IRE 2025 schedule

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Dan Krauth, WABC-TV

Dan Krauth is an award-winning investigative journalist with WABC-TV. His investigations have led to changes in local and state laws ranging from how squatters are defined under state law in New York to how plastic surgeons are disciplined in Florida. He started as a producer in Rockford and has worked at stations in Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, West Palm Beach and Miami before moving to New York City.

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Cierra Putman, WTHR

Cierra Putman is an investigative reporter with WTHR’s 13 Investigates, driven by curiosity, tenacity and a passion for digging deeper. A University of Missouri graduate, she began her career in Texas and Upstate New York, later reporting in Providence and Orlando. She joined WTHR in 2021 after honing her investigative skills as a general assignment reporter. Her work has earned a Gracie Award, regional SPJ first place honors and regional Emmy nominations and awards.

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Mallory Sofastaii, WMAR-2 News (ABC Baltimore)

Katie Wilcox, KPNX

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Nina Elkadi, Sentient

Nina B. Elkadi is an investigative reporter at Sentient. Her work explores corporate influence within the agricultural industry, the environmental impacts of factory farming, and how negligence impacts consumers and workers. Her work also appears in National Geographic, Inside Climate News, Civil Eats, High Country News, Ambrook Research, JSTOR Daily, Barn Raiser, and more. She splits her time between Washington D.C. and her hometown of Iowa City.

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Jennifer Hijazi, Bloomberg Law

Luis Joel Méndez-González, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

Méndez González is an award-winning environmental investigative reporter for Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism. He is focused on stories about Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised. He has worked with teams such as the Miami Herald’s I-Team and El Nuevo Día’s Investigative Unit. He earned a Master’s in Information Design and Data Visualization from Northeastern University and has been a fellow with Climate Tracker and The Uproot Project.

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Helina Selemon, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CUNY

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Rural communities across the country are shrinking, but what happens when a place nearly empties out? Over the past year, we’ve focused our reporting in Alexander County, Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers—a place The Wall Street Journal declared the fastest-shrinking in America after the 2020 Census. But it’s not alone. Much of rural America is at a crossroads, caught between economic struggles and political uncertainty, trying to figure out how to survive while pushing back against national narratives that often miss the full picture.

This session will challenge the idea that rural places are just sad, dying communities. We’ll talk about how to highlight voices of strength and resilience while also tackling the policies shaping these places in unique ways. Some issues, like food deserts and child care, hit both urban and rural areas, but the challenges are steeper when funding is limited and people and resources are more spread out.

We’ll also dig into underreported issues—farming, forestry, and the role of education from preschool to universities—that serve as lifelines for rural communities. And we’ll look at what’s at stake with policy shifts under a second Trump administration. Just as important, we’ll talk about how to cover all of this with the balance and nuance rural people deserve. That includes working with student reporters and regional universities to help fill news deserts, and how big media companies can partner with local reporters to move beyond clichés and get a real understanding of rural life on the inside.

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Molly Parker, Southern Illinois

Molly Parker is an assistant professor of journalism at SIU Carbondale and an investigative reporter with Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. She is co-director of the Saluki Local Reporting Lab and covers how government systems fail rural families and communities. Parker is a co-winner of the Robert F. Kennedy and Katherine Schneider journalism awards.

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This session provides great records for investigating K-12 and higher education – some classics and some you might not have run across. Then, experts provide tips for wrangling them out of officials’ grubbies by overcoming common denials, particularly FERPA.

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David Cuillier, Brechner FOI Project

David Cuillier directs the Brechner FOI Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. He was a data journalist before earning his doctorate from Washington State University in 2006. He co-authored The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, is former president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and Society of Professional Journalists, and a member of the National Archivist's FOIA Advisory Committee.

Sydney Sims, Brechner FOI Project

Matt Topic, Loevy + Loevy

Matt Topic runs the media and intellectual property practice at Loevy + Loevy. Matt and his team have litigated hundreds of state and federal open records cases. Matt also represents several news publishers in copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft.

Patrick Wall, The Times-Picayune | Advocate

Patrick Wall is an editor and reporter at the Times-Picayune | Advocate newspapers in Louisiana, where he leads the education team. He previously reported for Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization focused on education. He began his career as a fourth-grade teacher, and his writing about schools has appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Mother Jones and USA Today, among other publications.

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Individuals and organizations are increasingly scrubbing their digital footprints, but journalists can often still track down what has been removed. This session will teach attendees how to uncover deleted records, scrubbed public data, and hidden connections using investigative techniques and open-source intelligence. Panelists will discuss tools and tricks to recover removed content from government databases, court records, and business filings, how to track changes on websites and archive critical information before it disappears, and how to investigate digital footprints. The session will also cover best practices for journalists to protect their own privacy while conducting sensitive investigations.

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Anna Massoglia, Influence Brief

Anna Massoglia is an independent investigative analyst. She serves as director of investigations at the Sunlight Research Center and as an advisor to multiple newsrooms, academic institutions and nonprofits. Anna previously led OpenSecrets’ editorial and investigations team. She holds degrees in political science and psychology from North Carolina State University and a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.

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Lindsey Basye, Atlanta News First - WANF

Natalia Martinez, GRAY TV

Natalia Martinez is a multiple award-winning investigative journalist and Executive Producer for WAVE Originals. For 15 years her work has focused on corruption, law enforcement and violence. She produces documentary films and special content at WAVE News and Gray Media, pioneering a new approach to in-depth story-telling. Her latest released documentary, 23 Seconds: A Louisville Mass Shooting received praise for its approach to reporting on a mass shooter.

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Julie Watts, CBS News California

Julie is a national-award-winning investigative correspondent for CBS News California. Her investigations, Capitol accountability reports, and solutions-oriented journalism air on CBS stations across California. Her work has prompted recalls, government investigations, and new laws and has been honored with dozens of the industry’s top journalism awards.

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This workshop will show you how to increase your chances of receiving records that reveal significant new information to help advance your story.

What can help identify the records you should ask for in the first place? And how can you make it more likely that you’ll receive a useful response? We will look at strategies for formulating public records requests — treating them as a distinct reporting task, often requiring interviews and other digging to help pinpoint what records could be most helpful to ask for. We will also examine how to make the most of records that you receive to help identify potential sources and future story ideas.

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Investigative reporters are often asked to cover topics that impact or intersect with communities and people that they are not part of. So how do you build trust, report equitably and communicate sincerely about your desire to help? This panel will go over ways to connect with communities you are not part of to build trust, cultivate sources and create open lines of communication.

Speakers

Natalia Alamdari, Flatwater Free Press

Natalia Alamdari is a senior reporter at the Flatwater Free Press covering rural communities in Nebraska. She's reported from cornfields, one-student classrooms, small-town quinceañera dress shops and even a hotel of Ukrainian refugees and Nebraskan volunteers in Poland. Her reporting on Nebraska prisons won a 2023 Great Plains Journalism Award. Previously, Alamdari worked at newspapers in Missouri, Texas and Delaware.

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Hannah Critchfield, The Tampa Bay Times

Albert Serna, Los Angeles Center for Investigative Journalism

Albert Serna Jr. is the executive editor and founder of the Los Angeles Center for Investigative Journalism based in Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley. Serna has covered cops, Crime, national politics, FOIA and extremism at the national and local level. He has a passion for community-centered investigations that serve under-reported communities and people.

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Connor Sheets, The Los Angeles Times

Connor Sheets is an investigative and enterprise reporter at The Los Angeles Times.

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Omar Waheed, Madison365

Omar Waheed is a business and investigative reporter at Madison365. His work is centered on marginalized communities, equity, accountability, labor and workforce development.

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The best investigations deftly combine narrative in the "day two" story after breaking news as more information may trickle out. We chat about using the tools of storytelling to make people and policymakers care about harms, wrongdoing and matters of accountability. We'll give an overview of how to report, write, structure and edit the story in the days and weeks after news breaks and unpack the challenges that even longtime reporters and editors struggle with along the way.

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Does your investigation involve complex legal questions and you're unsure how to proceed? Bring your lunch and your questions for a personal discussion with some prominent media law experts that will be presenting throughout the conference.

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Ross Garber, The Garber Group LLC

Ross Garber is the principal of The Garber Group LLC, a law firm based in Washington, D.C. He also teaches Government Investigations and Impeachment Law at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. His clients have included public officials, journalists, and a variety of organizations in government investigations and high-stakes civil cases. He is a contributing author of the book Ethics in the Public Sector. Ross was previously a legal analyst for CNN.

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Maggie Mulvihill, Boston University

Matt Topic, Loevy + Loevy

Matt Topic runs the media and intellectual property practice at Loevy + Loevy. Matt and his team have litigated hundreds of state and federal open records cases. Matt also represents several news publishers in copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft.

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Juliana Castro-Varón, The New York Times

Dylan Freedman, The New York Times

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Lori Jane Gliha, Scripps News

Ryann Jones, ABC News

John Kelly, CBS News

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Eric Ferrero, Fund for Investigative Journalism

Eric Ferrero is the Executive Director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which directly provides grants and other support to journalists for specific investigative projects. Over the last twenty years, he has served in senior leadership roles at nonprofit and philanthropic organizations that support and partner closely with journalists to uncover groundbreaking stories, including the Open Society Foundations, Innocence Project, and Amnesty International.

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Jane Sasseen, McGraw Center/CUNY

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How does a newsroom with only eight news reporters have a two-person dedicated investigative team? Are nonprofit foundations, even those that don't typically fund journalism, the answer to dwindling revenue and corporate support for investigative reporting? Can this funding model succeed in communities without deep-pocketed donors and foundations? We will tackle these questions and more with a panel that includes journalists as well as representatives of foundations both large and small that are on the cutting edge of nonprofit funding of investigative journalism.

