The very (very) cool things we saw at IRE this year

While the temperatures in Chicago in mid-June hovered in the 80s and the Northwestern campus in Evanston humid enough to make it feel like the 90s, the temperatures in Anaheim, California during Investigative Reporters and Editors’ annual conference were much cooler … as were the tips, tricks and tools we collected during the four days among the more than 1,500 people who attended. 

We had a chance to catch up with some of our favorite people including several awardees and jurors of the Data-Driven Reporting Project. 

Also,  we must give a big thank-you to Eric Ferrero of the Fund for Investigative Journalism for inviting us to discuss our project on a panel he organized on “How to get funding for investigative projects.”  You can find the tipsheet here.

Check out all the tipsheets from the conference here. You don’t have to be a member to access. 

Here are a few highlights: 

Investigating Editing Corps
Now seven years old, this group connects experienced investigative editors with newsrooms seeking to do investigative reporting. You can read more on its website. 

They also produced this awesome resource for newsrooms and freelancers who seek funding - both for projects and general operation dollars. 

This not only has an updated master list of funders but also resources to help you craft pitches for funding. 

Prototipe Media

Prototipe Media gives seed grants to journalists to develop story ideas and then works with the journalist to develop those stories into documentaries, film and TV content. 

It reminds us of Type Investigations, which works directly with journalists to produce high-quality investigative stories for print, broadcast and online. 

Databases you should know

The Accountability Project is a collection of nearly 2 billion organization, location and people records for journalists to use for their own investigative stories - search across datasets by name or address or both. 

Big Local News offers journalists access to local data on health, policing and public health among topics as well as tools and a platform to store, share and publish data. 

Find Energy gives researchers and journalists combined government, company and data from dozens of sources on energy rates, energy providers and plant information down to local areas. 

Also, check out Data is Plural, “...a weekly newsletter (and seasonal podcast) of useful/curious datasets” published by Jeremy Singer-Vine, a multi-hyphenate* and past juror for the Data-Driven Reporting Project. It’s chock full of amazing resources that would make any data journalist and the data curious happy. 

*a data editor, reporter, and computer programmer