Kelly Carr

Kelly is the Reynolds Center's Senior Online Producer. She has worked as a reporter for several newspapers, most recently The Arizona Republic, and has been an adjunct professor at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College and holds a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from West Virginia University. Kelly also was a fellow at The Poynter Institute and a contributing writer for "Cancer Stories: Lessons in Love, Loss & Hope."

IRE hosts Google Hangout on ICIJ ‘Secrecy for Sale’ investigation

By Kelly Carr on May 10, 2013 in Featured, Investigation, Networking

A screenshot from ICIJ's series on offshore secrecy.

Dozens of journalists teamed up to dig deep on 2.5 million files attached to more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts.

The result: a groundbreaking investigation on offshore secrecy – “Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze” – from The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The series has already gained international attention, prompting authorities to launch investigations into tax havens and multiple government inquiries. (Check out this post for background details on the series from ICIJ senior editor Michael Hudson.)

Intrigued? Curious to learn more about reporting on this large-scale investigation? You’re in luck.

HANGOUT: Investigative Reporters & Editors are hosting a Google Hangout with members of the ICIJ team on May 14 at 11 a.m. EDT. You can submit questions in advance to the panel, which includes Hudson, ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle and others who worked on the series.

IRE accepts applicants for its financial investigative journalism fellowship

By Kelly Carr on Apr 18, 2013 in Career tips, IRE, IRE Blog, Job listings, Jobs

Investigative Reports and Editors is offering a fellowship for journalists with a demonstrated interest in financial investigative journalism.

The David Dietz Fellowship, an award honoring David Dietz a longtime IRE member and supporter, covers conference registration fees and provides $750 for travel and lodging expenses. The fellow will also receive a yearlong IRE membership and a year-long mentorship with a veteran investigative journalist.

The IRE conference will be held in San Antonio on June 20-23. Applicants must have less than 10 years experience as a professional journalist. Details to apply are on IRE’s website.

David Dietz

Dietz is a former Bloomberg Markets reporter who passed away from cancer last June. A Columbia Journalism Review article highlighted one of Dietz most notable investigations, “Broken Promises,” which it dubbed a “staggering scandal.” Dietz, along with Bloomberg’s William Selway, Martin Z. Braun, examined $7 million in tax-exempt bond deals that generated millions in fees and investment gains. An exhaustive reporting effort revealed that taxpayers received no benefit. (Here’s more background on Dietz’s impressive journalism career.)

IRE also offers a myriad of other fellowship opportunities open to all experience levels. You can find more details and instruction on how to apply at IRE’s fellowship/scholarship page.

Decades on the investigative beat: C-SPAN talks with Barlett & Steele

By Kelly Carr on Feb 05, 2013 in Barlett & Steele Awards, Featured, Investigation

Donald Barlett and Jim Steele were recently featured on C-SPAN's BookTV to discuss their decades of work.

Donald Barlett & Jim Steele, the storied investigative business journalism duo, were recently featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV for an in-depth session that covered everything from past award-winning series to the team’s new book, “The Betrayal of the American Dream.”

And when you have a body of work that stretches over 40 years, includes eight books and has been honored with almost every major journalism prize, a three-hour interview might not seem long enough.

Highlights included stories from Barlett & Steele’s impressive resume and inside details from their revelatory books on tax dodging and Howard Hughes. The pair answered questions from Facebook comments, emails and Tweets. They also shared their thoughts on the future of investigative business journalism in a ever-changing media climate. (Watch the full interview on C-SPAN’s site.)

“There are a lot of good journalists out there…There is a lot of outstanding work going on in this country,” Steele said.

This discussion with two of the top investigative business reporters will leave you feeling inspired. Once you craft your own in-depth work, don’t forget to submit to to our annual Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism. Learn more about past winners and application details for this year’s competition.

Veteran investigative journalist Jim Steele kicks off Reynolds Week 2013

By Kelly Carr on Jan 02, 2013 in Featured, Reynolds Week, Reynolds Week 2013

Jim Steele shares tips for investigative business journalism with this year's fellows.

Reynolds Week is underway and ASU’s Cronkite School is buzzing with Strictly Financials and Business Journalism Professor fellows anxious to spend four days in intense training.

In the Strictly Financials Seminar, journalists from media outlets across the U.S. will study a variety of topics including markets, financial statements and SEC documents. The Business Journalism Professor fellows will learn tactics for developing a business journalism course and educating the next generation of financial reporters.

Jim Steele, an award-winning business journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair, kicked off the seminars with a conversation about investigative reporting. Steele, along with his writing partner Don Barlett, are the only reporting duo to win two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Magazine Awards. They have worked together for more than 40 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Time and now for Vanity Fair.