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Vanessa Bechtel, Ventura County Community Foundation

Ventura County Community Foundation

Tony Biasotti, Ventura County Star

Tony Biasotti is an investigative reporter with the Ventura County Star, a position funded by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation. He has been with The Star since 2022 and was also a reporter there from 2005 to 2010; in between, he spent a decade freelancing and a few years as executive editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a product of its student newspaper.

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Mauricio Palma, Silicon Valley Community Foundation

Mauricio Palma has been with Silicon Valley Community Foundation since 2005. As director of community partnerships, he leads grant programs in arts and culture, faith and neighborhoods, local journalism and the Portraits of Community Action initiative. He also facilitates SVCF’s Community Advisory Council, a group of leaders advising the foundation’s president and CEO.

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Tracie Powell, The Pivot Fund

Tracie Powell is a leading voice in advancing racial equity in journalism and the founder of The Pivot Fund, which invests in independent hyperlocal community news organizations. A former Shorenstein Fellow, Powell served as the founding fund manager of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. She is the immediate past board chair of LION Publishers and holds degrees from Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Georgia.

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Mary Hudetz, ProPublica

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Health care is a wildly profitable business, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the American economy. In your community there may be companies putting revenue before care. Our panelists have years of experience covering a range of companies, including for-profit (and even so-called non-profit) hospital systems, clinics, behavioral hospitals, elder care facilities like assisted living and memory care, and pharmaceutical firms. We will show you how to find these stories and how to report them out, with lists of story ideas, sources, how to get data and how to find experts who can propose solutions.

Speakers

Phil Barber, Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Mary Fricker, RepoWatch

Hannah Levintova, Mother Jones

Jessica Silver-Greenberg, The New York Times

Katie Thomas, The New York Times

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Israel’s war in Gaza spurred some of the most serious and credible allegations of war crimes in recent history, and also some of the most hostile conditions for journalism. While Palestinian journalists on the ground meticulously documented and reported on the atrocities, they were also grappling with the weight of being targets of those same attacks. Israel, meanwhile, systematically barred journalists outside Gaza from entering the territory. These circumstances birthed ingenious investigative collaborations between journalists inside and outside of Gaza, with those on the ground providing critical reporting for investigations shepherded by their better-resourced counterparts on the outside.

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Kavitha Chekuru, Independent journalist

Kavitha Chekuru is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her work has primarily focused on human rights and justice, including Israel's war on Gaza, the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan, enforced disappearances in Mexico and the killing of land rights activists across Latin America. Her reporting has been recognized with a Peabody Award, the George Polk Award and seven News and Documentary Emmy nominations.

Hoda Osman, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism

Maryam Saleh, Rest of World

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From vanishing government websites to manipulated economic data, journalists are facing increasing challenges in verifying official information. This session will cover how to investigate missing or altered government records and ensure the integrity of public-interest reporting. Panelists will discuss how to verify whether government data has been changed or removed, how to find alternative sources when public records disappear, and how to archive and preserve crucial datasets before they become inaccessible. This session is designed for journalists who rely on public records, government websites, or large datasets and need to ensure their information remains reliable and available.

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Jay Hunter, Hunter Index

Jay Hunter is the founder of Hunter Index, a not-for-profit organization covering the personal finances of politicians. He previously worked in editorial and product roles in various news organizations, including CQ Roll Call, The Economist, and The Washington Post. A proud Yinzer, Jay graduated from The Ohio State University before beginning his career in journalism and tech.

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Jason Leopold, Bloomberg News

Jason Leopold is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. He is a recipient of the Gerald Loeb award, a George Polk award, and he has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2020, TRAC identified Leopold as "the most active individual FOIA litigator” in the US. In 2016, Leopold was awarded the FOI award from IRE and was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame. He publishes the weekly newsletter, FOIA Files.

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Anna Massoglia, Influence Brief

Anna Massoglia is an independent investigative analyst. She serves as director of investigations at the Sunlight Research Center and as an advisor to multiple newsrooms, academic institutions and nonprofits. Anna previously led OpenSecrets’ editorial and investigations team. She holds degrees in political science and psychology from North Carolina State University and a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.

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Michael Nolan, Sunlight Research Center

Michael is a freelance data journalist and investigative researcher. He currently works as a data specialist with Sunlight Research Center.

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A.J. Lagoe, KARE11

Cristin Severance, WRAL

Chris Vanderveen, KUSA

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Ashley Clarke, ProPublica

Ashley is an engagement reporter at ProPublica. She started my career in local television news at NBC in Washington, D.C. After leaving NBC, she became an audience engagement editor at the Center for Public Integrity.

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Gisselle Medina, Fresnoland

Eesha Pendharkar, States Newsroom

Lewis Raven Wallace, independent journalist

Adam Rhodes, IRE & NICAR

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Allison Prang, freelance journalist

Tracy Wholf, CBS News and Stations

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Impactful reporting on the criminal justice system hinges on a journalist’s ability to access detailed information about the inner workings of that system. This information has always been hard to come by and is only growing more so during a time of declining transparency. In this panel, attendees will have the opportunity to learn from their peers who are experts in obtaining data, court records, and public records from criminal justice agencies and using that information to tell powerful stories about everything from fatal police chases to jail deaths. The panelists will offer concrete recommendations for obtaining records and story ideas worth investigating in attendees' own communities.

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Fola Akinnibi, Bloomberg

Laura Bennett , The Center for Just Journalism

Laura Bennett is the founder of The Center for Just Journalism, an organization dedicated to fostering a media environment that equips people with the information they need to build safer communities. CJJ connects journalists with reliable information on critical public safety and criminal legal issues and helps reporters, editors and educators identify and implement practice changes that foster rigor, curiosity and nuance, rather than sensationalism and anecdotes.

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Ethan Corey, The Appeal

Ethan Corey is the research and projects editor at The Appeal, where he also serves as interim managing editor.

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Paige Pfleger, WPLN News and ProPublica

Paige Pfleger is the criminal justice reporter at WPLN news in Nashville, where she has investigated gun dispossession, domestic violence and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Her work was a finalist for a Livingston Award and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and she has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace and more.

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The data that journalists work with is often messy, and they rarely provide us with clear-cut or sweeping conclusions. How can we bring complicated numbers, especially in finance and science, to the listeners in a way that makes sense? How can we unearth public recordings that are often never heard? Panelists will share their strategies for breaking down complex concepts, finding the human stories behind the data, and crafting compelling audio narratives with public records.

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Jess Clark, KyCIR, Louisville Public Media

Huo Jingnan, NPR

Halle Parker, Verite News

Halle Parker covers public health inequities and environmental health for the news nonprofit Verite News in New Orleans. Before Verite, she covered environmental issues in Louisiana — with a special focus on environmental justice — for WWNO, the Times- Picayune / New Orleans Advocate and the Houma Courier. She also helped start, produce, host and report the podcast "Sea Change." Her work has appeared on Up First, Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

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Luke Carter, WANF-TV

Anna Hewson, KUSA/Denver

Tony Kovaleski, Denver7 News

Joshua Saunders, KSAT-TV

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Lydiette Carrión, indepedent journalist

Lise Olsen, Texas Observer

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One of five different "Deep Dive" sessions, where the country’s top journalists will have in-depth, candid conversations on the biggest topics in investigative journalism today. No PowerPoints. No frills. Just talking.

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Olivia Carville, Bloomberg News

Corey Johnson, ProPublica

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Food insecurity in the U.S. is at the highest level in a decade with nearly 14% of households - 47 million people -- struggling to put meals on the table. Nearly 300 million face hunger crises worldwide. This panel will offer ideas, sources, tools and techniques for investigating the political, corporate and climate forces that are driving up hunger locally and globally.

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Ayurella Horn-Muller, Grist

Ayurella Horn-Muller is a staff food and agriculture writer at Grist and the author of "Devoured: The Extraordinary Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Ate the South." Prior to that, she reported for Axios and Climate Central. Her work can also be found in CNN, National Geographic, El País, the Associated Press, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The Guardian and WIRED. She has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Green Eyeshade Awards.

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Brett Murphy, ProPublica

Deborah Nelson, University of Maryland

Deborah Nelson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former IRE president on faculty at the University of Maryland, home of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. Most recently, she has co-authored Reuters series on the environmental drivers of disease and on the global hunger-relief crisis.

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Thin Lei Win, Lighthouse Reports

Thin Lei Win is an award-winning multimedia journalist specialising in food and climate issues. She is lead reporter for the Food Systems Newsroom of Lighthouse Reports, a nonprofit collaborative news outlet focusing on public interest investigations, curates her own newsletter Thin Ink, and also writes for various international media. She previously worked as an international correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Thomson Reuters.

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Robert Benincasa, NPR

Gordon Russell, The Boston Globe

Caitlin Thompson, Honolulu Civil Beat

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This fast-paced, interactive session will share 30 opioid settlement story ideas and 30 public health reporting angles on other overlooked and urgent issues. You’ll get practical tips on covering high-volume medical marijuana doctors, controversial incarceration programs, and the human toll of the Trump administration’s funding cuts. Whether on a daily deadline or digging into a months-long investigation, you’ll leave with fresh ideas and tools to go deeper.

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Drew Hawkins, Gulf States Newsroom

Drew Hawkins is the public health reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration among public radio stations in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and NPR. He covers stories related to health care access and outcomes across the region, with a focus on the social factors that drive disparities.

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Ed Mahon, Spotlight PA

Ed Mahon reports on addiction treatment, the opioid epidemic, medical marijuana, and other public health issues for Spotlight PA. His reporting has earned national recognition, including a 2018 finalist slot for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists and a 2021 investigative award from the Institute for Nonprofit News. He serves as president of the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents' Association, representing journalists reporting from the state Capitol.

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Aneri Pattani, KFF Health News

Aneri Pattani is a senior correspondent at KFF Health News, covering mental health and substance use. Her multi-year series tracking opioid settlement funds made her a finalist for the Livingston Award and was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Her audio stories have been heard on NPR and Science Friday. Pattani received a bachelors in journalism from Northeastern University and a masters in public health from Johns Hopkins University.

