IRE 2025 schedule

Where to search for stories in your market - tried and true, in-depth and quick turn, with consumer ideas too.

Speakers

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 Baltimore

Mallory Sofastaii is an award-winning investigative reporter at WMAR-2 News in Baltimore, Maryland, where she’s worked since 2016. She created “Matter for Mallory,” a consumer segment that led to federal indictments in a nationwide moving scam. Her reporting on EBT theft helped prompt federal reimbursement legislation. Mallory’s work focuses on uncovering fraud, resolving consumer complaints, and driving change through impactful, solutions-based journalism.

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Katie Wilcox, 12News

Katie Wilcox is the I-Team Executive Producer at 12News in Phoenix, where she leads her team to produce data-driven investigations that expose waste, fraud and abuse. Katie also worked as a data journalist in Denver at 9NEWS and Rocky Mountain PBS. Her work has prompted legislation and policy changes in Colorado and Arizona. Katie grew up in southwest Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with her bachelor’s degrees in economics and journalism.

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Covering the story of the climate crisis is so much more than chasing heat waves, oil spills, and sea level rise. Often, the most crucial stories about global warming and its effects on communities are embedded in dockets, spreadsheets, permits, and financial records. This panel will explore how to harness records, legal documents, and data to tell off-the-beaten-path climate stories.

Speakers

Audrey Brown, San Francisco Public Press

Audrey Mei Yi Brown (they/them) is the environmental health equity reporter at the San Francisco Public Press. They are also a Report for America corps member and a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism data fellow. Previously, they were a contributing editor at KneeDeep Times and worked at the San Francisco Chronicle. Audrey is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School. They grew up in San Francisco and still call the city home.

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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

Jennifer Hijazi is a reporter covering air pollution and climate change for Bloomberg Law’s environment desk. She focuses on environmental justice, regulations, and litigation. Previously, she built the climate law and litigation beat at E&E News and has bylines at PBS NewsHour, Vox, Science Magazine, Courthouse News, and Scientific American. She is the DC chapter president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association and The Uproot Project.

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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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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.

Speakers

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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From sports betting to labor disputes and corruption, the sports world is ripe for investigation. Come to this panel to hear from journalists who have covered a wide range of topics in the sector to learn how to turn your investigative lens to this industry.

Speakers

Kenny Jacoby, USA TODAY

Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY. His investigations have centered on issues in sports, higher education and law enforcement. He is fluent in public records requests, spreadsheets and web scraping in Python.

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David Purdum, ESPN

David Purdum has covered the intersection of sports and gambling for 17 years, the last 10 with ESPN. A former newspaper writer, editor and producer, David chronicled the push for expanded legalization of betting all the way to the Supreme Court. He continues to track the aftermath of that game-changing ruling, which has resulted in 40 states launching legal betting markets.

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Elaine Teng, ESPN

Elaine Teng is a senior editor in ESPN's investigative and enterprise unit, where she works on investigations, breaking news, longform features and cross-platform projects. She was previously a writer and editor at ESPN The Magazine, and the managing editor of The New Republic.

Yami Virgin, KABB WOAI

Yami Virgin, an Emmy and AP Award-winning Investigative Reporter and Anchor at KABB/WOAI in San Antonio, is recognized in Texas and Wisconsin. She hosts and produces the Edward R. Murrow Award-winning podcast, "Immigration Crisis: The Fight for the Southern Border." Known for endless sources at local, state, and national levels, Yami brings two decades covering immigration, crime, and border policy. She is finishing a Master's in Digital Audience Analytics.

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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.

Speakers

Ilana Newman, The Daily Yonder

Ilana Newman is a reporter and multimedia producer for the Daily Yonder, a rural focused newsroom. She lives in rural Southwest Colorado and covers issues of land, energy, water and economics in the rural Mountain West.

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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.

Julia Rendleman, Southern Illinois University

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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.

Speakers

David Cuillier, University of Florida / Brechner Freedom of Information 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, University of Florida / Brechner Freedom of Information Project

Sydney Sims is the Outreach Coordinator for the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida. She leads training, communications, and public education efforts to advance transparency. A former journalist, Sims reported for outlets including Capital B News, WABE, and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Originally from Atlanta, she holds a degree in journalism from Auburn University and now resides in Gainesville, Florida.