Steele told journalists and professors that it’s a promising time for journalists looking to do more in-depth work, especially because of the easy availability of documents and other information online. Steele remembers having to fly to various locations to inspect documents that are now within reach after a few key strokes.

“This is in many ways a true golden age for investigative reporting because of what’s accessible,” Steele said. “Twenty-four/seven you can go online and see this stuff. That is a huge change.”

To keep tabs on what the fellows are learning this week, check out the Strictly Financials and Business Journalism Professor agendas. We’ll also post session handouts, videos at updates through the week at our Reynolds Week 2013 blog.

Reynolds Week 2013: Agenda, Business Journalism Professors

By Kelly Carr on Dec 18, 2012 in Reynolds Week, Reynolds Week 2013, TrendingTopic

“Business Journalism Professors Seminar” – Jan. 2-5

WEDNESDAY — Jan. 2

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) – Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. Welcome and Introductions (Combined groups) – First Amendment Forum, Andrew Leckey

9 a.m. “Business Journalists as Investigators” (Combined groups) – Forum, Jim Steele

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break – Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10:30 a.m. “Deciding What to Teach” – Room 352, Chris Roush

NOON Box Lunch with Jim Steele (Combined groups) - Forum

1:30 p.m. “Organizing Your Class” - Room 352, Roush

2:30 p.m. Case Study: “Syllabus Writing” - Room 352, Roush

3:15-3:30 p.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:30 p.m. “Resources and Keeping Students Interested” - Room 352, Roush

5 p.m. Cronkite School Tour (Combined groups) - Outside Room 302, Kristin Gilger

6 p.m. Dinner (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

THURSDAY—Jan. 3, 2013

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. “Designing Assignments to Build Financial-Journalism Skills” - Room 352, Pam Luecke

9:45 a.m. “10 Secrets to Teaching Business Journalism in Today’s Classroom” - Room 352, Randy Smith

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

11 a.m. “Teaching the Business Narrative” – Room 352, Alan Deutschman

NOON Barlett & Steele Awards Luncheon and Panel Discussion (Combined groups) - Forum

1:30-2 p.m. Book signing with Jim Steele (Combined groups) - Forum

2 p.m. “Teaching the Effective Use of Data in Business Coverage” - Room 352, Steve Doig

3:30-3:45 p.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:45 p.m. “Preparing Students for Internships, Including How to Work with Local Media” - Room 352, Chris Lavelle and Mike Wong

5:45 p.m. Evening Free (Combined groups)

FRIDAY—Jan. 4

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. “Thinking Strategically About Your Class” – Room 352, Jimmy Gentry

10:45-11:00 a.m. Break – Third floor landing overlooking Forum

11:00 a.m. “Teaching Financial Statements” and “Securities and Exchange Commission Filings” - Room 352, Gentry

NOON Lunch (Combined groups) -Taylor Place Cafeteria

1:30 p.m. “Teaching Financial Statements” (continued) and “Teaching Markets” - Room 352, Gentry

3-3:15 p.m. Break – Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:15 p.m. “Tools for Analysis: Common Size” and “Creating Cases” - Room 352, Gentry

5 p.m. Group photos (Combined groups) - Forum

6 p.m. Dinner with cash bar (Combined groups) - Cibo, 603 N. 5th Ave., Phoenix.

SATURDAY —Jan. 5

7:15 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8 a.m. “What Editors Expect” – Room 352, Linda Austin, Ilana Lowery and Kathy Tulumello

9-10:30 a.m. “Injecting Multimedia into Your Business Journalism Class” - Room 352, Mark Tatge

10:30-10:45 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10:45-11:30 a.m. “Jumpstarting Your Program When You Get Home” – Room 352, Andrew Leckey

11:30 a.m. Certificate Presentation (Combined groups) - Forum

NOON Box Lunch/Adjourn (Combined groups)- Forum

Reynolds Week 2013: Agenda, Strictly Financials

By Kelly Carr on Dec 18, 2012 in Reynolds Week, Reynolds Week 2013, TrendingTopic

“Strictly Financials Seminar” – Jan. 2-5

WEDNESDAY — Jan. 2

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. Welcome and Introductions (Combined groups) - First Amendment Forum, Andrew Leckey

9 a.m. “Business Journalists as Investigators” (Combined groups) - Forum, Jim Steele

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10:30 a.m. “Markets: An Overview” - Room 314, Jimmy Gentry

NOON Box Lunch with Jim Steele (Combined groups) - Forum

1:30 p.m. “Understanding Financial Statements: Income Statement” - Room 314, Gentry