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Can't get anyone to talk to you on the record? Reaching out for accountability interviews and getting "no comment"...or worse, no response at all? We'll discuss creative ways to make sure your reporting is well-rounded, even if you can't get people to talk to you on camera.

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Daniela Molina, Gray Media

Dannah Sauer, WVUE-TV

Dannah Sauer is an award-winning investigative producer based in New Orleans. She has worked to expose public corruption, misbehaving police officers, racial disparities, and injustices faced by exonerated persons. Dannah’s work has launched local and federal investigations, which have resulted in policy changes.

Phil Williams, WTVF-TV

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Companies are great spinning stories that present their best versions. But behind the scenes, their behavior isn't always the same. Learn how to use Violation Tracker to explore the backgrounds of companies across 450 federal, state, and local regulatory agencies (including EPA, OSHA, state attorneys general offices, etc) and to tell the story of how the regulatory landscape is changing in light of an administration that is drastically cutting the workforce. We'll also talk about the states' version of Project 2025, being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate bill-mill. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, "ALEC’s 2025 playbook outlines strategies for lawmakers to actualize this vision in their own states by preempting local regulations, bolstering favored industries such as fossil fuels, undermining public education, curtailing voting rights, and much more.

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David Armiak, Center for Media and Democracy

David Armiak is research director and an investigative journalist with the Center for Media and Democracy. David joined CMD in 2015, has conducted extensive investigations on dark money, corporate corruption, and right-wing networks, and is responsible for filing and analyzing hundreds of public records requests every year.

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Arlene Martinez, Good Jobs First

Arlene Martínez joined Good Jobs First, a nonprofit corporate and government watchdog, in 2020. Before joining GJF, (which maintains the Subsidy, Violation, and Tax Break Tracker databases), she was a reporter with the USA TODAY Network/Ventura County Star, The Morning Call, the LA Times and Hispanic Link News Service, where her work focused on the choices people in power make when it comes to who and what gets prioritized.

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With mass layoffs and an unstable job market, more journalists are freelancing, out of need or by choice – and many are creating their own newsletters or startup businesses. This session will cover how to create systems that take work off your plate! You’ll see a demo of the Institute for Independent Journalists’ interactive online freelance startup guide, which helps answer the key questions for ramping up a side hustle into a full-time business. Panelists will share tools for setting your rate, networking to find great assignments, building relationships with clients, and juggling multiple projects. Participants will leave the session with a slew of new tools and strategies for becoming an emotionally and financially sustainable freelancer.

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Ann Marie Awad, Institute for Independent Journalists

Ann Marie Awad is the editorial director for the Institute for Independent Journalists and a freelance audio journalist based in Denver, Colorado. Awad created and hosted the award-winning podcast "On Something," and they sit on the board of directors for the Association of Independents in Radio. They have produced podcasts for Audible, WAMU, and Sonos, among others.

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Rita Harper, Freelance Photojournalist

Carolina Murriel, Freelance Writer and Journalist

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Reporting on sources under the age of 18 often requires deep sensitivity, advanced planning and inventive approaches to gathering records. From the child welfare and education systems to the sexual abuse of children by law enforcement to teens in residential treatment facilities and group homes, come learn from a panel of reporters about how to initially approach children and their families as sources; how to make kids feel comfortable in an interview setting; how to navigate issues of consent; how to obtain juvenile court records; where to mine for information on systems charged with caring for kids; and more.

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Jenn Abelson, The Washington Post

Jessica Contrera, The Washington Post

Jessica Contrera reports in-depth stories about systemic issues and the people impacted by them. She is a part of The Post's narrative accountability team. With Jenn Abelson, John Harden and a team of Post journalists, she reported "Abused by the Badge," a series exposing how hundreds of U.S. police officers have sexually abused children while officials have failed to take basic steps to stop predatory cops.

Bennett Haeberle, NBC Chicago, WMAQ-TV

Bennett Haeberle is an investigative reporter with NBC Chicago, WMAQ-TV. He has 22 years of experience as a reporter - including more than a decade in an investigative journalism. He's been an IRE member since 2014. His work has been honored with multiple awards including National Headliners Awards, 13 regional Emmys and Murrows. His investigations cover a broad array of topics from government policies; to acts of injustice and stories that impact vulnerable populations.

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Eli Hager, ProPublica

Eli Hager is a reporter for ProPublica who covers social safety net programs and issues affecting lower-income families and children. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2022 for his investigation of foster care agencies in Alaska and elsewhere that pocket the Social Security benefits of orphaned and disabled children. Previously, he was a staff writer for The Marshall Project.

Kristen Hussey, Independent journalist

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PACER, the federal court records system, is antiquated and hard to navigate. Using skills developed over years, Seamus Hughes has helped the media break national stories about topics ranging from terrorism and public corruption to corporate espionage. Seamus Hughes is back to give us tips and suggestions on how to use PACER to tell a story.

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Seamus Hughes, Court Watch

Seamus Hughes is the publisher of Court Watch. Hughes is also a New York Times research journalist working on many stories related to the federal court system. In 2022, he was a small part of a New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting on law enforcement in America. He also works with Bloomberg Law News for their investigative team. He previously worked as a research journalist with Rolling Stone and Daily Beast.

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Brenda Medina, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Brenda Medina is a bilingual investigative reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Before joining ICIJ in 2021, she was a senior reporting fellow at ProPublica. She also reported for El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald, covering immigration, minorities, and public corruption. Brenda is from the Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States in 2003.

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Brant Houston, University of Illinois

Maggie Mulvihill, Boston University

Brian Patrick O’Donoghue, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Brian Patrick O’Donoghue is a University of Alaska professor emeritus who has worked for weeklies coast to coast, covering politics, crime, sports in print on TV. He is the author of The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice, and the Birth of a Movement.

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Leah Dunn, WSB

Justin Gray, WSB-TV

Caresse Jackman, Gray Media

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News consumers want transparency when journalists use artificial intelligence in reporting. Recent survey and interview data from Trusting News shows audiences not only expect AI disclosure but also prefer detailed explanations about how AI was used and which tools were involved. This research also showed audiences are particularly uneasy about AI’s role in data analysis. This session will explore how investigative journalists can meet audience expectations while maintaining trust and credibility. Trusting News will share best practices, newsroom-tested disclosure strategies, and real-world examples of AI transparency in investigative reporting. Attendees will leave with actionable insights on how to effectively communicate AI use, address audience concerns, and ensure human oversight remains central in AI-assisted investigations.

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Lynn Walsh, Trusting News

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This session invites attendees to compete for prizes for offering the coolest, most unique public records that every journalist should request. Each person gets one minute to come up to the mic and explain their record. The idea will be entered into a list of the screen, and then at the end attendees vote for their favorite. The top three win fabulous IRE merchandise. The 2024 winners, among 37 ideas offered, were Twitter drafts, public official Spotify wraps, and U Visa certification denials.

Speakers

David Cuillier, Brechner FOI Project

David Cuillier directs the Brechner FOI Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. He was a data journalist before earning his doctorate from Washington State University in 2006. He co-authored The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, is former president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and Society of Professional Journalists, and a member of the National Archivist's FOIA Advisory Committee.

Sydney Sims, Brechner FOI Project

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In your community, it’s likely that the wealthy are getting richer, leaving the rest of your community behind. Why? Mainly because laws that used to treat citizens equally now favor the rich. In every community we need to be showing how this Gilded Age threatens our nation. Our panelists have years of experience covering this important issue. They will tell you how to find these stories and how to report them out, with lists of story ideas, sources, how to get data and how to find experts who can propose solutions.

Speakers

Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica

Mary Fricker, RepoWatch

Mary Sanchez,

James Steele, Reporter and Author

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The 'War on Terror' is ongoing and, in many ways, more normalized than it used to be, particularly under the Trump administration. In this sessionl panelists will speak about their own 'War on Terror' reporting and give ideas to participants about where they can find data and documents to pursue investigative reporting about this topic.

Speakers

Nausheen Husain, Syracuse University

Nausheen Husain is a writer and professor at Syracuse University. Her reporting and research investigate civil rights issues and incarceration, and the news coverage of these topics, particularly as they intersect with the ongoing "War on Terror." She is from Chicago.

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Akela Lacy, The Intercept

Sanya Mansoor, independent journalist

Sanya Mansoor is a freelance journalist based in New York City. She covers immigration, the war on terror and the domestic fallout of American foreign policy. Sanya was a staff writer at TIME Magazine and has bylines in The Guardian, The Cut, The Intercept, The Associated Press, Acacia Magazine, The Center for Public Integrity, The Miami Herald, The Texas Tribune and the Dallas Morning News.

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Tanvi Misra, Freelance

I am a freelance writer and investigative journalist primarily covering migration and justice issues. My work has appeared in The Guardian, The Nation, Politico Magazine, New York magazine, The Atlantic, The Baffler, The New Republic, Harper's Bazaar, the BBC, Bloomberg CityLab, High Country News, Teen Vogue, NPR, and other publications. I teach at City University of New York's Craig Newmark School of Journalism.

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Aly Panjwani, Independent journalist

Aly Panjwani is a researcher and campaigner based in New York City. He researches and writes about surveillance, policing, and corporate power. He’s produced investigative work on ICE’s reliance on surveillance technology, the Bureau of Prison's secretive Communication Management Units, as well as the history of the Department of Homeland Security and its growing, intimate relationships with corporations.

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Julie Small, KQED Public Radio

Julie Small reports on criminal justice for KQED News in San Francisco. Small co-reported “On Our Watch: New Folsom” with host Sukey Lewis. The podcast investigated the deaths of two correctional officers who reported corruption and abuse within an elite unit at a high-security prison in California. The 8-part series won the 2024 I.R.E. award for Long Form Audio.

