhoff, the contest committee chair for the IRE Board of Directors (jriepenhoff@investigatetv.com), or Lauren Grandestaff, IRE’s awards coordinator (lauren@ire.org).
If you're ready to toss your hat in the ring, please fill out this short form. We'll be in touch soon!
In 2016, nearly 2.2 million adults were behind bars. If that were a city, it would be the nation’s fifth largest. That’s a critical community and one journalists often struggle to reach. On this episode, we’ll be exploring ways journalists can amplify the voices of inmates. The Marshall Project’s Eli Hager discusses the nonprofit’s popular “Life Inside” feature that highlights first-person essays from inmates and others close to the criminal justice system. Next, Shaheen Pasha and Razvan Sibii, senior lecturers in UMass Amherst’s journalism department, walk us through their prison journalism course. Their class pairs university students with inmates to tell stories from inside and out.
You can find the podcast on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play.
RESOURCES
Looking for links to the stories and resources we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Three Stories (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Greylock (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Kid Kodi (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Walking Shoes (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Begrudge (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Algea Trio (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Home Home at Last (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 3.0
Tessa Weinberg reported this episode. IRE Editorial Director Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri.
Ten newsrooms have been chosen to receive custom watchdog training through IRE’s Total Newsroom Training program.
TNT provides two days of intensive, in-house training for small and medium-sized newsrooms dedicated to watchdog journalism. This is the sixth year IRE has offered the free program, which is supported through a grant.
TNT newsroom training is customized and includes two days of sessions ranging from public records battles to hands-on data analysis.
The newsrooms were chosen from more than 40 applications this year.
“We’re eager to see how the 10 organizations selected for Total Newsroom Training will put their watchdog and data training to use,” IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix said. “During the past five years of TNT, the program has made a significant impact in communities all across America. The real winners are readers, viewers and listeners who are getting better coverage of issues that matter to them.”
Congratulations to the winning newsrooms:
Every year, more than 2,000 women in Minnesota report to police that they were raped or sexually assaulted. So, the Minneapolis Star Tribune decided to take a look at what happens after a report is made, analyzing more than 1,000 cases. They found that in almost half, police failed to interview potential witnesses. In roughly a third, the investigator never interviewed the victim. And in a quarter, police never assigned an investigator to the case. Reporter Brandon Stahl takes us behind the investigation.
You can find the podcast on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play. 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 and resources we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Noe-Noe (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
McCarthy (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Threads and Veils (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Are We Loose Yet (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
ZigZag Heart (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Liptis (Blue Dot Sessions) / CC BY-NC 4.0
Abby Ivory-Ganja reported this episode. Tessa Weinberg is our host. IRE Editorial Director Sarah Hutchins edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri.
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