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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.

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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Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that celebrates IRE and the evolution of investigative journalism over the past five decades. This session will explore key themes such as the dynamics of the reporter-editor relationship, the impact of collaborative projects across multiple newsrooms, and the growing role of university and international partnerships in investigative work. Panelists will share their insights on how these collaborations have enriched journalism and enhanced the quality of investigations. Attendees can expect a rich discussion filled with valuable lessons, historical perspectives, and visions for the future of investigative reporting.

Speakers

Brant Houston, University of Illinois at Urba

Brant Houston is Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois. He served as the executive director of IRE for a decade. Before IRE, he was an investigative reporter at daily newspapers. He has co-authored “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook” and authored “Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide” and "Changing Models for Journalism: Reinventing the Newsroom." He is board chair for the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

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Jim Neff, Oregon Journalism Project

Jim is the managing editor of Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on investigative journalism across the state. He is an IRE award winner, a former board president, and author of five award-winning nonfiction books, including "Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy vs. Jimmy Hoffa."

Cheryl Phillips, Big Local News at Stanford University

Cheryl Phillips teaches data and investigative journalism at Stanford and co-directs Big Local News, a data-sharing collaborative. A former journalist at The Seattle Times and other outlets, she has contributed to Pulitzer-winning and finalist work, including two for breaking news. Most recently, she worked on an overdose investigation with The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times that won a George Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She is a former IRE board president.

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Cheryl W. Thompson, NPR

Thompson is an award-winning investigative correspondent and senior editor for investigations for NPR. Before joining NPR in 2019, she spent 22 years covering law enforcement and political corruption for The Washington Post, and was part of teams that won the Pulitzer for National Reporting in 2002 and 2016. She was the reporting coach on the NPR podcast "No Compromise," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting in 2021.

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Lea Thompson, Retired - NBC News

Lea Thompson was a Chief Correspondent for NBC News or co-head of “The Investigators” at Washington’s WRC-TV. Thompson and her team were the driving force behind three acts of Congress, as well as dozens of congressional and federal agency hearings, and numerous state and local actions. She is the multiple winner of every major broadcasting award, including 4 IRE Medallions. She served as an officer or committee head on IRE's Board of Directors for seven years and co-chaired IRE’s Miami Conference.

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Speakers

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.

Who and 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 and following up on 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, and relationship-building to successfully shake them loose. We will also examine how to make the most of records that you receive to help find more stories and potential sources – people can lead us to records, and records can lead us to people.

Speakers

Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg News

Josh Eidelson is a senior report for Bloomberg News and Businessweek, covering the workplace. His work has been honored by groups including the Loeb Foundation, the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) and the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Send him tips!

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Marta Jewson, The Lens

Marta Jewson is an education reporter at The Lens, New Orleans' first investigative nonprofit newsroom. She's covered New Orleans schools for 15 years through the nation's largest education reform experiment. Jewson was a founding member of the outlet's Charter School Reporting Corps. The CSRC covered 40+ independent school boards and was instrumental in holding new charter schools accountable to sunshine laws during the rapid expansion of charter schools in the city.

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Suzy Khimm, NBC News

Suzy is a national enterprise reporter for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C., focusing on federal agencies and their impact on everyday people. Her reporting has also appeared in Esquire, New York magazine, The New York Times, The Economist, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal Asia, among other publications. Previously, I was a staff reporter at The Washington Post, where I was a founding writer for Wonkblog and a national reporter for MSNBC.

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Investigative reporters are often asked to cover topics that impact or intersect with communities they are not part of. So, how do you build trust, report equitably, and communicate sincerely about your desire to help? This panel discussion will go over ways to connect with communities 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, Tampa Bay Times

Hannah Critchfield is a reporter on the Tampa Bay Times’ investigations team. Her work has spotlighted potentially unlawful arrests of undocumented people, companies concealing worker deaths and overdoses caused by a virtually unregulated substance.

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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.

Speakers

Joey Flechas, The Boston Globe

Joey is an investigative reporter on The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team. He was previously a municipal government reporter and associate editor at the Miami Herald for 11 years. He's covered corruption, controversial land deals, hurricanes and disasters. He was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for coverage of the collapse of a residential condo building in Surfside, FL.