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Panelists will show how a data analysis of overdose deaths in Baltimore and several other counties in the U.S. led to a groundbreaking collaboration between The Banner, The Times, Big Local News and 11 local news outlets.

During the session, attendees will receive instructions for how to access the data and methodology – which is available in the Stanford Digital Repository – and how to use it in their own coverage.

We’ll also walk attendees through project management techniques and share tips for how to create effective, multi-newsroom collaborations.

This session is sponsored by The New York Times. IRE retains control of content, including the topic and speaker selection, for all conference sessions.

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Ron Nixon, The Associated Press

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Ben Bradley, WGN

Levi Ismail, WTVF NewsChannel 5

Ashlyn Lipori-Russie, Independent journalist

Ted Oberg, NBC Washington (WRC-TV)

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One in three U.S. residents is a renter, and the proportion is even bigger among communities of color and low-income families. Yet, reporting on the challenges of these communities is often neglected or falls into the same tropes of landlords versus tenants. How can we continue to move forward through data to build investigations, even when it's difficult to find the right sources? During this conversation, panelists will discuss tools for building nuanced investigations that focus on government accountability. They will also talk about the importance of narrative storytelling and human-centered stories.

Speakers

Alejandra Cancino, Injustice Watch

Alejandra Cancino is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom. Her investigations focus on the intersection of government and business, combining data with personal stories to expose systemic failures. Her reporting has been recognized with local and national awards. Cancino is an IRE board member and a former board member of SPJs’ Chicago Headline Club, where she co-created a rigorous training program for young journalists of color.

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Juan Pablo Garnham, Eviction Lab (Princeton University)

Juan Pablo Garnham is the Communication and Policy Engagement Manager for Eviction Lab, a housing research center based in Princeton University. Previously he worked with The Texas Tribune, El Diario in New York City, CityLab, Univision and several outlets in his home country of Chile. Among his areas of interest are housing, homelessness, immigration and urbanism. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Cecilia Reyes, Business Insider

Cecilia Reyes is a bilingual reporter on Business Insider's investigations team. Previously, Reyes worked at the Chicago Tribune. Her work on the series, "The Failures Before the Fires," exposed how government officials in Chicago were warned about safety issues in dozens of homes before fires killed 61 people. This reporting was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting in 2022. Cecilia graduated from Columbia University and was born and raised in Mexico City.

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In an era of shrinking newsrooms and limited resources, investigative journalists face growing challenges in covering the courts. Yet, legal reporting has never been more critical. This panel will explore how journalists can leverage free tools and data—from court filings to financial disclosures—to track major cases, analyze legal documents, and break impactful stories. With fewer traditional sources and declining funding, these resources are essential for holding power to account and educating the public. Join us to learn how to navigate the legal system with cutting-edge, cost-effective investigative techniques.

Speakers

Jeremy Chase, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

Jeremy Chase is a partner in the media group at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in New York. He is an experienced First Amendment and intellectual property litigator, and has led DWT legal teams in securing access to government records via FOIA and state open records statutes on behalf of various news and entertainment clients, and has led the charge on various access matters involving the prosecutions of Donald Trump, George Santos, Sam Bankman-Fried and others.

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Coulter Jones, Bloomberg News

Coulter Jones is a journalist who specializes in using data analysis, programming and open records to report compelling stories.

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William Palin, Free Law Project

William Palin is an attorney and software developer focused on the intersection of law and technology. He currently serves as the Case Law Lead at the Free Law Project. Prior to joining FLP, William was the Access to Justice/Technology Fellow at Harvard Law School and, more recently, an adjunct professor at the University of Hawai‘i. In his role at FLP, he collected and built a database of judicial financial disclosures that helped expose judicial misconduct.

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Frank G. Runyeon, Law360

Frank is a New York courts reporter for Law360. A daily correspondent most days, he has live-blogged the civil and criminal trials of Donald Trump and helped negotiate press access. Frank’s in-depth reporting has revealed judicial misconduct by New York's chief judge and alleged corporate bribery on the high court of Thailand. Before covering law, Frank dug into political corruption in Albany and freelanced investigations for The New York Times.

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Emily Saul, New York Law Journal/ALM

Emily Saul is a reporter with the New York Law Journal and ALM covering courts and white collar crime. She previously covered courts for the New York Post and worked as a staff reporter for a now-shuttered podcast company owned by Sony Music Entertainment.

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Incarcerated people are among the most vulnerable to climate disasters. From extreme heat and cold to hurricanes and wildfires that force chaotic evacuations—or leave people trapped in harm’s way—the climate crisis is exacerbating what are already dire conditions behind bars.

This panel brings together investigative journalists and editors covering their work on the dangers facing people incarcerated, how climate policy often overlooks incarcerated populations, and the challenges of holding institutions accountable. The panelists will also offer practical guidance on how others can investigate these issues in their own communities—accessing public records, analyzing climate risk data, and centering the voices of incarcerated people and their families.

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Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times

Alleen Brown, Freelance, Drilled, Eco Files newsletter

Alleen Brown is a freelance investigative journalist. She's a senior editor at Drilled and publishes the newsletter Eco Files. Her work focuses on the intersection of environmental crises and criminalization. While a staffer at The Intercept, she published an award-winning investigation mapping over 6,500 prisons against heat, wildfire and flood risk. Recently, she reported and hosted the podcast series Slapp’d, about a pipeline company’s lawsuit to take down Greenpeace.

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Hannah Riley, The Center for Just Journalism

Wyatt Stayner, Prison Journalism Project

Wyatt Stayner is the deputy editor at Prison Journalism Project, where he trains incarcerated journalists and helps get their work published. Before PJP, he worked at community newspapers in Indiana and Washington State. He started as a county government reporter, then moved to covering prep sports. During his last reporting job on the health beat, he covered a measles outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Emilia Diaz-Struck, Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN)

Emilia is the executive director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN). She was formerly data and research editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), where she participated in more than 20 ICIJ award-winning investigative collaborations, including the Pulitzer-winning Panama Papers. She has been a professor at the Central University of Venezuela and a contributor for the Washington Post and Armando.info, which she co-founded. She was previously the investigative reporting coordinator at IPYS Venezuela.

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Maria Georgieva, Freelance investigative journalist

Maria Georgieva is an award-winning investigative journalist and former Russia correspondent, reporting for Swedish and international media. Her work exposes the human cost of Russian security service repression, investigations in Chechnya and across Russia. She has interviewed Navalny and Kara-Murza, uncovered Putin’s spies in Scandinavia, investigated Kadyrov’s campaign against Chechen dissidents, and the Kremlin’s use of patriotic memory projects and propaganda abroad.

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Jodie Fleischer, Cox Media Group

Cindy Galli, Independent journalist

David Hammer, WWL-TV

John Hillkirk, KFF Health News

Kara Kenney, WRTV

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This session provides practical tips for how to overcome the most common exemptions in public record laws, including attorney-client, deliberative process, privacy, trade secrets, investigatory, vague/unduly burdensome, and other legal barriers such as FERPA and HIPAA. Bring up others and stump the experts!

Speakers

David Cuillier, Brechner FOI Project

David Cuillier directs the Brechner FOI Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. He was a data journalist before earning his doctorate from Washington State University in 2006. He co-authored The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, is former president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and Society of Professional Journalists, and a member of the National Archivist's FOIA Advisory Committee.

Gunita Singh, Reporters Committee for Freedrom of the Press

Gunita Singh is an attorney at Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press using FOIA and public records laws to get government documents for journalists and newsrooms. She has co-authored two publications on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to public records. She serves as board chair of LION Publishers.

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Matt Topic, Loevy + Loevy

Matt Topic runs the media and intellectual property practice at Loevy + Loevy. Matt and his team have litigated hundreds of state and federal open records cases. Matt also represents several news publishers in copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft.

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Burnout, layoffs, or a desire for new challenges can push investigative reporters to consider career pivots—but leaving the newsroom doesn’t mean leaving your skills behind. This session explores how to transform your expertise into new careers, from freelancing and book writing to producing documentaries.

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Elaine Aradillas, Independent journalist

Eric Ferrero, Fund for Investigative Journalism

Eric Ferrero is the Executive Director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, which directly provides grants and other support to journalists for specific investigative projects. Over the last twenty years, he has served in senior leadership roles at nonprofit and philanthropic organizations that support and partner closely with journalists to uncover groundbreaking stories, including the Open Society Foundations, Innocence Project, and Amnesty International.

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Greg Lee, Loyola University New Orleans

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IRE has been outraged since 1975 and threats aren't new to reporters. Some things have changed and some remain the same in getting the story and maintaining one's safety. Learn from those who have been there before for those who are there now.

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From getting CEOs to talk to deep diving into a company, a business investigation has its own sets of challenges. You'll hear from veteran print and broadcast journalists on navigating these challenges and how to turn a tip into a compelling corporate investigation. We will cover how to source up at companies you cover, especially those with NDAs, the aggressive nature of PR in business investigations and how to keep your cool when they are yelling at you and calling your editor as well as front running stories with press releases.

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Polly Mosendz, Bloomberg News

Polly Mosendz is an award-winning investigative reporter at Bloomberg News who covers corporate wrongdoing. Prior to Bloomberg, she worked for Newsweek, The Atlantic, and The New York Observer. Polly is working on completing a master's degree in criminology, with a focus on white-collar crime. She has also served as a two-time member of the reporter advisory board during her decade at Bloomberg News.

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Christopher Weaver, The Wall Street Journal

Christopher Weaver is an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal. His investigations of abuses in Medicare, failures of the U.S. Indian Health Service, Covid-era nursing homes and more have triggered state and federal investigations, new legislation and overhauls of agencies. He was part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team for Medicare coverage in 2015, and was a finalist for the award in 2021.

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Scott Zamost, CNBC

As CNBC's senior investigative producer, Scott Zamost set up the investigative unit in 2017, overseeing long form pieces for all platforms. An IRE speaker or moderator since 2002, he was a senior investigative producer at CNN, a CBS News producer and worked in local news in Miami. He started his career as a newspaper reporter in Las Vegas.

