IRE membership: a ‘life vest’ in rough waters

Ron Campbell credits IRE for rescuing him after being laid off in 2014 from The Orange County Register.

“I had a new full-time job within five months and I had part-time work within, literally, one week of my layoff,” he said. “Because I had developed skills sufficient that I could almost immediately find employment after having to turn in my badge and walk out of a job that I had had for more than 20 years.”

Campbell, now the data editor for NBC Owned Television Stations, views his $70 annual IRE membership as a career lifeline. “Having grown and added skills through IRE, I was able to survive. So think of IRE, think of that $70, as a way of purchasing a life vest.”

Campbell is one of dozens of journalists this month helping celebrate the value of IRE membership in short video testimonials.

Music: Blue Dot Sessions

We invite you, too, to share how IRE has helped you -- and how you have helped others through IRE. Post your comments, along with a short video clip or photo, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Please use #IREstrong and tag @IRE_NICAR. During May, help us flood our social streams with IRE camaraderie and impact!

“If you’ve let your IRE membership lapse, we’d love to have you back in the fold,” IRE Executive Director Doug Haddix said. “And if you’ve thought that IRE benefited only projects or I-Team reporters, we’d love to show you how every journalist can be an investigative journalist.

“I’ve been a member for 22 years, and I owe my career to IRE,” Haddix said. “When times get tough, IRE is even more critical to help navigate troubled waters.”

In true IRE spirit, the Support a Journalist program enables you to contribute toward memberships for professional journalists and academics who have been laid off or furloughed, or whose job has been eliminated within the past year. Full details are online for those who need help and for those able to help financially.

Student memberships remain a bargain at $25 a year. IRE student members are able to extend their $25 membership rate for three years after college graduation.

Resources available only to IRE members include the quarterly IRE Journal magazine, thousands of tipsheets, and premium reporting tools such as Tableau Desktop. In addition, IRE has taken steps during the coronavirus pandemic to provide journalists, students and educators with free resources. Check out our series of free webinars and our expanded NICAR-Learn collection of data tool tutorials, filled with new videos and free access for a year.

Through IRE, you can get to the bottom of your story and the top of your field.

Not even a pandemic can disconnect IRE members. Collaboration, training, resources, support. That’s been the IRE way for more than four decades. Together, for decades to come, we’ll remain afloat.