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Mauricio Peña, Borderless Magazine

Anne Ryman, ABC15 Arizona

Anne Ryman is an investigative reporter at ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix. Before that, she was an investigative reporter at The Arizona Republic. She is part of the newspaper's 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning team in explanatory reporting.

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Walter Smith Randolph, CBS News New York

Walter Smith Randolph is the Executive Producer of Investigations at CBS News New York, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, and The National Association of Black Journalists' Vice President-Broadcast. The New York City native is a graduate of Villanova University and the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

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Editing a data-driven or investigative story comes with its own challenges. We'll talk about how to manage quick-turn and enterprise projects. Topics include vetting ideas, time management and keeping channels of communication open inside the newsroom. We'll also look at a litmus test for whether a story is worth further investigation.

Speakers

Cindy Galli, Independent journalist

Cindy Galli is formerly the executive producer of ABC News’ award-winning investigative unit, where she oversaw a team of reporters and producers specializing in government fraud, corporate corruption, racial injustice, consumer, and environmental issues. Cindy also built and oversaw a collaborative team that produced investigations with and across ABC’s owned stations and affiliates nationwide. Cindy currently serves on the IRE board of directors.

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Andrea Gallo, The Times-Picayune | The Advocate

Andrea Gallo is the senior investigations editor for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate, overseeing investigative and enterprise stories for Louisiana's largest newspaper. She is an award-winning journalist and public records enthusiast.

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Kevin Keeshan, NBC Universal Local

Kevin Keeshan is EVP for News Editorial for NBC Universal Local. He has editorial oversight for the consumer and investigative units. During his 13-year tenure, the division has won 21 national Murrows, five Peabodys, five duPonts, and three IRE Awards. Before he arrived at NBC, Keeshan spent 22 years at ABC, the last 11 as VP for News at KGO in San Francisco.

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Michael Sallah, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Michael Sallah is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who has led investigations into international money laundering, police abuses and public corruption that have resulted in grand jury inquiries, legislative reforms, and the recovery of millions in tax dollars.

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Does your investigation involve complex legal questions and you're unsure how to proceed? Bring your questions for a personal discussion with some prominent media law experts.

Speakers

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 College of Communication

Maggie Mulvihill is a veteran reporter, data journalism trainer, news entrepreneur, First Amendment advocate, and attorney. An Associate Professor of the Practice in Computational Journalism at Boston University, Mulvihill’s students have won numerous regional and national awards, including this year's IRE top student honor for a collaboration with The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Jennifer Nelson, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Jennifer Nelson is a senior staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she leads its pre-publication and pre-broadcast review practice, oversees the publication of and updates to the Reporters Committee’s legal guides, and supervises its hotline for journalists. Nelson also regularly represents news organizations and journalists in public records, court access, and legal defense matters before federal and state courts.

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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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The most important step in launching an investigation is focusing on the idea. What do you investigate? How do you get there?

What are the best ways to vet an idea?

There is both a how to: what is the process organizations use to brainstorm or pitch investigative proposals and

how do they evaluate ideas to move ahead with the best:

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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Matt Krupnick, Independent journalist

Matt Krupnick is a Chicago-based reporter and editor specializing in inequity/inequality, education, investigative work, data journalism and the environment. His work has been published by ProPublica, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post and the Hechinger Report, among other national and international publications.

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Brian Rosenthal, The New York Times

Brian M. Rosenthal is an investigative reporter at The New York Times and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is currently the president of the IRE Board of Directors.

Brad Schrade, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Brad Schrade is an investigative editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He previously worked as an investigative reporter at The Tennessean and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he was part of a team that won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for a series that exposed a rise in deaths across Minnesota's daycare system. He began his career as a reporter, covering a variety of beats, including police, courts, education, city hall, and state government.

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Claudia Vargas, NBC10 Philadelphia

Claudia Vargas is an investigative reporter at NBC10 Philadelphia and Telemundo62. Her stories have focused on police accountability, housing, and environmental issues. Claudia has worked on several award-winning documentaries. The most recent, “Finding Carlesha” has more than 1.3 million views and recently won the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary. Claudia previously worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, NY.)