3:15-3:30 p.m. Break – Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:30 p.m. “Understanding Financial Statements: Income Statement, Common Size Analysis, and SEC Documents” - Room 314, Gentry

5 p.m. Cronkite School Tour (Combined groups) - Outside Room 302, Kristin Gilger

6 p.m. Dinner (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

THURSDAY—Jan. 3, 2013

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. “Understanding Financial Statements: Balance Sheet and Cash Flows and Sources” – Room 314, Gentry

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10:30 a.m. “Digging Deeper: Goodwill and Pro Forma” - Room 314, Gentry and Gary Trennepohl

NOON Barlett & Steele Awards Luncheon and Panel Discussion (Combined groups) - Forum

1:30-2 p.m. Book signing with Jim Steele (Combined groups) - Forum

2 p.m. “Digging Deeper: Banks and Comparing Companies” - Room 314, Gentry and Trennepohl

3:30-3:45 p.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:45 p.m. “Using SEC Documents in Investigative Reporting” - Room 314, Brian Grow

5:45 p.m. Evening Free (Combined groups)

FRIDAY—Jan. 4

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. “Decoding Financial Statements” - Room 314, Trennepohl

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10:30 a.m. “Decoding Financial Statements” (continued) - Room 314, Trennepohl

NOON Lunch (Combined groups) -Taylor Place Cafeteria

1:30 p.m. “Decoding Financial Statements” (continued) - Room 314, Trennepohl

3-3:15 p.m. Break – Third floor landing overlooking Forum

3:15 p.m. “Investing in a Time of Uncertainty” - Room 314, Trennepohl

5 p.m. Group photos (Combined groups) - Forum

6 p.m. Dinner with cash bar (Combined groups) - Cibo, 603 N. 5th Ave., Phoenix.

SATURDAY —Jan. 5

7:45 a.m. Breakfast (Combined groups) - Taylor Place Cafeteria

8:30 a.m. “Financial Markets in 2013: Where are the Stories” - Room 314, Trennepohl

9:45-10 a.m. Break - Third floor landing overlooking Forum

10 a.m. “Financial Markets in 2013: Where are the Stories” (continued) - Room 314, Trennepohl
RM 314 Trennepohl

11:30 a.m. Certificate Presentation (Combined groups) - Forum

NOON Box Lunch/Adjourn (Combined groups)- Forum

Sutton stays at Grambling to lead public relations and communications

By Kelly Carr on Jul 16, 2012 in Featured, Latest, Networking, Visiting Professors Program

Will Sutton (left) and Andrew Leckey, president of the Reynolds Center.

Will Sutton, a 2012 Reynolds Center Visiting Professor, will join Grambling State University as acting Director of Public Relations and Communications.

Since January, Sutton taught a business journalism class at Grambling as part of the Reynolds Center’s Visiting Professor Program, which pairs veteran journalists with academic institutions to encourage stronger financial training. Sutton, whose career included leading award-winning teams at various media outlets, was one of four visiting professors funded by a $1.67 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

In his new role, Sutton will handle Grambling’s public relations and communications. He will also advise journalism students as they embark on professional careers.

“None of this would be possible without the wonderful visiting professor opportunity provided by the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and the opportunity to share business and business journalism knowledge with students at Grambling State University,” Sutton said in an e-mail. “This job gives me the chance to have a broad impact on the university while still working with students.”

While teaching at Grambling, Sutton founded a professional development program for journalists and also pushed for diversity on the business beat. This spring, his 11-point plan for adding diversity to business journalism ranks prompted a vibrant online discussion and eventually action. After reading Sutton’s challenge, Jill Jorden Spitz, president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, vowed to explore bring business journalism training to five high schools. She also said the organization will strive to award five minority students scholarships to the 2013 SABEW Annual Conference in Washington D.C.

“We have enjoyed having Will on campus as a visiting professor, and we’re thrilled that he’s agreed to stay and help us communicate all the good news about our wonderful university,” President Frank D. Pogue said in a press release. “We know someone of his caliber will automatically have respect from his media peers and our academic community, and we know he can help us.”

Covering shadow banking: An introduction and tips for digging

By Kelly Carr on Jul 02, 2012 in Beats, Economy, Featured, Investigation, Investing | Banking

The shadow banking system. Have you heard of it? If not, it’s vital to spend the time to begin to understand the movements of this group of financial intermediaries that operate outside of the traditional banking system.

Mary Fricker, Photo: Santa Rosa Press Democrat

After all, according to RepoWatch’s Mary Fricker, shadow banking was a central player in the financial crisis. She said the industry also provides a about half of the credit in the U.S. If investors connected to these banks lose faith in their securities, the unraveling could once again have big time consequences for our financial systems.

