IRE Radio

In Oregon’s memory care facilities, confirmed abuse cases are more than twice as common as in other types of senior centers. Residents live in filthy conditions, develop bedsores, even die in the care of overworked and overwhelmed caregivers. But the failures of that system can be opaque unless you’re already trapped inside it. On this episode, Fedor Zarkhin walks us through The Oregonian’s invest...

Journalism has always been a stressful job, but new challenges and pressures have made the work even more daunting. On this bonus episode, we’re reaching into our archives for audio from the 2018 IRE Conference. During a panel about managing stress, reporters Ken Armstrong, Mike Hixenbaugh and Lulu Ramadan recounted difficult experiences and talked about how they balance their jobs and personal li...

Mice, mold and lead paint. Tenants in Illinois public housing complexes were doing their best to make their conditions more livable. But even after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development swooped in and seized control, change wasn’t swift. On this week’s episode, Molly Parker, an investigative reporter for the Southern Illinoisan and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, w...

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 US...

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...

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...

Blood delivers oxygen to our tissues. It fights off infections. It courses through our veins. But can it help us catch a murderer? A little-known arm of forensic science, known as bloodstain pattern analysis, believes it can. On this week’s episode, Pamela Colloff, a senior reporter at ProPublica and writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine, takes us through her investigation into the case...

After Hurricane Harvey devastated homes and businesses in southeast Texas, construction workers began the long process of rebuilding. But when payday came, some found their checks were short or that they didn’t get one at all. An investigation from the Dallas Morning News and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that Texas officials did little to protect workers, both legal and...

Sometimes seeing is believing. But in Texas, at least, it’s not always that easy. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the Texas Public Information Act, law enforcement agencies can withhold evidence, including dash cam footage and recordings, if a suspect didn’t go through the court process. On this week’s episode, Josh Hinkle and Sarah Rafique of TV station KXAN discuss their investigation into the...

More than 1.4 million people in the U.S. alone have fallen victim to a mail scam centered around a psychic named Maria Duval. Officials around the world have tried to shutter the multimillion-dollar scheme with little success. It was unclear if the scam’s namesake was even a real person. So, CNN investigative reporters Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken decided to follow the fraud back to its source a...

We’ve often wondered what happens with the investigations featured on the podcast. So, we decided to check in with three newsrooms featured on previous episodes and find out. Brian Rosenthal will share the impact of his Houston Chronicle investigation into Texas special education. Journalists at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting share an exciting discovery about the identity of Mo...

An anonymous tip led the Los Angeles Times to a shocking revelation about the University of Southern California’s medical school dean, an internationally renowned physician. Faculty and staff had complained for years about dean Carmen Puliafito’s conduct, but it wasn’t until the Times uncovered his secret drug use and partying that he was removed from the university. On this week’s episode, Paul P...

February 14, 2018 started out as a relatively calm day for Florida’s Sun Sentinel newsroom. Then, Nikolas Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a semiautomatic rifle. Before the day was done, 17 people would be dead and 17 more would be wounded in one of the deadliest school shootings in modern American history. On this week’s episode, reporters Megan O’Matz and Brittany Wallm...

If you’re walking down the street in San Francisco, it’s impossible to ignore. On any given day there are nearly 7,500 homeless people on the city’s streets. It’s an issue many of America’s largest cities are struggling to keep up with. But some have found a cheap solution to reduce their homeless populations: one-way bus tickets out of town. On this week’s episode, we talk with The Guardian’s Ala...

If someone dies under suspicious circumstances, it’s a medical examiner’s job to figure out what happened. But in New Jersey, 40 years of neglect has made it difficult for forensic pathologists to do their jobs. The result: grieving families without answers and potentially innocent people behind bars. On this week’s episode, Stephen Sterling and Sean Sullivan of NJ Advance Media take us through th...

A 1982 Virginia law meant to reduce recidivism had a pretty simple concept: Three strikes and you’re out. Or, in prison terms, you’re in for good. On this week’s episode, we talk with Virginian-Pilot reporter Tim Eberly about his three-month investigation into the law. Tim interviewed 41 “three-strikers” and found that the majority had never been to prison before and hadn’t harmed anyone in their...

President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary caused quite a stir. Betsy DeVos barely passed her senate confirmation hearing, sparking protests from teachers and education advocates across the country. Their biggest complaint? Her support of something called school vouchers or scholarships. These programs give students public money to attend private schools. On this week’s episode, we talk...

A slow-moving housing crisis has been tearing apart communities in the city of Detroit. Homeowners have been replaced by renters. Mortgage and tax foreclosures have allowed landlords to scoop up potential rental properties on the cheap. On this episode, Detroit News reporter Christine MacDonald walks us through her data-driven investigation into evictions. Christine explains how the paper analyzed...

The Society of Professional Journalists advises that reporters should only use undercover methods when absolutely necessary to get information that’s vital to the public. But even if a reporter follows those guidelines, where do they stand in the eyes of the law? Are they still vulnerable to civil suits and criminal charges? On this bonus episode, Jane Kirtley, the head of the Silha Center for the...

When you think about temp work, short-term office jobs are likely to come to mind. But across North America, all of that is changing. These days, factories and other industrial companies are using temporary laborers to fill jobs that used to go to employees. The combination of low pay, minimal training and reduced liability has created a recipe for tragedy. On this episode, Sara Mojtehedzadeh of t...

The numbers are striking: Across the country, some 700-900 women die every year from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world. For more than six months, ProPublica’s Nina Martin and NPR’s Renee Montagne dug into the stories behind these statistics. On this episode of the podcast, Nina and Renee discuss how they shed light on a sy...

For a local sheriff, Joe Arpaio can’t seem to stay out of the national news. The longtime Maricopa County Sheriff made headlines again this summer when, in the wake of a criminal conviction, he was was pardoned by President Trump. But Arpaio’s story goes back nearly two decades. On this episode we’re turning back the clock to the late 2000s, when reporter Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the Eas...

On this week’s episode, former Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Grotto explains why investigating municipal finance isn’t as dry and daunting as you might think. What started with a dig through county property taxes ended with a three-part series delving into how and why Chicago’s broken property tax system benefited the wealthy and burdened the poor. During his two-year investigation, Jason ran up...

Investigations often don’t go according to plan. Dead-end data and stubborn sources are just some of the factors that can throw off a months-long reporting project. Other times, breaking news can put your work on the fast track to publication. That’s exactly what happened to the Tampa Bay Times when reporter Corey Johnson and colleague John Romano started digging into Henry Lyons, a powerhouse pre...

After the 2016 election, reporters across the country began noticing what seemed like a wave of hate crimes, harassment and abuse. But with limited data, they weren’t sure if what they were seeing marked an increase. To solve that problem, more than 100 news organizations united to tell the story of hate in America. They’re led by ProPublica’s Rachel Glickhouse, the partner manager for the project...