IRE CAR 2010

IRE’s NICAR 2010 over. They’ve closed up shop and headed home. But let’s take one more look at the Best of the Year in CAR-based reporting. | Best of CAR (PDF)

Need help investigating stimulus or lenders? Check these training videos

By Reynolds Staff on Jul 27, 2010 in Best Practices, Economy, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Investing | Banking, Story ideas

We’ve posted two training videos that may be helpful if you’re investigating the stimulus or tracking mortgage lenders. They are graciously provided to us by Investigative Reporters and Editors from sessions at its Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) Conference in Phoenix in March.
In the video on the federal economic stimulus, reporters Tom Grabell of ProPublica.org and Ben Poston of the [...]

NICAR 2010: Collection of best of CAR reporting

By Robin J Phillips on Mar 16, 2010 in Best Practices, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

IRE’s NICAR 2010 over. They’ve closed up shop and everyone has headed home.
But let’s take one more look at the Best of the Year in CAR-based reporting.
Best of the Year in CAR 2010 (PDF) by Doug Haddix and Mark Horvit, IRE and NICAR
Haddix and Horvit put together this 42-slide PDF showing soe of [...]

Backgrounding people and businesses

By Linda Austin on Mar 14, 2010 in Best Practices, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Small | Private | Non-profit, Tools, TrendingTopic

Jaimi Dowdell, training director for IRE, recommended that you have a strategy when it comes to using the Web as an investigative tool.
“Know what you’re after,” she told sessions on the concluding day of the CAR Conference in Phoenix. “Know what is available, and know when enough is enough.”
She also advised a healthy dose of [...]

Beyond Google — using the Web as an investigative tool

By Linda Austin on Mar 14, 2010 in Best Practices, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Social Media, Tools, TrendingTopic

Here are some tips from Jaimi Dowdell, training director for IRE, on using the Web as an investigative tool:

Use advanced search on Google plus at least one other search engine to search for phrases, domain types, file types, or words in a URL. For example, if you are looking for government data, search for the [...]

Following federal economic-stimulus funds to your backyard

By Linda Austin on Mar 13, 2010 in Beats, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

Reporters Michael Grabell of ProPublica.org and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offered several online sites that can help you track economic-stimulus funds to your state or county.
“Stimulus is a completely local story,” Grabell said. “Everywhere you go, you can find an interesting story in your backyard.” |Video and presentation: Michael Grabell and Ben Poston on Covering [...]

Using home-mortgage data to identify top 25 subprime lenders

By Linda Austin on Mar 13, 2010 in Beats, IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Real estate | Econ development, Tools, TrendingTopic

David Donald, data editor for the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity, described how he and his colleagues used Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to identify the nation’s top 25 subprime lenders from 2005 to 2007, a period encompassing the peak and collapse of the subprime boom. Subprime loans are high-interest loans to borrowers with less than sterling [...]

Become your newsroom’s master of numbers

By Kelly Carr on Mar 13, 2010 in IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

Percent of total. Margin of error. Mean, median and mode.
These words could conjure up a college statistics class you desperately tried to avoid. But for journalists who want to assess large amounts of data, a basic knowledge of these computing methods will go a long way.
In a session called “Necessary Numbers for the Newsroom, ” [...]

Searching for biz stories in campaign finance data

By Kelly Carr on Mar 13, 2010 in IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

To stay on top of campaign finance the site FollowTheMoney.org is a must-have search tool.
The site aggregates data to “reveal the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states.” The stats are a great resource for understanding how campaign cash plays out in your local coverage area and how [...]

The intersection of data and the environment

By Kelly Carr on Mar 12, 2010 in IRE 2010 Blog, IRE CAR 2010, Investigation, Tools, TrendingTopic

If you want to dig deeper into environmental data, a good first step is to check out what’s already been done and use it as a springboard.
By analyzing top-notch pieces, you may find a framework to scale down information for your local readers. Plus, already created databases offer you a way to extract data for [...]