Investigative

Reporters

& Editors

Journalists meet in Reston, Virginia, to discuss whether an organization to improve investigative journalism is feasible. The Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis philanthropy, donates a $3,100 planning grant with support from the Disciples of Christ church. A church staff member designed IRE’s logo.

On June 2, 1976, Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles is seriously injured by a car bomb in connection with an investigation. He dies 11 days later. The first Investigative Reporters and Editors national conference is held in Indianapolis. More than 200 journalists from 35 states attend. In the wake of Bolles’ murder, IRE begins to organize the Arizona Project.

The Arizona Project team completes its reporting, writing, editing and legal review. The 23-part series about corruption in the state where Bolles died is offered at no cost to news organizations for publication in whole or in part. Six people named in the series sue IRE for libel.

IRE’s second annual conference meets in Columbus, Ohio. The June national conference becomes a permanent part of IRE’s services. The membership fee is $15 annually for professional journalists, half that for journalism students.

The reach of IRE’s national conferences increases as transcripts of specific sessions become available from the 1978 Denver gathering, as well as the 1976 and 1977 conferences. In addition, IRE contracts with a private company to produce audiotapes of almost every national conference session. IRE collects and catalogs “tip sheets” and other handouts from conference speakers.

The Centre for Investigative Journalism, patterned in part after IRE, opens its headquarters at Carleton University, Ottawa — one of many centers around the world that used IRE as inspiration.

The Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Mo wins the bid to house IRE.

To supplement the national conferences, IRE organizes two-day regional conferences, including its first Far West regional attended by 399 in Palm Springs, Calif.

The first IRE Journal is published. IRE establishes the Resource Center.

IRE paid membership reaches 1,000.

IRE holds its first conference designed primarily for college students in Columbia, Mo.

IRE holds its first conference designed for broadcast journalists in Louisville.

IRE presents its annual awards for the first time. The six categories yield more than 300 entries.

An auction is held in Los Angeles to raise money for IRE’s legal defense fund and a separate legal defense fund for Bill Farr, Los Angeles Times reporter and IRE director. IRE potentially owes $45,000 to its insurer for deductibles to the Arizona Project lawsuits. Farr owes money related to a jail term 11 years earlier when he refused to divulge a confidential source related to the Charles Manson murder case. The auction raised $11,000.

The only libel suit against IRE from the Arizona Project that goes to trial ends in a verdict favorable to IRE. A plaintiff award of $15,000 for alleged emotional distress was vacated.

A survey of IRE members shows 72 percent are reporters, 60 percent work at newspapers, 79 percent are male, and 22 percent spend three-quarters or more of their time on investigative projects.

IRE, in conjunction with St. Martin’s Press, publishes “The Reporter’s Handbook: An Investigator’s Guide to Documents and Techniques.” Edited by John Ullmann and Steve Honeyman, it has contributions from dozens of IRE members.

Two months after the IRE national conference in Chicago, IRE offers a conference on a specialized topic, covering agriculture. IRE also sponsors a conference on investigating sports in Jacksonville, Fla.

IRE establishes an endowment fund to improve long-term financial stability. The initial goal is to raise $1.1 million.

IRE member Elliot Jaspin is hired by the Missouri School of Journalism and opens the Missouri Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

MICAR holds first boot camp.

IRE and the Indiana University Journalism School collaborate on a computer-assisted reporting conference billed as “advanced investigative methods for journalists.”

For the first time, an entire day is devoted to computer- assisted reporting at an IRE national conference in Portland, Ore.

MICAR begins publishing Uplink, a computer-assisted reporting newsletter.

The IRE Journal changes format from newsprint, tabloid size to regular, magazine size on higher quality paper. The frequency returns from four times a year to six times.

IRE joins with the National Press Club to offer a conference on conceiving, reporting and writing investigations from a Washington, D.C., perspective.

IRE offers scholarships for minority student journalists to work at the organization and grants for minority journalists to attend the annual national conference — a priority that increased over time.

A Freedom Forum grant allows IRE to offer computer-assisted reporting training in newsrooms in the United States. These supplement the CAR boot camps at the Missouri School of Journalism that are run by IRE.

Led by board member Pat Stith of The News & Observer, IRE holds its first Computer- Assisted Reporting Conference in Raleigh, N.C.

MICAR is renamed the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

IRE participates in the first joint convention of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) — known as UNITY ‘94. IRE and NICAR conducted panels on investigative reporting and hands-on training in computer-assisted reporting.

IRE receives a grant from the Freedom Forum to establish a minority journalists training program as part of IRE’s initiative to increase diversity in investigative journalism.

Continuing to build its international presence in multiple ways, IRE sends speakers to a Bulgarian university in conjunction with the Missouri School of Journalism.

IRE and NICAR form listservs allowing journalists to communicate effectively online.

IRE receives proposals from five universities to provide an IRE headquarters. The IRE board of directors considers offers from the University of Maryland, Columbia University, Northwestern University and American University. After months of debate, the IRE board of directors votes 7-4 to stay at Missouri rather than go to the University of Maryland. Elected members on the IRE board of directors increase from 11 to 13.

