IRE Radio

On this episode, reporter A.C. Thompson discusses his investigation into the deaths of five Vietnamese-American journalists between 1981 and 1990. Officials seemed to think that an anti-Communist group called the Front had been behind the slayings, but law enforcement agencies never charged anyone and the cases went cold. Thompson reopened the investigation for ProPublica and Frontline, tracking d...

If you attended an IRE Conference in the early 2000s, the plot of the movie "Spotlight" might have sounded familiar. That’s because the Hollywood depiction of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the clergy sex abuse scandal stayed surprisingly true to the real behind-the-scenes story. How do we know? A few of the journalists depicted in the film – Walter Robinson, Marty Baron and Sacha Pfeiffer...

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...

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. EPISODE NOTES: http://bit.ly/1XrUlTs

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 r...

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 hid...

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 episo...

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, D...

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...

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 stude...

This week we're taking a look at a joint investigation between The Marshall Project and NPR. The two teamed up to look at what happens when prisoners go straight from solitary confinement back to the streets. Reporters Christie Thompson and Joseph Shapiro will discuss how they worked through common prison reporting roadblocks. EPISODE NOTES: http://bit.ly/1S8jLD7

How do you earn the trust of a source like, say, Edward Snowden? Or the former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden? On this bonus episode of the podcast we’ll hear from someone who did just that. Earlier this year documentarian Laura Poitras spoke with Toronto Star reporter Robert Cribb at the 2015 IRE Conference. In the three clips you’re about to hear, Poitras discusses each of her films: "My Country,...

When Tampa Bay Times reporters Alexandra Zayas and Kameel Stanley got their hands on state and local data about bike tickets, they found some sobering statistics. Tampa police were stopping bicyclists at an alarming rate. And eight out of 10 of the bicyclists ticketed were black. It’s a great story, and even if your community isn’t handing out bike tickets like candy, this is one that could be rep...

Seymour Hersh is an investigative reporter with a storied career dating back to his reporting on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Recently, his reporting on the killing of Osama bin Laden, a narrative that runs counter to the one widely circulated, has garnered a wide range of reactions. Hersh addressed all of that and more at the recent IRE Conference in Philadelphia. Today we’re shari...

If you’re having seafood for dinner, there’s a chance it was caught by a slave. That’s what the Associated Press uncovered when reporters traveled to the remote island of Benjina, Indonesia. They found workers trapped in cages, forced to work 22-hour days for almost no pay. And when they followed the fish, they learned some of it ended up in US restaurants and supermarkets. Reporters Martha Mendoz...

When the Washington, DC police chief bristled over a question about witness executions, Washington Post reporter Cheryl W. Thompson knew she was on to something. On this episode we’ll be talking to Thompson about her investigation into witness killings and intimidation. And for the second half of the show we dug into our audio archives for some interview tips from Tisha Thompson, an investigative...

Meet Nigel Jaquiss, the Pulitzer-winning journalist whose reporting brought about the resignation of Oregon’s longest-serving governor. Today we’re exploring Jaquiss’ path from Wall Street oil trader to muckraking journalist. He’s sharing his process for working through an investigation and explaining how he broke stories about some of the state’s most powerful politicians. We’ll also take a look...

We’re taking a break from our reported podcasts this week to bring you audio from a conversation between legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward and former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr. During a session at the 2009 IRE Conference in Baltimore, the two covered media failures, the editor-reporter relationship, and what dinner with Al Gore is like.

When a Navy helicopter crashed off the coast of Virginia in January 2014, Jason Paladino lost one of his childhood friends - Petty Officer Third Class Brian Collins. But instead of grieving the loss and moving on, Paladino, a journalism grad student at UC-Berkeley, decided to investigate. Working with The Virginian-Pilot and NBC News he helped expose serious problems with the MH-53E Sea Dragon, th...

IRE’s Shawn Shinneman talks with Los Angeles Times reporter Richard Marosi about his 18-month investigation into the working conditions of Mexican agribusinesses supplying produce to major U.S. supermarkets and restaurants. Tune in to hear Marosi discuss the reporting challenges he faced on the ground in Mexico. Also on this episode: A 3-minute guide to mapping by former NICAR database library stu...

How many times a year do police kill people? And what happens to officers after they fire a fatal shot? Those were just some of the questions prompted by the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. On this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast we’ll be talking to some of the journalists working to answer those questions.

Americans donate about $300 billion a year to charities, with about 30 percent of that taking place in December. But not all charities are good stewards of donated dollars. For our last podcast of 2014 we’re talking about how to investigate nonprofits and charities. Here’s the lineup: - Justin Elliott of ProPublica talks about investigating the American Red Cross’ Superstorm Sandy relief efforts....

It’s a special Halloween episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, and this week we’re telling some housing horror stories. Here’s the lineup: - Marisa Kwiatkowski of The Indianapolis Star talks about her story "The exorcisms of Latoya Ammons," which became the most-read story in the Star’s history. - Kate Berry of American Banker explains "zombie foreclosures" and offers tips for reporters looking to tra...

It's not easy prying information out of hospitals and health departments. On our podcast this week we’ll hear from journalists who successfully negotiated for the data or documents they needed to fuel an investigation. Here’s the lineup: - Gary Dotson of the Belleville News-Democrat shares the paper’s 2012 story about the state’s failure to investigate after disabled adults living at home died fro...

You don’t have to be a full-time sports reporter to investigate athletes. This week we’re looking at sports investigations on several levels: college, military and professional. Join us for tips on getting around secretive athletics departments and digging deeper when players get in trouble. Here’s the lineup: - Tom Roeder of the Colorado Springs Gazette discusses “Broken Code,” his investigation...