Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the quality of investigative reporting. It was formed in 1975 and presents the IRE awards and holds conferences and training classes for journalists. Its headquarters is in Columbia, Missouri, at the University of Missouri school of journalism.
The IRE website is designed to help journalists find resources and tips to help them better prepare and perform in their jobs. A primary purpose of the site is to promote the many IRE seminars, webinars, and conferences they put on. It also includes information for a number of workshops including ones on watchdog duties and ethnic media. For students and young professionals looking to gain the edge there are fellowships and scholarships available as well as resources for mentoring.
On the menu on the home page one can navigate to the Resource Center which is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories of both print and broadcast. There are more than 3,000 tipsheets from national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories. These stories and tipsheets are searchable through the online database or by contacting the resource center directly by phone.
The site even includes a job center. It posts job openings, jobs wanted, as well as resources to scholarships, fellowships, grants and awards.
The IRE website as I have described is the basic public version but there is a whole other side to it that is yet to be seen. For IRE members there are far greater resources including networking, training and blogging.
Over all, out of 5, I give this site a 3. Its pretty good; it has good material, but in the end I'm left feeling pretty underwhelmed. I would have liked to see some advice thrown right out to me or something to make me feel this is important. But instead the mass effort on the site is geared toward getting people to come to conferences, sign up for workshops. Whatever happened to reel em in and bait em before trying to make a sale on em. Perhaps the good stuff that I'm just not seeing is on the members side of the website.
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I agree that the site mostly promotes conferences. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see much investigative reporting on the site. It may be different if you're a member. However, if the site promoted more of it's main purpose to helping journalists, then maybe more people would subscribe. I did like the Extra!Extra! section on the left side of the page. In that section, you could see current investigative stories that have been published. I also liked how well the site was organized as well. It was very easy to use and not complicated.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Greg's rating. Most of the Web site is facts and figures. I would rather see in depth information and findings rather than conference schedules. It seems like that information could be found elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with everyone thus far. It is a good site for what it does offer. I like the fact that they have been around for over 30 years and are keeping up with the times. I don't know that I will be following them on twitter anytime soon but I appreciate the effort!
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