IRE Radio Podcast

Feb 11 2020 96 ep. 22 mins 41
IRE Radio Podcast artwork

Go behind the story with some of the country’s best journalists on this radio program produced by Investigative Reporters and Editors, a nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. Sit in on conversations with award-winning reporters, editors and producers to hear how they broke some of the biggest stories of the year. You can also subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ire-radio-podcast/id900544465 Or find us on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=64372&refid=stpr

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Broken Breath Tests

Feb 11 2020 17 mins  
Police rely on alcohol breath tests to convict drunken drivers. But what happens when the machines they use aren’t reliable? Stacy Cowley of The New York Times looked into the problem of faulty breath test machines and found thousands of cases where the tests were thrown out. On this episode, Stacy breaks down how she discovered unreliable breath tests and the consequences they p

Fighting Fentanyl

Jan 13 2020 15 mins  
Opioid addiction is a decades-long crisis that killed roughly 47,000 people in 2017 alone, largely due to the potency of fentanyl. But despite all the warning signs, Congress didn’t pass any legislation on opioids until 2016. On this week’s episode, we’ll hear how Katie Zezima of the Washington Post tracked inaction in Congress and visited a small town in rural Massachusetts

SPECIAL: Rediscovering Don Bolles

Dec 11 2019 28 mins  
Investigative Reporters and Editors was formed in 1975, the year before Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was killed by a car bomb. He died days before he was scheduled to speak at IRE’s first annual conference. Now, decades after his death, the team at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com found tapes Bolles recorded before he was killed. On this special episode, we’re sha

BONUS: Telling an Unbelievable Story

Nov 08 2019 16 mins  
On this bonus episode, we’re sharing audio from the 2016 IRE Conference. In a session on narrative storytelling, reporters T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong explain how they wrote their Pulitzer-winning story “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”. Their reporting is the basis of a new Netflix limited series called “Unbelievable". EPISODE NOTES: bit.ly/2PXWzLW

Hooked on Fines

Oct 08 2019 12 mins  
When protests rocked Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, few realized the tensions could be traced to a policy-based problem — local police were fining residents at abnormally high rates to fund the city’s operating budget. Mike Maciag of Governing Magazine spent a year looking into other communities reliant on fines. He found a trend that’s destabilizing governments in low-income c

When Police Kill

Sep 24 2019 17 mins  
When police kill civilians, the victims are often people of color. So, when Arizona Republic reporters Uriel Garcia and Bree Burkitt decided to investigate police shootings in their state, they knew their sources should be as diverse as their community. On this week’s episode, we’ll go behind the reporting to learn how they tallied police shootings, identified sources, and used

BONUS: In The Clear

Jul 29 2019 17 mins  
On this week’s episode, we’re sharing audio from the 2019 CAR Conference. Reporters from Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, Newsy, KUT Austin and ProPublica explained how they got data on “cleared” cases from more than 100 police departments across the country. The data showed police weren’t solving as many rape cases as they claimed. EPISODE NOTES: www.

Inside the Missouri Investigative Journalism Workshop

Jun 27 2019 11 mins  
On this special episode, students at the Missouri Investigative Journalism Workshop discuss their experiences at the weeklong summer program. Investigative Reporters & Editors supported the workshop, which was held at the Missouri School of Journalism. Corey Johnson of the Tampa Bay Times and Paula Lavigne of ESPN served as guest instructors. Host: Matthew O'Stricker of Woodward A

BONUS: Always Be Curious

May 28 2019 13 mins  
Investigations today are full of data, documents and computer programming, but that wasn’t always the case. On this bonus episode, we’re sharing audio from the 2019 CAR Conference. Data journalism pioneer James B. Steele discusses his work with longtime reporting partner Donald L. Barlett. He also offers tips for finding stories and staying curious. EPISODE NOTES: www.ire.org/

Silenced by the Church

Apr 29 2019 24 mins  
For decades, children passed through the doors of Catholic orphanages. Some never walked out. On this week’s episode, Christine Kenneally takes us behind her work investigating hidden abuses in orphanages around the world. Her BuzzFeed News investigation uncovered that dozens of children had died violently, their deaths covered up and lost to time. EPISODE NOTES: http://bit.ly/2