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Matt Apuzzo, The New York Times

Elaine Teng, ESPN

Tisha Thompson, ESPN

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The 2024 presidential election made it clear: The far right is no longer just ascendant -- it's the beating heart of the Republican Party, and will be a fixture of our politics and newsrooms for years to come. This session will provide a crash course on some of the movement's many factions, including right-wing campus groups, extremist influencers, Christian nationalist lawmakers, and the secretive networks and billionaires fueling them. Panelists will cover the basics -- how to stay safe online, for instance -- while also providing an overview of the ideologies and tactics already reshaping American democracy and politics at every level.

Speakers

David Armiak, Center for Media and Democracy

David Armiak is research director and an investigative journalist with the Center for Media and Democracy. David joined CMD in 2015, has conducted extensive investigations on dark money, corporate corruption, and right-wing networks, and is responsible for filing and analyzing hundreds of public records requests every year.

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Robert Downen, Texas Monthly

Robert Downen is a Texas Monthly senior writer who focuses on the far right, Christian nationalism and the billionaires who fund them. He previously covered threats to democracy at The Texas Tribune and, before that, was part of the Houston Chronicle team that uncovered widespread sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention -- leading to historic reforms and a Department of Justice investigation.

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Kyle Spencer, Reporting Right/The Pro-Democracy Information Lab

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Fernanda Echavarri, Futuro Media

Anna Sussman, KQED Public Radio

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Eric Flack, WUSA

Bigad Shaban, NBC Bay Area

Joce Sterman, Gray Media

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One of five different "Deep Dive" sessions, where the country’s top journalists will have in-depth, candid conversations on the biggest topics in investigative journalism today. No PowerPoints. No frills. Just talking.

Speakers

Pamela Colloff, ProPublica

Hannah Dreier, The New York Times

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Alejandra Cancino, Injustice Watch

Alejandra Cancino is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom. Her investigations focus on the intersection of government and business, combining data with personal stories to expose systemic failures. Her reporting has been recognized with local and national awards. Cancino is an IRE board member and a former board member of SPJs’ Chicago Headline Club, where she co-created a rigorous training program for young journalists of color.

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Jason Leopold, Bloomberg News

Jason Leopold is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. He is a recipient of the Gerald Loeb award, a George Polk award, and he has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2020, TRAC identified Leopold as "the most active individual FOIA litigator” in the US. In 2016, Leopold was awarded the FOI award from IRE and was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame. He publishes the weekly newsletter, FOIA Files.

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Matt Topic, Loevy + Loevy

Matt Topic runs the media and intellectual property practice at Loevy + Loevy. Matt and his team have litigated hundreds of state and federal open records cases. Matt also represents several news publishers in copyright cases against OpenAI and Microsoft.

Parker Yesko, The New Yorker

Parker Yesko is a reporter for The New Yorker's Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast In the Dark. For Season 3 of the podcast, Parker examined why no U.S. Marines were punished for the 2005 killings of 25 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. She compiled the largest known database of alleged war crimes committed by American service members in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Parker's reporting for Season 2 helped to free a man, Curtis Flowers, from Mississippi's death row.

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Learn how changes under the Trump administration could impact schools, students, and tax dollars. This rockstar panel walks you through data and resources to explore how federal education policies are impacting immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and students with disabilities. Whether you cover local school districts, or federal education policy, we got you covered.

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Ileana Najarro, Education Week

Ileana Najarro is a staff writer at Education Week covering topics of race and opportunity, including the educational opportunities of English learners and immigrant students. She has previously written for the Tampa Bay Times and the Houston Chronicle.

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Andy Pierrotti, WANF-TV, CBS ATLANTA

Andy Pierrotti is a national award-winning investigative reporter with WANF-TV, CBS in Atlanta recognized with the duPont Columbia Award, George Foster Peabody, multiple Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards.

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Orion Rummler, The 19th*

Marina Villeneuve, The Hechinger Report

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Join this panel of award-winning multimedia investigative journalists who will share essential tips for effective investigative editing and project management. This discussion draws on the new online curriculum from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU. The series of 12 courses covers every step of the investigative editing process, from helping your reporters hone their investigative story ideas and prepare for key interviews, to directing multimedia productions, bulletproofing, legal review and managing the stress and occasional blowback that goes with investigative journalism.

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Maud Beelman, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Mark Greenblatt, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Angela Hill, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

Lauren Mucciolo, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Mark Rochester, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

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This panel will describe new or newly expanded open source tools such as Airwars, OSMP, and Vantage that can measure civilian deaths and identify accountable parties, while avoiding high costs and safety risks. The panel will also highlight how on-the-ground field reporting in hostile environments can power OSINT-led investigations back in the newsroom, with examples from Ukraine and Gaza.

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Yousur Al-Hlou, Freelancer

Yousur Al-Hlou worked as a visual reporter at The New York Times from 2015-2024. Her work covering Russia’s war in Ukraine alongside many talented colleagues was awarded a George Polk Award, a DuPont Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. She earned her master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley.

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Masha Froliak, The New York Times

Masha Froliak a journalist who has been covering the war in Ukraine. Together with Yousur Al-Hlou, they launched several critical investigations for The New York Times into likely war crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine. Their work includes Pulitzer-Prize winning reporting that exposed the Russian military unit that carried out the worst atrocities in Bucha.

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Rowan Philp, Global Investigative Journalism Network

Rowan Philp is a senior reporter and impact editor at the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN). He was formerly chief reporter for South Africa’s Sunday Times. As a foreign correspondent, he has reported on news, politics, corruption, and conflict from more than two dozen countries around the world.

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Do you have an investigative project you'd like to turn into a book? Are you searching for book ideas and mystified by the world of agents and advances? These reporters-turned-authors share their best advice on developing and selling a book proposal, financing the reporting and writing (we promise brass tacks!), and exploring options like indie publishers, podcasts, and docuseries.

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Shelby Bremer, NBC San Diego

Jatara McGee, WPXI

Charlie Specht, WGRZ-TV

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From Big Tech to Main Street, companies use anti-competitive tactics to advantage themselves and hobble their rivals. Both in the U.S. and around the world, governments and people are wising up to the dominant roles a handful of companies play in every industry. Hear from journalists who will highlight some of their work as examples and share tips on exposing anticompetitive conduct, finding stories from the agencies and courts tasked with enforcing the law, and making audiences care about it.

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Karina Montoya, Open Markets Institute

Karina Montoya is a senior reporter and policy analyst at the Open Markets Institute, covering antitrust and data privacy, with a focus on large digital platforms and AI. She contributes reporting and analysis to various news outlets and to Open Markets' legal research, exposing the harms of corporate power concentration and advocating for policy solutions. In her native Peru, she reported extensively on telecom, infrastructure and corporate corruption scandals.

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Leah Nylen, Bloomberg

Leah Nylen is a reporter for Bloomberg News and has covered antitrust for various news outlets, including Politico and MLex, for 14 years. In 2023, she won the Free Speech & Open Government Award from the First Amendment Coalition for her work on press access in the US v Google search trial. In 2014, she was an Abe Journalist Fellow focused on a project comparing antitrust enforcement in the US and Japan.

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Kathleen Johnston, Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University

Halle Parker, Verite News

Halle Parker covers public health inequities and environmental health for the news nonprofit Verite News in New Orleans. Before Verite, she covered environmental issues in Louisiana — with a special focus on environmental justice — for WWNO, the Times- Picayune / New Orleans Advocate and the Houma Courier. She also helped start, produce, host and report the podcast "Sea Change." Her work has appeared on Up First, Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

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Jessica Williams, The Times-Picayune

Jessica Williams is the metro editor for The Times-Picayune. The Times-Picayune is the largest news organization in New Orleans and its metro desk includes nearly two dozen reporters covering city and suburban politics, policy, criminal justice, business, health, culture and other topics. Williams is a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Loyola University.

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Lee Zurik, Gray Television

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Jason Grotto, Bloomberg News

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Time to get real: Media over the last 30 years is failing, "best practices" have lost us jobs, public trust, and have led us to the very darkest pit of our existence in journalism. Meanwhile Americans die in the dark. It's time to break the cycle.

Gun violence coverage on our best days can often be reactive—dominated by mass shootings, political cycles, or other fleeting news moments. But as policies shift, sources disappear, and federal oversight weakens, journalists, particularly the editorial class, need to rethink how they cover guns and the communities affected by them.This panel will explore how to find on-the-ground sources when traditional ones disappear, how federal rollbacks affect domestic violence, community safety, and policing, and how to avoid amplifying misinformation in fast-moving coverage. With media sometimes struggling to get gun reporting right in so-called “peace times,” the stakes are even higher in times of increased political instability.

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Abené Clayton, The Guardian

Alain Stephens, Independent journalist

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Len Downie Jr., Arizona State University

Jennifer Forsyth, The New York Times

Ross Garber, The Garber Group LLC

Ross Garber is the principal of The Garber Group LLC, a law firm based in Washington, D.C. He also teaches Government Investigations and Impeachment Law at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. His clients have included public officials, journalists, and a variety of organizations in government investigations and high-stakes civil cases. He is a contributing author of the book Ethics in the Public Sector. Ross was previously a legal analyst for CNN.

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Lisa Zycherman, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

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Ashley Graham, KSLA-TV

Brendan Keefe, WANF

Melanie Woodrow, KGO

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Manny Garcia, Houston Landing

Natalia Martinez, GRAY TV

Natalia Martinez is a multiple award-winning investigative journalist and Executive Producer for WAVE Originals. For 15 years her work has focused on corruption, law enforcement and violence. She produces documentary films and special content at WAVE News and Gray Media, pioneering a new approach to in-depth story-telling. Her latest released documentary, 23 Seconds: A Louisville Mass Shooting received praise for its approach to reporting on a mass shooter.

