Awesome pace of 2003 sets bar for future years

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jan/Feb 2004 by Houston, Brant

In 2003 it seemed as though IRE's staff, members and supporters never stopped to catch their collective breath.

IRE conducted 65 training conferences and seminars in the United States and other countries over the past year.

Among those seminars were our Better Watchdog Workshops, which we strategically scatter across the country to increase training opportunities for journalists who can't make it to an annual conference. With help of the Society of Professional Journalists, its local chapters and 44 other local sponsors, we conducted 19 of the Better Watchdog Workshops in 17 states for more than 1,900 print and broadcast journalists.

We held our annual conference on computer-assisted reporting in Charlotte and attracted nearly 300 journalists despite the impending war in Iraq. Our annual conference in Washington, D.C., last June brought in more than 1,100 journalists from the United States and 12 other countries.

In the spring, we held our second Global Investigative Journalism Conference with our Danish colleagues in Copenhagen for 300 journalists from 30 countries. We also traveled to Korea, Argentina, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Canada to conduct training in investigative reporting and computer-assisted reporting.

We published six information-packed issues of the award-winning magazine you are reading - The IRE Journal - and six issues of Uplink, our growing newsletter on computer-assisted reporting. We published a fifth beat book - this one on campaign finance titled "Unstacking the Deck" - and have two more nearing publication.

The IRE Resource Center assisted more than 300 news organizations (some numerous times) in news research and administered a contest that attracted 551 entries, one of the highest numbers in our history.

The IRE and NICAR Database Library assisted about 200 news organizations, providing data and training, often six to seven days a week.

Our membership averaged 5,000 for the year.

The Web site provided countless training and resource pages, a vibrant job site, and new feature, Extra!Extra!, that allows journalists and the public to see some of the week's best investigative stories being done despite legal and monetary challenges at every turn. The staff put together 15 breaking-news Web resource packages on deadline, pulling together tipsheets, data, and Web links on the shuttle crash, fires in California, building collapses and other disasters.

We also forged ahead on our endowment drive with current and previous board members pledging more than $100,000 to help us to reach our $5 million goal. We are almost at $2 million now. With a partial matching grant of $1 million from the Knight Foundation ($1 for every $2 raised), we can reach our goal by raising another $2 million.

We did this all with only a dozen full-time staff members, a group of dedicated part-time staff and students, and an army of volunteers.

All of this shows that IRE is still a strong grassroots organization that depends on extensive donations of time, resources and money.

For example, the Missouri School of Journalism - our host for 25 years - donates our office space, Web connections, seminar rooms and computer labs. It also gives us constant exposure to groups and visitors who would not otherwise know about IRE. In addition, the school draws top students from across the country and around the world, many of whom end up working at IRE or NICAR, a joint program of the school and IRE.

Countless IRE members give what little free time they have - especially on weekends - to help train other journalists, to contribute to our publications, and to organize our training events. And the IRE Board of Directors devotes endless hours to the conferences, fundraising and planning for the future.

We thank all of you for your unfaltering support in 2003 and look forward to another great year in 2004.

Brant Houston is executive director of IRE and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. He can be reached through e-mail at brant@ire.org or by calling 573-882-2042.