With a three-year grant of $540,000 from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation providing the bulk of the funding, IRE begins operating IRE Mexico, and training quickly broadens to operate a similar organization in Central and South America, with a Mexico City headquarters.

With so much expansion, IRE operates with a budget of approximately $1 million.

IRE and its Mexican project, Periodistas de Investigación, organize the first “border gathering” aimed primarily at journalists in the El Paso and Juárez area.

The Open Society Institute awards IRE money to conduct conferences on investigative reporting for small- and medium- sized news organizations.

Membership tops 4,000 journalists. Dues increase to $50 annually.

The first of IRE’s seven beat books, “Covering Aviation Safety: An Investigator’s Guide,” is published. The second and third volumes, “Home Mortgage Lending: How to detect disparities" and "Understanding Crime Statistics" are released just a few months later.

IRE celebrates 25 years at the national conference in New York City. More than 1,000 attendees.

IRE and NICAR host the first-ever boot camp designed for educators at the Missouri School of Journalism, led by IRE executive director Brant Houston and Jo Craven McGinty, academic adviser to NICAR.

With continued downsizing in the news industry, IRE launches a program to help members facing temporary unemployment. The “Help a Colleague” fund offers one-year membership renewals at halfprice for members who have been recently laid off and are still unemployed.

IRE and DICAR, a Danish journalism organization, collaborate on the first four-day Global Investigative Journalism Conference. More than 300 journalists from 40 countries participate in the conference in Copenhagen.

IRE reschedules a CAR Conference for Philadelphia in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The conference, hosted in March 2002, later added special sessions focused on terrorism, aviation safety and other heightened reader-viewer concerns.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awards IRE up to $2 million for operations and endowment.

IRE and The Society of Professional Journalists begin a three-year collaboration on one-day “Better Watchdog Workshops” with an initial grant from the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. The number of workshops quickly grows to more than a dozen a year and continues with grants from other foundations and newsrooms.

The IRE and NICAR Database Library continues to expand its collection of government databases, which now reaches about 40 databases.

The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation continues its support of the Better Watchdog Workshop series.

More than 850 journalists from around the U.S. and 14 other countries attend IRE’s annual conference in Denver.

IRE and NICAR presents the first Philip Meyer Award, in honor of the pioneering journalist and author. Winners are recognized at the NICAR Conference in Newark, N.J.

With funding from the McCormick Tribune Foundation. IRE collaborates with New America Media (NAM), an organization of more than 700 ethnic news groups, to host investigative workshops. The pilot Ethnic Media Workshop is hosted in Chicago.

IRE announces the first winners of an endowed fellowship that provides support for freelance journalists working on investigative projects.

Data purchases from the NICAR Database Library can now be made online for most data sets. Data can still be purchased via phone or fax, and members are encouraged to call the library for analysis and consultation services.

IRE begins printing The IRE Journal quarterly, instead of six times a year.

IRE, in partnership with Education Writers Association and the Student Press Law Center, launches a program to share investigative reporting skills with college and university students. The Campus Coverage Project is funded by the Lumina Foundation.

The NICAR Conference introduces "Lightning Talks," quick and quirky five-minute presentations to teach fellow members something new. The talks have since grown into one of NICAR's most popular sessions.

The CAR Conference in Raleigh expands sessions and hands-on classes designed for programmers.

DocumentCloud, funded through a grant from the Knight News Challenge, becomes part of IRE. Launched in 2009, the service at the time was used by more than 250 news organizations and was home to more than 80,000 documents. It stayed part of IRE until 2017.

IRE launches online Census data service census.ire.org. Journalists from The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, USA TODAY, CNN, the Spokesman-Review and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln worked on the project, which was funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism.

IRE excecutive director Mark Horvit and training director Jaimi Dowdell hold a computer-assisted reporting boot camp for journalists in Bangladesh, many of whom cover business and finance.

For the first time, members can now digitally search more than 15,000 IRE Awards contest entries. The entries provide detailed road maps to how many of the best investigative projects of the past three decades were done.

IRE launches data journalism fund after a donation from Google Ideas. Eight newsrooms were awarded grants in early 2013.

IRE launches Total Newsroom Training to bring free, customized watchdog training to small and medium-sized newsrooms.

IRE awards the inaugural Golden Padlock, a new "prize" recognizing the most secretive publicly funded agency or official in the U.S. The U.S. Border Patrol wins for refusing to make public the details of use-of-force incidents involving its agents.

The IRE Radio Podcast launches, sharing interviews with journalists, audio from workshops and conferences, and additional IRE Resources. Episodes are available on iTunes and SoundCloud and open to the public. Epsiodes so far have included reporting around FERPA, investigating scandals at the VA and tips for battling FOIA denials.

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awards a $1.4 million grant to DocumentCloud. The grant goes toward improvements and sustainability.

https://archive.ire.org/supportajournalist

In an effort to introduce more students to the organization, IRE encourages sponsoring student members. The student membrship is $25.

NICAR Courses, a hands-on course package for instructors, launches.