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Naseem Miller, The Journalist's Resource

Naseem Miller is senior health editor at The Journalist’s Resource, a project of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School. In addition to covering health, she writes about the intersection of journalism and trauma. She’s also part of Dart Center’s training team. Miller was part of the Orlando Sentinel team named a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist for coverage of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting. She co-started and administers the Journalists Covering Trauma Facebook group.

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There are the obvious stories when you are covering local government. And then there are the ones hidden in plain sight — right in the meeting agenda. How do you identify them? How do you know if it's a story? We will provide examples of stories written and reported just by simply having a careful eye.

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McKenna Oxenden, independent journalist

McKenna Oxenden most recently covered Harris County for the Houston Landing on its government accountability team. Before that, she worked at The New York Times as a fellow on its breaking news desk. McKenna has also worked at her hometown paper, The Baltimore Sun, covering breaking news and criminal justice and as a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Bay Times. Her work has also appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA Today and the Washington Post.

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Stigma and shame often prevents treatment for public wellness issues like substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS, and financial instability. This panel provides insight and best-practices when covering these stigmatized topics, as well as the importance of understanding the role of "culpable control" in storytelling and the role the media plays in access to care.

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Shefali Luthra, The 19th

Shefali Luthra covers reproductive health for The 19th, where her coverage of pregnancy-related health has been recognized with a Murrow Award and an Online Journalism Award. Her book UNDUE BURDEN: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America investigated the consequences of abortion bans in the first year after the fall of Roe v. Wade and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Before joining The 19th, she covered national health policy for KFF Health News.

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Amy Silverman, KJZZ

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Investigative journalism meets powerful storytelling in this panel designed for audio creators aiming to create those unforgettable "driveway moments"—when listeners can’t turn off the story even after arriving at their destination. Panelists will explore how to build suspense, evoke emotion, and connect with audiences on a deeply personal level while staying true to the investigative rigor. From scene-setting to pacing, attendees will gain practical strategies for turning complex investigations into gripping, memorable audio experiences.

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Meribah Knight, Nashville Public Radio

Meribah Knight is a senior reporter at Nashville Public Radio. She’s the host and creator of the Peabody Award-winning podcast "The Promise," as well as Serial’s "The Kids of Rutherford County" and NPR’s "Supermajority" (2025 Peabody nominee). Meribah has received numerous national awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award and the George Polk Award, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Goldsmith Award, and twice for a National Magazine Award.

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Julieta Martinelli, Futuro Media/Futuro Studios

Julieta Martinelli is an investigative reporter and senior producer leading narrative long form reporting on criminal justice and immigration at Futuro Media. She most recently reported and co-produced season 1 of "Suave," which was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting and was the International Documentary Association's audio series of the year. She is the senior producer and host of season 2, which explores the complexities of re-entry.

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Paige Pfleger, WPLN News and ProPublica

Paige Pfleger is the criminal justice reporter at WPLN news in Nashville, where she has investigated gun dispossession, domestic violence and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Her work was a finalist for a Livingston Award and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and she has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace and more.

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Belonging Under Fire: In an era of backlash against diversity, equity, and belonging efforts—both inside newsrooms and in the broader society—how can investigative journalists deepen their own internal cultures while sharpening their external reporting on systems of exclusion? This panel explores how newsrooms can stay committed to equitable hiring and retention while also elevating stories about the erosion of civil rights, attacks on marginalized communities, and systemic barriers to truth-telling. How do we sustain equitable practices in our own newsrooms amid legal, political, and institutional resistance? How do we rebuild trust with communities whose lives and truths are too often overlooked or extracted? This session explores how a deep commitment to belonging—internally and externally—can make investigative journalism more ethical, impactful, and trusted. Panelists will examine how relational journalism practices and inclusive newsroom cultures together fuel more nuanced investigations and broader democratic participation. This session is presented in partnership with the Maynard Institute.

Speakers

Marla Jones-Newman, The Center for Investigative Reporting

Marla Jones Newman is the VP of People and Culture of Mother Jones/Reveal. She is an alumnus of the Maynard 200 Executive Leaders training program and the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford University. Marla has over 20 years of HR experience employing best human capital practices to attract and retain talent. Throughout her career, she has created and implemented Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive, and Belonging initiatives.

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Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource at Harvard Kennedy School

Martin Reynolds, Maynard Institute

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Robin Carter, KXAS

Ryann Jones, ABC News

Matthew Mosk, CBS News

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Twelve states have banned abortion and the federal government is eyeing unprecedented action to take those policies nationwide. On this panel, we'll help you understand how to cover the impact of these bans on real people, from women with complicated pregnancies, families who have lost loved ones, doctors facing pressure from their institutions and people who are being criminalized for performing or receiving care. Leave this panel with tangible tips on ethically approaching these thorny stories.

Speakers

Ziva Branstetter, ProPublica

Cassandra Jaramillo, ProPublica

Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune

Eleanor Klibanoff is the women’s health reporter at The Texas Tribune, where she covers abortion, maternal health care, gender-based violence and LGBTQ issues, among other topics. She also cohosts the weekly politics podcast, TribCast. She started with the Tribune in 2021, and was previously with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting in Louisville, where she reported, produced and hosted the Peabody-nominated podcast, “Dig.”

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Shefali Luthra, The 19th

Shefali Luthra covers reproductive health for The 19th, where her coverage of pregnancy-related health has been recognized with a Murrow Award and an Online Journalism Award. Her book UNDUE BURDEN: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America investigated the consequences of abortion bans in the first year after the fall of Roe v. Wade and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Before joining The 19th, she covered national health policy for KFF Health News.

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As the world races to decarbonize, demand for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper is surging—fueling a global mining boom. Large-scale wind and solar farms are also expanding rapidly, often with significant impacts on local communities and ecosystems. Much of this new development, both in the U.S. and globally, is happening on the lands of Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups, raising urgent questions about environmental justice and corporate accountability. This session will offer investigative reporters practical tools for covering the energy transition: how to connect with affected communities in the United States and internationally, trace supply chains to link harmful projects to major brands, and hold corporations and governments to account.

Speakers

B. Toastie Oaster, High Country News

B. "Toastie" Oaster (they/them) is an award-winning Indigenous affairs journalist and a staff writer for High Country News. They write from the Pacific Northwest, and they are a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

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Sheridan Prasso, Bloomberg

Sheridan Prasso is a senior writer for investigations at Bloomberg. Her reporting has traced aluminum in the Ford F-150EV to deforestation and pollution in the Amazon rainforest. As a long-time China specialist, she has also explored the environmental impact of China's quest for iron ore in Africa; exposed forced labor in US solar supply chains, including polysilicon from Xinjiang; and linked fast-fashion retailer Shein to forced-labor cotton using laboratory testing.

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The panelists want to invite the audience to join us in exploring the ways that novels and movies can help with structuring narrative investigations and getting past writing obstacles. The panelists will show clips of films or play snippets of recorded novels that served as creative fodder for powerful journalistic stories. The audience is encouraged to bring their own examples of movies, novels or short stories that helped in developing an investigative story. At the end we’ll compile a group list.

Speakers

Jennifer Forsyth, The New York Times

Elizabeth Koh, The Boston Globe

Elizabeth Koh is an investigative reporter on the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team, writing about health care, social services and government accountability. Previously, she was a Seoul correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and a state politics reporter at the Miami Herald. She has been a Pulitzer finalist twice: in 2021 with Journal colleagues for stories on Covid-19 in nursing homes, and in 2025 as part of a Globe team covering the collapse of a major hospital chain.

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J. David McSwane, ProPublica

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Lauren Caruba, The Dallas Morning News

Lauren Caruba is an investigative reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She previously covered health, medicine and the COVID-19 pandemic at the San Antonio Express-News. Her 2023 series on a nationwide epidemic of preventable bleeding deaths was recognized by IRE, the Philip Meyer Awards, the Online News Association and the National Association of Science Writers. She is a three-time finalist for the Livingston Awards.

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Greg Fisher, CBS News 48 Hours

Greg Fisher is a west coast producer for CBS News 48 Hours. Greg has been a network broadcast producer for more than 30 years, and a supervisor at 48 Hours. Greg spent 16 years as an investigative producer for ABC News 20/20 and PrimeTime. Greg has won the National Press Club Award, an Emmy Award for Investigative Reporting and Breaking News, a duPont-Columbia Award and others. He began his career as a radio and newspaper reporter.

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Kelly Garcia, Injustice Watch

Neal Morton, The Hechinger Report

Neal Morton writes about education and young people in the American West for the Hechinger Report, where he covers K-12 schools in 10 states. He previously worked with the Education Lab team for The Seattle Times and reported on public and higher education in Nevada and Texas.

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Veteran investigative reporters reprise a classic panel and list obscure but powerful documents that anyone can use to turbocharge a project or bulk-up daily beat coverage. They also provide practical guidelines for unearthing, scrutinizing, managing and cross-referencing routine documents to unleash their full investigative power.

Speakers

James Grimaldi, National Catholic Reporter

Cheryl W. Thompson, NPR

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Learn new and old tricks from the stories and reporters featured in the Local Matters newsletter, which spotlights a selection of great local watchdog journalism every Sunday. By showcasing a year of great work by radio, TV and newspaper reporters, we'll share tactics and tips for digging deep into stories at your local media outlet.

Speakers

Bethany Barnes, Tampa Bay Times

Bethany Barnes is the deputy investigative editor at the Tampa Bay Times. Barnes previously worked at The Oregonian, where her coverage of Portland Public Schools prompted the Education Writers Association to name her the nation’s best education reporter. Before that, she was a reporter in Las Vegas. Barnes is one of four journalists who put together Local Matters, a free weekly newsletter that rounds up the nation's best local investigative reporting.