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This session details how the New York Times A.I. Initiatives team integrates product design, machine learning, and editorial expertise to help create stories with A.I. and build tools for investigative journalism. We will present real-world examples of how the industry uses machine learning in investigative reporting, demonstrate our tools, and help reporters triage what is a good fit for A.I. – and what isn't. The presentation will conclude with an open discussion.

Speakers

Juliana Castro Varón, New York Times

Juliana Castro Varón is a designer, doodler and technologist. She's the Senior Design Editor of AI Initiatives at the New York Times and the founder of the open-access book publisher Cita Press. Previously, she was a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. Juliana is the author of Papel Sensible (Espasa, 2022), and her cartoons appear regularly in The New Yorker.

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Dylan Freedman, The New York Times

Dylan Freedman is a machine-learning engineer and journalist on the A.I. Initiatives team at The New York Times, where he assists with reporting and builds tools to help the newsroom. He was most recently at The Washington Post, where he built open-source tools and software for elections. He previously led development at DocumentCloud and worked on a machine-learning research team at Google.

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Artificial intelligence –– for better or worse –– is here to stay and its influence on newsgathering, news cycles, and the future of journalism is only growing. This panel will focus on helping journalists understand AI 101 and the opportunities that AI is creating for journalists. This is a no holds barred, no dumb questions discussion that features journalists who are creating and building projects using AI and using it to make their jobs easier.

Speakers

Marissa Evans, Investigative Project on Race and Equity

Marissa Evans is the investigations editor with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. Previously a health reporter at the Los Angeles Times, she covered race, healthcare, and entertainment. While at the Star Tribune, where her investigative work exposed how the state allowed private hospitals to seize tax refunds from individuals with unpaid medical bills, leading to legislative action in 2021 aimed at ending the policy.

Mark Greenblatt, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, Arizona State University

Mark Greenblatt is the executive editor and a professor at ASU's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. He is a three-time Peabody Award winner, whose stories have also won the IRE Medal, two National Emmy Awards for investigative reporting, the duPont-Columbia Award, and the Livingston Award. He is devoting this chapter of his career to supporting the next generation of investigative leaders. Mark is the elected Treasurer and a Member of the Board of Directors for IRE.

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Liz Lucas, Missouri School of Journalism

Liz Lucas is an associate professor and the Houston Harte Chair in Journalism at Mizzou, where she teaches classes in problem solving with data and AI. Previously she was the senior training director at IRE.

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How do you get from “I got the data” to TV? Three broadcast journalists walk you through every step from getting the data to transforming what you find into an interesting TV story.

Speakers

David Barer, KXAN News

David Barer is a senior investigative producer and reporter at KXAN News, where he has been stationed for 10 years. Barer's reporting has changed state law, led to numerous bills being filed in the Texas legislature, and won dozens of regional accolades, as well as national Edward R. Murrow, Society of Professional Journalists, and Walter Cronkite awards.

Lori Jane Gliha, Scripps News

Lori Jane Gliha is a national investigative reporter for Scripps News. This year, she was honored with the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award, an IRE Award, and a NY Press Club Award for her investigation into Maine's deadliest mass shooting. She has also been nationally recognized for her extensive, exclusive reporting on fentanyl deaths among babies and young children, as well as for her reporting on the use of ketamine by paramedics to sedate agitated people.

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John Kelly, CBS News

John Kelly is Vice President of Data Journalism for CBS News, leading teams focused on data, open-source intelligence and investigative reporting for the network's news programs such as CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes, as well as 15 owned local CBS Stations and cbsnews.com. He previously led similar teams for ABC News and USA Today.

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Tips and tricks from some of the leading journalism foundations on applying to grants. Do's and don'ts of writing an application, creating a budget, being realistic about your impact and more.

Speakers

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 for Business Journalism

Jane Sasseen is executive director of the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, which provides grants for business and financial investigative stories. Previously, she was senior editor and Washington bureau chief for BusinessWeek, politics editor-in-chief for Yahoo News, and Paris bureau chief of International Management magazine. She is a recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award, the top prize in financial journalism.

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Jackie Stenson, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism

Jacqueline Stenson is the manager of projects at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, where she collaborates with journalists nationwide on major investigative and explanatory stories. She previously worked with multiple media outlets, including NBC News/MSNBC, The New York Times Syndicate and Condé Nast. Her freelance work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, TODAY, Health and more. She has also taught for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

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When we look at the data on Indigenous peoples, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, we are able to see that there is a substantial amount of data from health care to education undercounted and misclassified, often cited as a lack of uniformity on how it's collected over generations by governments. We'll talk about best practices as Indigenous data sovereignty, the idea that Indigenous Peoples should decide how to collect, own, and use their own data, globally gains traction.

