The 2013 IRE Conference has a series of panels devoted to broadcast investigations. Join us in San Antonio from June 20-23 and learn from veteran broadcasters about how to craft investigations. The deadline to get the early registration rate for the conference is tomorrow at 7 p.m. CT. Interested in broadcast sessions? Here's a sample of what IRE 2013 has to offer:
- Surveillance - Learning from the pros
What can private investigators teach investigative reporters about legal, ethical and effective surveillance techniques? What are the similarities and differences in surveillance by a private investigator and an investigative reporter? Bring your questions. Bring your scenario. Contribute to the conversation.
- Ask the lawyers
The legal minefield for investigative reporting is ever-changing. Bring your questions and scenarios to some of the best in the business who work full time on First Amendment, access and Freedom of Information issues every day. These attorneys do a lot more than play defense -- parrying libel/defamation challenges and threats of legal action. They play offense -- helping reporters ferret out the truth and get on the air.
- The best of broadcast: Stories from behind the camera
Watch and listen as more than a dozen photographers, editors and producers behind this year's winning entries describe how they did it and what they were really thinking when things got hard.
- Broadcast Show and Tell (Friday)
Show-and-Tell sessions offer new ways to share your investigations with colleagues from around the country. Sessions will have veteran broadcasters as moderators. Look for sign-up sheets on the 3rd floor near registration.
- Quick-hit investigations
Where to find the investigative angle and dimension to daily or weekly topical news reports. Contributing to your news team's reporting on a regular basis. Bringing interviews, video and information other general assignment reporters don't have the time or training to produce.
- Does it work? Is it broken? Testing products/testing systems
How top reporters construct their own tests to prove systems or products are significantly less than what they claim.
- Hidden cameras
In the age of the Iphone and the Go-Pro, what constitutes a hidden camera and how is it used to produce great investigations?
- From pile of paper to compelling TV
Some of the best document hounds around show documents can in fact be sexy TV. For anyone who ever heard "that's a great newspaper story" and refused to believe it couldn't also be great TV.
- Boom. Go! Go! Go!
An explosion. An active shooter. An imminent public threat. Non-stop coverage. In the midst of adrenaline-filled chaos, how a good investigative reporter can sort fact from rumor and contribute calm context and clarity.
- Building the investigative newsroom
How good managers who "get" investigative reporting cultivate and nurture an investigative team. What do news managers, managing editors, executive producers and news directors need to know about what it takes to produce consistently solid investigative reporting? Bring your questions/comments and let's have a conversation.
- What I learned from getting sued
You can make mistakes and never be sued. Or you can make no mistakes and still be sued -- repeatedly. Veteran reporters give examples of what you can only learn by hard experience. Bring your own experiences. We won't get "into the weeds" and rehash the specifics of cases (or create more lawsuits) but we will be detailed enough to give you practical advice which will save you some pain and frustration. We are not attorneys and will NOT give legal advice. Should be a healthy conversation.
Click here to register for the conference. Check out the full list of sessions here.