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Joey Cranney, The Times-Picayune

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You’ve been crunching the numbers and following the paper trail for the last two years. You’re confident that your investigation is going to reveal something new, and you’re wondering whether podcasting is the best way to reach your audience. How do you bring your investigation alive in audio? And in a crowded industry, how do you catch the ear of the people who can help you do it? NPR’s Embedded team will walk you through the essential elements we look for in serialized, narrative podcast pitches and give tips on how to create scene-rich, character-driven audio documentaries that stick with listeners long after the credits roll. Will include next steps for pitching NPR Embedded for those interested.

Speakers

Addie Lancianese, NPR

As senior producer for NPR’s Embedded podcast, Adelina Lancianese works on documentary series such as “Supermajority," which was named one of the best podcasts of 2024 by The New Yorker. Her work has also been recognized by the National Press Foundation, the Peabody awards and the Murrow awards. Formerly, Adelina was a producer for NPR shows Rough Translation, On Our Watch and Louder Than A Riot, and she co-led the Story Lab Workshop. Adelina was a 2017 Kroc fellow.

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Katie Simon, NPR

Katie Simon is the Supervising Senior Editor for Embedded, NPR's home for documentary journalism. Before Embedded, she was a founding editor at StoryCorps. She's made long-form podcasts for WNYC and freelanced for ESPN. She got her start in audio as a reporter in Newark, NJ. Simon has won a DuPont award, two Peabody awards (five nominations), and has multiple Emmy nominations. She graduated from Kenyon College and Columbia University's School of Journalism.

Luis Trelles, NPR’s Embedded Podcast

Luis Trelles is a senior editor at NPR’s Embedded, where he helps shape ambitious, documentary-style podcast series like “Alternate Realities”, “A Good Guy”, and “The Last Cup.” He has worked with a range of storytellers to develop narrative approaches tailored to each project. Before joining Embedded, he edited for Latino USA and began his audio career at Radio Ambulante, where he focused on telling nuanced, character-driven stories from across Latin America.

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Scott Friedman, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Andy Pierrotti, WANF-TV, CBS ATLANTA

Andy Pierrotti is a national award-winning investigative reporter with WANF-TV, CBS in Atlanta recognized with the duPont Columbia Award, George Foster Peabody, multiple Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards.

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Darcy Spears, KTNV

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What have we learned since the Me Too movement reached a zenith in 2017? For starters, sexual misconduct is everywhere (including the journalism industry) and requires diligent and trauma-informed reporting. This panel will cover hard-learned lessons from eight years of reporting and editing sexual misconduct investigations — and from unexpectedly finding ourselves as sources on the other side. We’ll cover the ways we still get this reporting wrong, from pushing traumatized sources too hard to go on-record, to discounting nontraditional records like journal entries or social media messages, to the he-said-she-said of it all. And, we’ll finally put to rest the notion that lived experience is a disqualifier for journalists covering this topic.

Speakers

Cara Kelly, The Barbed Wire

Cara Kelly is an editor-at-large for The Barbed Wire. Her reporting has uncovered sexual misconduct in massage schools, ride-share companies, and the Boy Scouts. She spent five years on USA Today’s investigations team after covering the Me Too movement as entertainment editor. Now based in D.C., she’s also an adjunct professor at American University and an honorary member of the Texas press corps after a yearlong investigation for Texas Monthly.

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Olivia Messer, The Barbed Wire

Olivia Messer is editor-in-chief of The Barbed Wire. Her decade of investigative reporting on the Texas Legislature has exposed sexual abuse and led to reforms. A Houston native and former Waco crime reporter, she’s written for The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, Slate, and more. Now based in Austin, Olivia’s debut novel, Something’s Wrong With the Girls, is forthcoming from Rare Bird.

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Leslie Rangel, The Barbed Wire

Award-winning journalist Leslie Rangel is a first-gen daughter of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants and the senior editor of investigations at The Barbed Wire. She’s Emmy-nominated, UN-recognized, and reports at the intersection of wellness, race, gender, and justice. A former TV anchor and 2023 Chauncey Bailey fellow, she co-authored Journalists Break News, Don’t Let It Break You and founded The News Yogi mental wellness coaching practice.

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John Thomason, Grist

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Journalists hate the term "true crime." But true crime podcasts have captivated audiences, and the genre is evolving beyond its traditional confines. This panel explores how investigative journalists and storytellers are redefining true crime by focusing on systemic issues, deeper narratives and ethical storytelling. Panelists will share their experiences crafting compelling audio that goes beyond "whodunit," balancing audience engagement with sensitivity, accuracy and accountability. Attendees will gain insights into innovative reporting techniques, narrative structure and the ethical dilemmas of audio storytelling in this increasingly popular medium.

Speakers

Nicole Dungca, The Washington Post

Nicole Dungca is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. She is the co-host of the podcast Broken Doors, which examined the use of no-knock warrants in the American justice system, and one of the authors of Searching for Maura, an illustrated investigation into the Smithsonian Institution's collection of human remains. She currently serves as the president of the Asian American Journalists Association.

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Jonathan Jones, Reveal / CIR

Sukey Lewis, KQED

Sukey Lewis is a criminal correspondent and host of On Our Watch, a podcast from KQED about the shadow world of law enforcement accountability. In 2018, she co-founded the California Reporting Project, a coalition of newsrooms across the state focused on obtaining previously sealed internal affairs records. Sukey has also investigated the bail bonds industry, California's wildfires and the high cost of jail phone calls.

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Julieta Martinelli, Futuro Media/Futuro Studios

Julieta Martinelli is an investigative reporter and senior producer leading narrative long form reporting on criminal justice and immigration at Futuro Media. She most recently reported and co-produced season 1 of "Suave," which was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting and was the International Documentary Association's audio series of the year. She is the senior producer and host of season 2, which explores the complexities of re-entry.

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Parker Yesko, The New Yorker

Parker Yesko is a reporter for The New Yorker's Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast In the Dark. For Season 3 of the podcast, Parker examined why no U.S. Marines were punished for the 2005 killings of 25 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. She compiled the largest known database of alleged war crimes committed by American service members in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Parker's reporting for Season 2 helped to free a man, Curtis Flowers, from Mississippi's death row.

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Amy Davis, KPRC

Melissa Del Bosque, Lighthouse Reports

Jeremy Finley, WSMV

Jack Sapoch, Lighthouse Reports

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This panel will showcase three investigations built around crowdsourced data, with an emphasis on the tools that you can use for your next big story.

We will share Bloomberg News' reporting on how Uber and Lyft “locked out” drivers from work in order to game the city’s minimum wage law. Bloomberg News built an automated WhatsApp tipline that circulated to drivers across New York City to crowdsource over 7,000 screenshots of lockouts from nearly 900 drivers.

Reporters will discuss using social media videos to trawl for tips on immigrant raids and building intake forums to standardize tips from sources.

We will share tips on how to maximize participation from sources, validate messy user-submitted data, and how to combine shoe-leather reporting with the affordances of automation.

Speakers

Cassandra Garibay, ProPublica

Cassandra Garibay is a Bay Area-based engagement reporter for ProPublica, working on community-sourced investigations. Cassandra has previously reported on housing and health equity issues across California for El Tímpano, Fresnoland, the Fresno Bee and the San Luis Obispo Tribune. She also previously served as the USC Center for Health California Engagement Editor.

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Sergio Olmos, CalMatters

Leon Yin, Bloomberg

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Ginger Thompson and Ken Armstrong go way back. Both longtime investigative journalists, their resumes include Pulitzers, Peabodys, Polks. They worked together at ProPublica. And the Chicago Tribune. And, four decades ago, they worked together at their college newspaper, the Purdue Exponent. (Their staff was quite something. The cartoonist went on to co-write and co-direct Pixar’s “Up.”) They’ll talk craft, lessons learned, how to do stories that make a difference, how to grow and keep growing—and what they owe to their college paper.

Speakers

Ken Armstrong, Bloomberg News

Ken Armstrong is an editor and reporter on Bloomberg’s global I-team. He’s won Pulitzers for investigative and explanatory reporting and shared in two staff Pulitzers for breaking news. Other awards include a Peabody for radio and the National Magazine Award for feature writing. He co-wrote the story that became the Netflix series, “Unbelievable.” He was the McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton and co-authored the book “Scoreboard, Baby,” winner of the Edgar Award.

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Ginger Thompson, ProPublica

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This panel will showcase student-led investigative reporting with real-world impact, from holding some of the most powerful in the state accountable to uncovering new information about unsolved civil rights murders. Faculty and students involved in this work will talk about the do's and don'ts of relying on students to lead investigative work, as well as what they are actually able to accomplish.

Speakers

Lee Ann Anderson, University of Florida

Lee Ann Anderson is a rising senior attending the University of Florida majoring in journalism. She's been a reporter with Fresh Take Florida, WUFT News and The Alligator, and she also freelanced for Mainstreet Daily News. She has written about the ongoing court case about an impending social media ban in Florida and investigated Florida Democrats running candidates in district they lived hundreds of miles from.

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Chris Drew, LSU

Sarah Gamard, Center for Community News

Rick Hirsch, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications

Rick Hirsch is director of the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability at the University of Florida, one of the largest awards in the U.S. A career reporter and editor, he served as managing editor of the Miami Herald from 2011 to 2021. During his tenure as ME, the Herald earned two Pulitzer Prizes and was named a finalist five times. He was part of five other Miami Herald Pulitzers as a reporter and editor.

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Whether covering a mass shooting or a breaking political scandal, reporters need to know how to thoroughly and quickly background people involved in breaking news events. In this panel, journalists will share concrete tips about mining social media accounts, maximizing Nexis searches, accessing public records online, finding friends and relatives and turning hunches into distinctive stories.

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Daphne Duret, The Marshall Project

Larry Graham, The Diversity Pledge Institute

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Walt Bogdanich, The New York Times

Walt Bogdanich has been awarded three Pulitzer Prizes — two at The New York Times and one at The Wall Street Journal — and was a Pulitzer finalist twice. Before joining The Times in 2001, he produced reports for 60 Minutes and ABC News. He has also produced investigations for Frontline and New York Times television. Previously, Bogdanich worked at The Plain Dealer and Cleveland Press. He co-authored the book “When McKinsey Comes to Town.”