Speakers

Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post

Dana Hedgpeth is a Native American journalist at The Washington Post. She has over 30 years of experience as a reporter, covering a range of topics, including defense spending, D.C.’s rail and bus systems, courts, local governments, and crises. Most recently, she was part of a team that did an investigation into deaths and abuse at Indian boarding schools that won the Maynard Justice Award of the Poynter Journalism Prize.

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Mary Hudetz, ProPublica

Dianna Hunt, ICT (formerly Indian Country Today)

Dianna Hunt is national editor/news director at ICT/Indian Country Today. She directed and edited the Pulitzer Prize-finalist breaking news coverage of Hurricane Harvey while metro editor at the Houston Chronicle, and also worked for the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and other publications. She served three terms on the IRE board and is currently on the boards for the Fund for Investigative Journalism and Investigative Editing Corps.

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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

Phil Barber is a reporter for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, an hour north of San Francisco. He was a sportswriter for many years before shifting to news in the early months of the pandemic. Phil’s has since done investigative reporting on subjects including real estate fraud, wage theft, political extremism, corporate elder neglect and forced sterilization of people with developmental disabilities. He grew up in the Sacramento Valley. 

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Mary Fricker, RepoWatch

Mary Fricker is a business reporter who retired from The Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat. She freelances and publishes repowatch.org, which won SABEW’s Best in Business digital blog. Other awards: three IRE awards, McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage, UCLA Gerald Loeb Award, George Polk award, AP awards for business reporting. She co-authored the best-selling “Inside Job – The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans.” She graduated from the College of William & Mary.

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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Hannah Levintova, Mother Jones/ Center for Investigative Reporting

Hannah Levintova is the special projects editor and an investigative reporter at Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her work focuses on uncovering financial wrongdoing in areas that impact daily life, from housing to healthcare, with a particular emphasis on private equity. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, where she was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business Journalism.

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Jessica Silver-Greenberg, The New York Times

Jessica Silver-Greenberg is an investigative business reporter at the New York Times, where she writes about what happens when big business collides with all kinds of people — residents of nursing homes, patients, credit card customers, workers, and consumers. Recently, she has focused on the intersection of money and health care.

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Katie Thomas, New York Times

Katie Thomas is an investigative reporter at the New York Times. Her work explores the intersection of money and health care, focusing on how business decisions affect the lives of real people.

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In this panel, journalists will share their experience producing collaborative investigations between journalists inside Gaza and their counterparts outside the war zone. Join this session to learn strategies that journalists can use for verifying on-the-ground critical reporting, and to learn from the panelists' experience covering the war in Gaza.

Speakers

Yahya Abou-Ghazala, CNN

Yahya Abou-Ghazala is an award-winning reporter and producer with CNN’s investigative unit, based in Washington, DC. His work with the unit involves reporting and producing in-depth investigations for both digital and television audiences.

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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 the war in 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 (ARIJ)

Hoda Osman is a freelance investigative journalist and editor based in New York. She is Executive Editor at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, where she oversees international projects. She worked on the Gaza Project, investigating attacks on journalists in Gaza, and is currently a co-producer on a PBS Frontline film about Syria. She previously worked with ABC, CBS, France24 and the Associated Press, and trains journalists worldwide in investigative reporting.

Maryam Saleh, Rest of World

Maryam Saleh is the investigations editor at Rest of World, which covers the use and misuse of technology outside the West. She was previously a senior editor at The Intercept, where she edited features and investigations on the war in Gaza, the death penalty, and environmental racism. At Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, she was the lead editor on an award-winning project exposing a wave of legislation to increase police involvement in elections.

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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.

Speakers

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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Universities around the U.S. are facing political scrutiny at federal, state and local levels—affecting nearly every beat in your newsroom. Amid the spotlight on budget cuts and anti-DEI laws, are you missing the stories that may impact your community the most? Come to this panel to learn about the under-covered stories in higher education and how to cover them on your beat. Your viewers, readers and listeners might be shocked to know what's happening at colleges and universities nationwide. This session is sponsored by Lumina Foundation. IRE retains control of content, including the topic and speaker selection, for all conference sessions.

