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DRUG WARS CAUGHT REFORMING FOI Documenting the violence Off-duty police officers Open records laws The in Juarez driving reckless speeds at a crossroads P. 1 9 P. 1 6 P. 2 1 Journal SPRING 2012 Make It Your Business Digging into companies and economic data p. 7 IRE AWARDwinners ENTER TODAY! BARLETT & STEELE AWARDS for INVESTIGATIVE BUSINESS Deadline: Aug. 1, 2012 JOURNALISM GOLD AWARD: $5,000 SILVER AWARD: $2,000 BRONZE AWARD: $1,000 APPLY AT BUSINESSJOURNALISM.ORG FREE TRAINING in Investigative Business Journalism June 13, BOSTON: Follow the Money – Tracking Companies’ Influence on Politics, with New York Times reporter Ron Nixon. Before IRE. June 15, BOSTON: Investigating Public Pensions, with Barlett & Steele Gold Award winner Craig Harris of The Arizona Republic. During IRE. Oct. 6, MISSOULA, Mont.: Be a Better Business Watchdog – CAR for Business Journalists, with IRE Training Director Jaimi Dowdell. Register at BusinessJournalism.org. Donald W.W. ReynoldsReynolds Andrew Leckey, President National CenterCenterforfor [email protected] Business JournalismJournalism 602-496-9186 TWITTER: @BIZJOURNALISM • FACEBOOK: BIZJOURNALISM Tell the readers Entries must have been published online or in print in the year ending something they don’t know.” June 30, 2012. — Don Barlett and Jim Steele,two-time Pulitzer winners The Journal SPRING 2012 4 ENOUGH ALREADY By Mark Horvit 5 IRE NEWS Make It Your 7 IRE AWARDS 16 ABOVE THE LAW Off-duty police caught driving from 90 to 130 mph By Sally Kestin and John Maines Sun Sentinel Business 19 IRE INTERNATIONAL Digging into companies Covering the violence in Juárez: Challenges and tools By Sandra Rodríguez and economic data El Diario de Juárez 21 FOI FILES Journalists should seek 22-31 FOI reforms By Charles N. Davis Missouri School of Journalism 32 COLLECTED WISDOM Doing great work requires a focus By Rose Ciotta The Philadelphia Inquirer 22 FINDING LOCAL DATA: 29 INVESTIGATING How to turn the numbers into PRIVATE COMPANIES 34 SNAPSHOTS FROM meaningful stories A quick and dirty guide OUR BLOGS By David Cay Johnston By Chris Roush University of North Carolina Reuters 26 IKEA 30 BACKGROUNDING Made in Sweden A BUSINESS By Magnus Svenungsson Quick tips on finding SVT (Swedish Television) public records and more By Jaimi Dowdell IRE Training Director THE IRE JOURNAL 3 The FROM THE IRE OFFICES Journal Enough already SPRING 2012 BY MARK HORVIT Volume 35 | Number 2 MANAGING EDITOR hen I started working for IRE in January 2008, cutbacks in the news industry were the theme of Megan Luther W the day. It wasn’t long before I began getting what I started thinking of as The Call. It came from a variety of sources: journalists working on stories for trade publications, academics ART DIRECTOR Wendy Gray working on research, students working on final papers. It started this way: “I’m working on an article/ research project/class paper about the decline of investigative journalism. …” CONTRIBUTING LEGAL EDITOR And they waited expectantly for me to start weeping, blubber about the End of Everything and fold David Smallman into a fetal ball. EDITORIAL ASSOCIATE I understood, of course, why so many people wanted to have that conversation. Scores of jobs have AND STORY EDITOR been lost in our industry in the past few years, and investigative reporters accounted for plenty of Aaron Cooper those. So I talked about the losses. And I stressed that the problem went far beyond cuts to those with IRE “investigative” or “projects” in their titles. We were also losing too many statehouse reporters, city hall reporters, business reporters, sports reporters, arts reporters, etc., and many of those losses had a IRE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR dramatic impact on investigative and enterprise journalism. The cumulative effect of fewer watchdogs Mark Horvit with notebooks and cameras is that more bad deeds go unreported. But even in the worst of times, I’d refer those callers to our website and our Extra-Extra blog, which BOARD OF DIRECTORS gives evidence every week of great investigative journalism being done around the country. And I’d PRESIDENT refer them to the list of winners and finalists for the IRE Awards, for more evidence of the same. And Manny Garcia El Nuevo Herald I’d talk about the small but growing trend of nonprofit investigative journalism that was filling some of the gap and making a major difference in many communities. VICE PRESIDENT For my first few years on the job, I expected those questions. But I’m still getting those calls – prob- Andrew Donohue voiceofsandiego.org ably half-a-dozen in the past four months. And really: Enough already. TREASURER It’s time to move on. Past time, really. David Cay Johnston Reuters I don’t see much benefit in dwelling on what we’ve lost. Instead, we ought to be looking at what’s working, the growing signs of renewal and the work that lies ahead. SECRETARY