Olivia George, The Washington Post

Jenifer McKim, WGBH

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Andrew Lehren, CUNY

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When the Washington Post reported Elon Musk's companies have received at least $38 billion in economic development subsidies, grants, and loans, it provoked some uproar in light of Musk's allegations of government overspending. But Musk is just one of many CEOs who have benefited from large subsidy packages given in the name of economic development. In this session, learn how to find out what companies are getting incentives (with the help of Good Jobs First's Subsidy Tracker and other public financial documents), the impact to public budgets, how to make sense of "economic impact" reports, and how to dig into deals to be able to answer - are the deals, which involve turning over public money to private companies, worth it?

Speakers

Paula Gardner, Bridge Michigan

Paula directs the business reporting for nonpartisan and nonprofit Bridge Michigan. Her coverage emphasizes accountability and policy, mostly focused on economic development incentive spending. Recent awards include first place for explanatory journalism from SABEW and the 2024 Public Service award from the Michigan Press Association. Paula also reported on a statewide environmental team at MLive.com, and has edited at the Ann Arbor News and the Detroit Free Press.

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Arlene Martinez, Good Jobs First

Arlene Martínez joined Good Jobs First, a nonprofit corporate and government watchdog, in 2020. Before joining GJF, (which maintains the Subsidy, Violation, and Tax Break Tracker databases), she was a reporter with the USA TODAY Network/Ventura County Star, The Morning Call, the LA Times and Hispanic Link News Service, where her work focused on the choices people in power make when it comes to who and what gets prioritized.

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J. Dale Shoemaker, Investigative Post

J. Dale Shoemaker is a journalist in Buffalo, New York, with the nonprofit news outlet Investigative Post, covering stories at the intersection of government and economics. Among other topics, he's investigated how local tax breaks rob rural schools of revenue and how subsidies often flow to companies that don't need the money. Most recently, he's exposed a highly-subsidized restaurateur for stealing from his employees.

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In the fast-changing policy landscape of 2025, government officials have distanced scientific evidence from political decision-making and frequently ignored scientific consensus. Misleading claims about issues ranging from fluoridating water to vaccine safety to climate change impacts are drawing scientific evidence into the spotlight, and this controversy warrants deeper reporting to get to the gist of the evidence. Speakers will explore how they've investigated science at the center of political controversy, and give concrete advice on how to cut through political cross-talk with evidence, unearth the interests at play in these controversies, and portray complex evidence clearly for their audiences.

Speakers

Jen Christensen, CNN and NLGJA

Jen Christensen is a Peabody-award-winning writer/producer with CNN.com/CNN's where she currently works with the medical unit. She also serves as the Vice President for Broadcast with NLGJA the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and is NLGJA's long-time national convention co-chair.

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Elena Renken, SciLine

Elena is a writer and editor focused on science. At SciLine, she works with journalists to provide them with scientific information and expertise for their stories. She creates guides to scientific evidence that can deepen news stories and interviews scientists to produce video footage for reporters' use. Elena has covered the early months of COVID for NPR, written local stories for the Providence Journal, and reported biology features for Quanta Magazine.

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Lisa Song, ProPublica

Lisa Song is a reporter at ProPublica who covers how environmental regulations (or the lack thereof) affect communities, human health and the natural world. She's currently focused on the EPA and related agencies that oversee science and the environment.

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Alison Young, Independent journalist

Alison Young has reported on health, science, environment and consumer issues for USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and others. Until May, when Houston Landing closed its newsroom, she was the nonprofit’s associate editor for investigations, a reporting and coaching role. She is the author of "Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk," which was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2023. She is a past president of IRE.

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One of five different "Deep Dive" sessions, where the country’s top journalists will have in-depth, candid conversations on the biggest topics in investigative journalism today. No PowerPoints. No frills. Just talking.

Speakers

Lauren Chooljian, New Hampshire Public Radio

Lauren Chooljian is a senior reporter/producer on NHPR's Document team, a narrative-driven, longform reporting project. She is the host and reporter behind The 13th Step, a podcast about sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry, which was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting. Before joining NHPR in 2017, Lauren spent nearly six years as a reporter, producer and fill-in host for WBEZ in Chicago.

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David Enrich, The New York Times

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In recent months, DOGE has become a household name given its impacts on programs spanning many sectors of the government and society. Amid the intensive nature of the news cycle, how should journalists cover the DOGE impacts in their communities? We'll take a birds-eye view that could resonate with your communities for years to come.

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Jenna McLaughlin, NPR

Annie Waldman, ProPublica

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Torsheta Jackson, Mississippi Free Press

Vimal Patel, The New York Times

Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune

Joe Stephens, Princeton University

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Methods from the practices of archivists, librarians, and historians can help journalists surface and use historical documents. In this session, learn about incorporating history into deep-dive stories.

Speakers

Steve Eder, The New York Times

Alexia Fernández Campbell, Bloomberg Industry Group

Alexia Fernández Campbell is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg Industry. Her work has exposed widespread wage theft at the USPS and potential business fraud in the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Her radio and magazine series“40 Acres and a Lie,” won a duPont-Columbia Award, a National Magazine Award and an IRE Phil Meyer Award. Alexia previously worked at The Center for Public Integrity, Vox, The Atlantic, National Journal, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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Nadia Hamden, Reveal

Cam Rodriguez, The New York Times

Cam Rodriguez is a data and investigative reporter based in Chicago, and is currently a Local Investigations Fellow at The New York Times. She previously worked with teams at Chalkbeat, USA TODAY, South Side Weekly, the Detroit Free Press, WTTW and the Better Government Association. When she’s not digging in archives or making another pot of coffee, she’s usually playing with maps, watching rom-coms or exploring the Midwest with her dog.

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Mc Nelly Torres, Independent Investigative Reporter and Editor

Mc Nelly Torres is an award-winning investigative journalist and former editor at the Center for Public Integrity where she led a team investigating inequality. Before, Torres worked as an investigative producer for NBC6 in Miami and co-founded FCIR.org. She is a product of newspapers including the Sun-Sentinel and the San Antonio Express-News. Torres was the first Latina elected to the IRE board of directors. In 2022, Torres was a recipient of the Gwen Ifill Award.

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Louise Kiernan, Northwestern University

Pam Maples, John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships

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AI is rapidly reshaping policing—sometimes in ways even police themselves don't fully understand. From AI-powered facial recognition leading to wrongful arrests to automated systems drafting police reports, these technologies raise urgent questions about accuracy, bias, and accountability. This panel brings together investigative journalists and researchers who have exposed the risks and real-world consequences of AI in policing. Panelists will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how their investigations came together, and insights/tips for journalists interested in doing this reporting in their own communities.

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Doug MacMillan, The Washington Post

Hannah Riley, The Center for Just Journalism

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Diseases linked to just four industries – tobacco, ultra-processed food, alcohol and fossil fuels – are responsible for one-third or more of all deaths each year, globally.

Those industries use similar tactics to market their products and influence public policy, opinion, and behavior. They rely on a shared playbook, hiding the health-harming impact of their products and processes while adding to their bottom lines.

This panel will equip journalists with the tools to uncover and expose their strategies. Panellists will describe approaches to identify and report on misleading advertising and marketing of products, ghostwriting of scientific papers, funding professionals like doctors and dietitians, funding of medical or campaigning organizations, lobbying of policymakers and exploiting regulatory loopholes.

Drawing on their experience investigating these industries globally, speakers will share practical insights into accessing hidden information, finding sources within companies, finding data sources, navigating corporate pushback and publishing impactful stories. They will also share storytelling tips including how to make people care about the human and environmental cost of these companies’ actions.

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Ben Hallman, The Examination

Sharon Lerner, ProPublica

Sharon Lerner covers the EPA and environmental issues at ProPublica. She has written about threats posed by pesticides, plastic-based fuels and other chemicals and have reported extensively on PFAS, a family of industrial pollutants linked to cancer, infertility, developmental harm and immune dysfunction. She is based in New York.

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Zoya Teirstein, Grist

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International investigations are made stronger by partnerships and collaborations that are able to drawn on strengths of different individuals and newsrooms. But these projects can also be fraught with challenges - who owns the investigative tools, who does the writing, whose editing works best? This panel will discuss how to make global investigations work for everyone by sharing examples of what has worked and what hasn’t, and highlighting best practices.

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Amruta Byatnal, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Melissa Del Bosque, Lighthouse Reports

Reed Richardson, GIJN

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Most newsrooms can no longer afford to spend resources on fact checking, leaving them exposed to potential corrections, public embarrassment or even litigation. Given the current political climate and the new administration's aggressive stance toward watchdog journalism, it's more important than ever to learn how to vet your own work and protect yourself. This session, led by Type Investigations Research Editor Nina Zweig will teach reporters how to self-check their work and approach their reporting with an eye toward fact checking.

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Ethan Corey, The Appeal

Ethan Corey is the research and projects editor at The Appeal, where he also serves as interim managing editor.

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Nina Zweig, Type Investigations

Nina Zweig is research editor at Type Investigations, where she also oversees the Inside/Out Journalism Project for incarcerated reporters.

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While we often hear that youth is wasted on the young, educators know that it's a two-way street in how we can learn from who we teach. We'll discuss what are our non-negotatibles in journalism education and where perhaps we should reframe our thinking in order to prepare the next generation of journalists to do meaningul work with impact and cope with the tumult of the newsroom industry.

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Soorin Kim, ABC News

Soorin Kim in an investigative data reporter at ABC News covering the second Trump presidency. She specializes in following money in politics -- how political contributions, lobbying and other influence operations move those in power. During the 2024 election, she covered President Donald Trump's reelection campaign as a campaign embed reporter.

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