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Meredith Kolodner, The Hechinger Report

Meredith Kolodner is an investigative reporter at The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization focused on education, where she has written about for-profit colleges, student debt and racial equity. She previously covered schools for The New York Daily News and was an editor at Inside Schools and The Investigative Fund (now known as Type Investigations). Her work has appeared in many outlets, including NBC News, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

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Arionne Nettles, Florida A&M University

Arionne Nettles is a professor, culture reporter, and audio aficionado who serves as the Garth C. Reeves Eminent Scholar Chair and instructor for digital journalism at Florida A&M University. As a journalist, her stories often examine Chicago's history, culture, and racial and class disparities. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything and Journalism for Dummies.

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Chris Quintana, USA TODAY Network

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What makes a broadcast investigation not just good, but unforgettable? This panel dives into the craft and storytelling techniques that elevate powerful broadcast investigations. Learn how to shape complex reporting into stories that resonate and stay with viewers.

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A.J. Lagoe, KARE-TV/TEGNA

A.J. Lagoe is an investigative reporter for KARE-TV in Minneapolis. His reporting has led to criminal convictions, legislative hearings, and new state and federal laws. A two-time recipient of the IRE Award, A.J. has also been recognized with many of journalism’s other highest honors, including the George Polk Award, along with multiple Peabody and duPont Columbia Awards.

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Cristin Severance, WRAL

Cristin Severance is the Investigative Reporter and Documentary Producer at WRAL, where she leads the station’s award-winning Documentary Unit with a mission to expose the truth and inspire change. She spent 20 years as an investigative reporter across the country, including in Dallas, Portland, San Diego, and Cleveland, before joining WRAL, one of the only dedicated documentary teams in local television news.

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Chris Vanderveen, KUSA-TV

​​Chris Vanderveen is the Director of Investigations at Denver's KUSA-TV. He is a Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and IRE Award recipient. His investigations have focused on everything from ineffective helicopter fuel systems to dangerous police restraint techniques. He lives in Denver and likes pugs, people and fulfilled open record requests.

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As Republican administrations continue attacks on trans people across the country in health care, education, military service and behind bars, reporters need to be ready to cover this far reaching topic with accuracy, nuance, and care. Come to this session to hear how to tackle these important stories, how to push back on rhetoric and euphemism, and how to tell honest, truthful stories about trans people in your communities.

Speakers

Gisselle Medina, Fresnoland

As a Report for America corps member, Gisselle Medina covers religion, culture, and community development for Fresnoland. They recently won two CA News Publishers Association awards for coverage of LGBTQ+ issues and religion. Their work has appeared in the LA Times, The Oaklandside, and The Frisc. Medina holds a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley, where they also studied English, and was a 2023 White House Correspondents’ Association scholarship recipient.

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Eesha Pendharkar, States Newsroom

Eesha Pendharkar has been an education and data reporter for eight years at the state and national level. She has covered reported on equity in education for more than five years, including as a race and opportunity reporter at Education Week. During that time, she has focused on the attacks on LGBTQ+ students in particular. She now covers education, healthcare and criminal justice as a senior reporter for States Newsroom's Maine outlet, the Maine Morning Star.

Lewis Raven Wallace, Interrupting Criminalization

Lewis Raven Wallace is a journalist based in Durham, North Carolina, the author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, and a co-founder of Press On, a southern movement journalism collective. He’s a 2021 Ford Global Fellow, and currently the Abolition Journalism Fellow at Interrupting Criminalization. His book, Radical Unlearning, will be released in October. He is white and transgender, and was raised in the Midwest with deep roots in the South.

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Adam Rhodes, IRE & NICAR

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This moderated conversation will explore the challenges and triumphs that journalists face when they're ready (or forced) to pivot. Panelists will share personal anecdotes that illustrate their experiences, providing insight into the strategies they employ to remain relevant and impactful in an industry marked by rapid change. You'll walk away with practical advice and insights that can benefit aspiring and seasoned journalists alike.