It’s also an area ripe with coverage potential for journalists in both local and national newsrooms.

“Shadow banking is the best story in business journalism today” said Fricker. “Great stories lie ahead. We need to get ready.”

Fricker, along with ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger and Bloomberg’s Brad Keoun led a session to teach journalists about shadow banking during the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editor’s Conference in Boston. Fricker runs the investigative site, RepoWatch, which is focused on the repurchasing market. Jesse

To grab more tips on everything from investigating in China to tacking influence in campaign contributions, stop by IRE’s conference blog.

I was lucky enough to attend this year’s conference and had the chance to jump in to learn on all sorts of topics from some of the best investigative journalists around. The shadow banking session was one that definitely stuck with me and an area I’m excited to dive deeper into.

I asked Fricker to share her introductory tips for covering the topic. You’ll find her detailed steps for telling shadow banking stories below. After reading it, I’m sure you’ll be excited to start digging.

Introduction to Shadow Banking

View more documents from Reynolds Center for Business Journalism.

For more, Marketplace’s Paddy Hirsch explains shadow banking on his Whiteboard video feature.

Hirsch puts it simply: “Why was (and is) shadow banking such a threat? Because the institutions in the shadow banking system are essentially unregulated.”

Open database of the corporate world: A tool to background businesses

By Kelly Carr on Jun 05, 2012 in Basics, Beats, Investigation, Manufacturing | Large companies, Small | Private | Non-profit, Tools

opencorporates.com screenshot.

Searching for U.S. business incorporation records typically requires jumping from state to state to dig through numerous Secretary of State’s websites. It’s time consuming and often daunting.

And when you’re in the thick of it – searching for one business in Florida only to jump over to look up another in Arkansas and then a third in Illinois – you start wishing for one thing: a master collection of incorporation records in one, central spot.

Thankfully, the founders of Open Corporates had the same thought and sought out a way to streamline the process.

Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon are working to gather business information from around the globe into one database dubbed Open Corporates. Theirs is a simple, but big mission. Their goal: To have an entry for every corporate entity in the world logged into one central database, allowing users searching simply by company name or director to find a series of relevant matches from all parts of the world.

“Once you put it together in one place you can do lots of things,” Taggart said. “At the base it’s having one big database that allows you to search a bunch of different jurisdictions and a whole lot of different permutations all at once.

MORE RESOURCES for investigating
corporate records
Clickable map: U.S. business filings
Researching private companies
Self-guided training: Private companies, nonprofits
Small, private and nonprofit archives

Currently, the site allows users to search through more than 40 million companies in 52 jurisdictions, which stretch from from California to Croatia. For users searching for information on U.S. companies, the site has business information from 23 states and also the District of Columbia. Taggert said those numbers will continue to grow.

This mega search allows journalists to sweep across information that’s held worldwide, allowing them to spot subsidiary or related companies. Reporters analyzing a company may begin to find related entities offshore or in other states they otherwise were unaware of and would have had to track down by searching each individual registry.

Chris Taggart, co-founder and CEO of Open Corporates.

“These days companies are not just a company,” Taggart said. “You’ll get multiple subsidiaries. You’ll get companies that own other companies in tax havens or secrecy havens, which will own another company back in the home jurisdiction. It’s a web of interconnected entities.”

Eager to dive in? Here are a few ways you can begin using Open Corporates as an investigative tool:

Run a basic company search:

- Run a basic company search: To do a basic entity search on Open Corporates, simply type the firm’s name into the search bar at the top of the page. The search will recognize capital letters or abbreviations and will pull in relevant company information. You can then filter by jurisdiction and follow links to the company’s actual filings. Remember that the search isn’t all inclusive. Not all states or overseas jurisdictions are accounted for yet because the site is still growing. The search can be a useful supplementary tool to identify related companies or locations you were unaware of. Also helpful area the tags next to the entities, which quickly reveal if the company is active or inactive.

- Run a director search: Recently, Open Corporates added a specific search for company officers and directors where you can dig for leads in a database the holds more than 14 million results. When you search a specific name, the query scans through all 52 jurisdictions to provide matches. The ability to quickly search in one spot will cut your research time significantly. For more information on how to search, read this blog post from Open Corporates detailing the director’s section of the site.

- Take your search deeper with Google Refine: With this option you can take a separate datasheet (formatted in CSV or Excel) with company information and compare it to registered companies found in Open Corporates’ database. This reconciliation streamlines your searching even more and allows you to quickly find incorporation records for multiple companies on your radar. For a step-by-step guide for using Google Refine with Open Corporates, watch the video below.