While we certainly haven’t turned the corner, we’re headed in the right direction. Want some evi- Sarah Cohen Duke University dence? - The nonprofit movement continues to grow and produce more high-impact journalism. Check out Robert Cribb The Toronto Star our website and the Investigative News Network’s site for plenty of examples. In fact, at this year’s IRE Conference, instead of multiple sessions on “alternative models” or the mere existence of “nonprofit Leonard Downie Jr. investigative journalism,” we made a deliberate decision to ask our colleagues at the nonprofit centers The Washington Post/Arizona State University to focus on their journalism. And at the annual INN day at the conference, instead of talking about how Josh Meyer to approach funders or how to start a center, we will discuss collaboration, risk management, digital Northwestern University tools – the kinds of things that established journalism organizations of all types should be thinking Aron Pilhofer about. The New York Times - A number of large news organizations are refocusing on – and investing in – investigative and en- Lea Thompson terprise journalism. There are new I-Teams being created in key TV markets from coast to coast. Ad- broadcast journalist/producer ditional computer-assisted reporting positions are being created (or revived) in newsrooms large and Mc Nelly Torres small. Newspapers that slashed their investigative teams are at least adding a position or two, and some Florida Center for Investigative Reporting are going much farther. - We’re seeing a steady increase in demand for IRE’s training. Gannett, McClatchy, Hearst and Scripps Matt Waite University of Nebraska-Lincoln are just four examples of large media corporations that have made companywide investment in train- ing, and many individual newsrooms, from small public radio stations to large metro newspapers, are Phil Williams WTVF-TV bringing our trainers in. I’m not saying everything is better now. It isn’t. Alison Young USA Today I’m not saying the cutting and the furloughs are over. They’re not. I’m not saying we don’t have a lot more work to do. We do. The IRE Journal (ISSN0164-7016) is published four times a year by Investigative Reporters & Editors, But there’s no point in dwelling on what we’ve lost. Our time is much better spent looking at those Inc., 141 Neff Annex, Missouri School of Journalism, who are working to rebuild, and how we’re refocusing on journalism that really matters. Columbia, MO 65211, 573-882-2042. Email: journal@ ire.org. U.S. subscriptions are $70 for individuals, There are plenty of examples out there. $85 for libraries and $125 for institutions/businesses. International subscriptions are $90 for individuals and Give me a call. I’ll tell you all about them. $150 for all others. Periodical postage paid at Jefferson City, MO. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Mark Horvit is executive director of IRE and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. He can be reached at IRE. USPS#451-670 [email protected] or 573-882-2042. © 2012 Investigative Reporters & Editors, Inc. 4 THE IRE JOURNAL IRE NEWS MEMBER NEWS IRE is pleased to welcome two new IRE members donate staff members Pulitzer Prize money Megan Luther joined us as training director in February. Megan has for training worked in radio, TV and most recently, newspapers. Before she joined IRE, Megan was a government reporter for the Argus Leader in South Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong both had Dakota and a computer-assisted reporting specialist for The Atlanta extraordinary resumes before winning the Pulitzer Journal-Constitution. Previously, she worked at IRE and NICAR in the Prize last week. Both reporters for The Seattle Database Library while completing her master’s degree at the University of Missouri. Times had produced investigations that won a long list of prizes, including multiple IRE awards. The Megan can be reached at [email protected]. work honored by the Pulitzer judges – “Methadone Elizabeth Lucas joined us in May as the new director of our National and the Politics of Pain” – had already been Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) Database Library. Liz honored many times. comes to IRE from the Center for Public Integrity, where she analyzed data for investigative projects on political, environmental and health topics. She previously worked in the Database Library while getting her So the fact that Berens and Armstrong won master’s degree at the University of Missouri. wasn’t a surprise. What they’re doing with the Liz can be reached at [email protected]. prize money, however, is extraordinary. They’ve dedicated the $10,000 prize to pay for IRE training Major collection of investigative reporting for fellow staffers in Seattle. ‘road maps’ now online A major new resource for journalists is available online for the first time.
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