Speakers

Neal Bennett , The E.W. Scripps Company

Neal Bennett is a long-time journalist who now recruits journalists for The E.W. Scripps Company. His focus is on hiring print journalists interested in transitioning to broadcast roles, as well as recruiting early-career and college students. He was a news director and digital director for stations in Florida, Virginia, South Dakota, and Missouri. He holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree from the University of Florida.

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Laura Frank, Colorado News Collaborative (COLab)

Laura Frank is Executive Director of the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab), where 200 news outlets and colleges partner to end the “Fried and Frozen Dilemma” facing news outlets. Laura is a founder and chair emerita of the Institute for Nonprofit News, led investigative reporting teams to duPont and Murrow awards, received entrepreneurial fellowships at Columbia and USC, and is the Wolzien Visiting Professor at the University of Denver.

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Jared Kofsky, ABC News

Jared Kofsky produces in-depth stories for ABC News platforms, including Good Morning America, World News Tonight, ABC News Live, and ABCNews.com, working from both the field and the network’s headquarters in New York. He is also an on-air investigative contributor for ABC News Radio affiliates around the country. Jared previously served as the investigative producer for WCSC-TV in South Carolina and as a digital reporter covering New Jersey real estate for Jersey Digs.

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Anne Ryman, ABC15 Arizona

Anne Ryman is an investigative reporter at ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix. Before that, she was an investigative reporter at The Arizona Republic. She is part of the newspaper's 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning team in explanatory reporting.

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Olive Talley, Olive Talley Productions LLC

Independent filmmaking is the latest chapter in Olive Talley’s award-winning journalism career that spans network television, newspapers, radio and an international wire service. She is a three-time Emmy finalist, Pulitzer finalist in investigative reporting, and winner of numerous awards, including the George Polk, Headliners. She is a former IRE board member and Nieman fellow.

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Learn how to execute climate reporting across any beat in the newsroom, explore how to turn policy and data analysis into visual investigations, and come away with different story ideas to cover climate issues at the national, state and local levels. We'll look at how to cover potential solutions to fight climate change, as well as the obstacles society is facing in trying to decarbonize. Panelists will discuss the current challenges to climate reporting and how to overcome the issue of disappearing datasets to support environmental investigations.

Speakers

Michael Biesecker, Associated Press

Michael Biesecker is a global investigative reporter for The Associated Press. Biesecker’s work tracking potential war crimes in Ukraine was recognized with the 2022 IRE Gold Medal, as well as the top award for investigative reporting from the Overseas Press Club of America. He is a two-time Pulitzer finalist and was a contributor to the AP team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Biesecker also teaches investigative and environmental reporting at Georgetown University.

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Allison Prang, Freelance journalist

Allison Prang is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C., who primarily writes about climate issues. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Canary Media, Business of Fashion, States Newsroom, and numerous other outlets. She was formerly a full-time reporter for The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO, American Banker and The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Tracy Wholf, CBS News and Stations

Tracy J. Wholf is a senior coordinating producer of climate and environmental coverage for CBS News and Stations, based in New York.

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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.

Speakers

Fola Akinnibi, Bloomberg News

Fola Akinnibi is a reporter with Bloomberg CityLab.

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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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Are solutions to the wrongdoings exposed in your investigations often an afterthought? We’ll talk about how reporting out potential solutions at the outset – and connecting early and often in creative ways with those most affected by the issues – will not only increase the odds your stories will prompt real change, but will connect you more deeply to sources with differing viewpoints. (Not easy to do in today's world.) And that's not all! We’ll also show you how this framing can help you build bridges to audiences you’ve struggled to reach.

Speakers

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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John Diedrich, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Marquette University

John Diedrich is an investigative reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Through the O’Brien Fellowship at Marquette University, Diedrich examined gun deaths in Wisconsin, focusing on solutions with gun owners and showing that accidental shootings are not charged uniformly. Earlier work revealed an electrical fire risk to renters and dangers in factories and hospitals. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Public Service and won a George Polk award, among others.

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Michelle Levander, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism

Michelle Levander founded the USC Center for Health Journalism in 2004 and has built its work on collaboration, investigations, and engagement. Journalists have published over 4,200 articles with the Center, receiving top honors, influencing laws, and driving policy change across the nation. A veteran reporter and editor, Levander has honors from the Overseas Press Club of America, the InterAmerican Press Association, SPJ LA, and NorCal Emmys. A former InterAmerican Press Association Fellow in Mexico, she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

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Christiaan Mader, The Current

Christiaan is the founder and executive editor of The Current. His work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, Gambit, Offbeat, 64 Parishes, USA Today Network and The Advocate. He is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Emerging Leaders Council.