Students are given the right to vote in IRE elections. The IRE membership approved the change at the CAR Conference in Atlanta.

IRE partners with Local Matters, a newsletter spotlighting the best local investigative reporting across the U.S. It was co-founded in Dec. 2016 by reporters Joey Cranney, Alexandra Glorioso and Brett Murphy, when they worked together at the Naples Daily News.

The first-ever Don Bolles Medal for courage is awarded to Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach Velducea, who was assassinated earlier this year in retaliation for her efforts to expose organized crime and corruption. The medal was created in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the Arizona Project.

Record-breaking attendance at NICAR Conference in Chicago. More than 1,250 people attend, making it the largest in-person NICAR Conference to date. The record was later broken in 2021 when the conference was held online, bringng togher 1,666 attendees.

A fellowship supporting journalists of color is established with the generous donations of IRE members Mike Gruss, Meghan Hoyer, Megan Luther and Mike Tahani. Designed to increase the range of backgrounds, experiences and interests within the field of investigative journalism, the yearlong program offers IRE training, mentorship, data services and support — with the goal of helping fellowship recipients produce an investigative reporting project benefitting their community.

IRE Membership reaches an all-time high of 6,178.

Record-breaking attendance at the IRE Conference in Houston. Approximately 1,980 people attended, making it the largest IRE Conference to date. The previous record had been 1,860 attendees at the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans.

IRE offers a series of free webinars for all journalists. 15 webinars attract more than 7,300 journalists, students and educators from late March through June. The training is free, through generous funding from the Inasmuch Foundation.

The Investigative Reporter's Handbook, Sixth Edition, is released. Former IRE executive directors Brant Houston and Mark Horvit offer an extensive update to their best-selling classroom and newsroom classic, reflecting advances in the field, new trends and technology, and recent investigative work.

The annual conference is held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Rick Gevers-Karen Burns Diversity Fund for College Journalists is established to provide IRE training, resources and support annually at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions and on other campuses for the benefit of student journalists of color. The fund is created by IRE member and television journalist Rick Gevers and his wife, Karen Burns. It kicks off in the 2021-2022 academic year to support the IRE on Campus program.

IRE's first symposium on diversity and inclusion is hosted online, with two half-days of sessions focused on investigating inequality in communities, from policing to elections, as well as newsroom diversity issues.

IRE establishes the Ring of Honor to celebrate members who have made a significant contribution to the organization and to investigative journalism. It's also a fundraising campaign to raise money for fellowships. Tom Torok, David Donald, Bob Read, Philip Meyer, Charles Lewis, John Bones, Manny García and Shawn McIntosh are in the Ring of Honor, as of 2025.

IRE, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Knight Foundation, Arnold Ventures and and dozens of other individual donors establish the Jeff German Fund for Investigative Journalism to help continue the kind of game-changing investigations German devoted his life to producing. German was killed in Las Vegas by the subject of his reporting.

IRE's Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship is renamed in honor of Chauncey Bailey, an Oakland, Calif. investigative reporter who was murdered in 2007. His death launched the Chauncey Bailey Project, where journalists came together to finish his work about a local bakery’s troubled finances.

After two years as the DBEI Symposium, IRE's fall conference is rebranded to "AccessFest." The conference is now two-and-a-half days, featuring sessions on diversity and inclusion, and IRE 's top investigative and data classes. With the online format, the goal is to expand IRE training to journalists who cannot attend in-person conferences.

Early-career journalists can now join IRE at a lower rate than other professional members. This category is open to journalists who have five years of experience or fewer. The early-career rate is $50/year, while the professional rate is $75/year.

Total Newsroom Training reaches a milestone of 100 newsrooms trained. The program brings customized IRE training to small- and medium-sized newsrooms to support watchdog reporting in their communities. Photo: IRE’s Laura Moscoso with the Metro Puerto Rico team for a Total Newsroom Training in Spanish.

IRE partners with the Ida B Wells Society to host a workshop in Atlanta for HBCU students and students of color. This is the first of several workshops sponsored by the Rick Gevers-Karen Burns Diversity Endowed Fund for College Journalists.

IRE partners with Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism to launch a certificate program in investigative editing. The self-paced online program is designed by IRE members and award-winning faculty from the Cronkite School and its Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. The development of this curriculum is generously funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The IRE Journal becomes a digital-only magazine.

The Koch Continuum Grant is established to support in investigative reporting on public health and disability issues. Recipients receive cash awards to pursue their projects, as well as financial assistance to present the results of their reporting at the annual conference. The grant is established through the generosity of a longtime IRE member.

IRE student members launch "IRE student chapters" at Boston University, Arizona State University, Northwestern University and the City University of New York’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. The initiative, led by IRE's Academic Task Force (many educators), is created to introduce more students to the organization and bring investigative training to college campuses.

IRE celebrates its 50th anniversary, with the annual conference New Orleans — which offers a celebratory riverboat cruise and keynote speech by legend Jim Steele — virtual fireside chats with founders and executive directors, and a first-ever fundraising gala in New York City.