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Raquel Rutledge, The Examination

Raquel Rutledge is investigations editor at The Examination, a nonprofit startup focusing on global health investigations. As a longtime investigative reporter (formerly of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), she has received the nation's highest honors in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. Her investigations have not only informed the public but also led to reforms at local, national, and international levels.

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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.

Speakers

Jess Clark, Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting

Jess Clark covers education for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. Jess has reported on K-12 education for public radio audiences for the past 10 years.

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Huo Jingnan, NPR

Huo Jingnan is a reporter curious about how people navigate information landscapes and all the actors shaping that journey. Previously, she was an associate producer on NPR's Investigations team. The projects she was a part of have won awards including Edward Murrow Award, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Communications award, Silver Gavel Award, and have also been nominated for Emmy Awards and George Foster Peabody awards.

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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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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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In this panel, learn about how to make the non-visual story come to life for TV: color grading, editing, After Effects, framing interviews, etc.

Speakers

Luke Carter, WANF-TV

Anna Hewson, 9NEWS

With over 20 years of producing, shooting, and editing award-winning investigations, Anna is now focusing on building a new consumer investigation brand in Denver with Steve On Your Side. When not advocating for Colorado consumers, you will find her in the aisles of King Soopers, vigilantly cross-checking the shelf price versus the charge at the checkout.

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Tony Kovaleski, Denver7 News

Joshua Saunders, KSAT-TV

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Writing about unsolved and complex cases involving missing and murdered people and their killers presents unique challenges. Learn how to use the latest OSINT techniques, obscure archives and intense interviews to dive into these tough stories in the United States - and Mexico.

Speakers

Peter Barth, Bellingcat

Peter Barth is an investigator at Bellingcat whose work focuses on organized crime.

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Rocío Gallegos, La Verdad Juarez

Rocío Gallegos is a journalist in Ciudad Juárez. Co-founder and editorial director of La Verdad Juárez, an investigative journalism site, and co-founder of the Juárez Journalists Network. She worked as a reporter, editor, and information coordinator during the two periods that have most marked Ciudad Juárez: the homicides of women and the violence of 'the war' against drug trafficking.

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Lise Olsen, Texas Observer

Lise Olsen is an investigative reporter, editor and author whose latest book is The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston's Lost Boys (Random House 2025). Her first book, Code of Silence, won the IRE Book Award in 2022. She is a former IRE board member and, from 1996 to 1998, directed the IRE Mexico Project.

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When it comes to developing and maintaining sources—an intimate, demanding, all-consuming process—two of the best are Olivia Carville and Corey Johnson, reporters who know how to get inside major companies and government agencies, or schools, prisons and churches. They’ll talk about how their backgrounds have helped guide them in cultivating sources with compassion; the art of the cold call; taking care with victims of trauma; building trust; keeping sources on-side; and the good that can come from leaning into your humanity.

Speakers

Olivia Carville, Bloomberg

Olivia Carville is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg. Her work has influenced legislation and exposed corporate wrongdoing in New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. A winner of the 2024 Polk Award, Olivia was twice named Global Business Journalist of the Year by the Women's Economic Roundtable. She is also an adjunct professor of Columbia Journalism School and serves as president of the New York Financial Writers' Association.

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Corey Johnson, ProPublica

Corey Johnson is an investigative reporter on ProPublica’s national team. For nearly two decades, he has specialized in public service journalism and overcoming excessive secrecy. His accomplishments include the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, the George Polk Award, two IRE Gold Medals, and his work has triggered government reforms, criminal investigations, a reparations program and the creation of a new law.

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On this panel, journalists will discuss how to investigate Trump in such turbulent times, where the administration and even the public seem so adversarial to their job. Learn how to investigate the current administration in your city or town.

Speakers

Hannah Allam, ProPublica

Hannah Allam is a DC-based ProPublica reporter covering national security, with an emphasis on counterterrorism and militant movements. She joined ProPublica from The Washington Post, where she was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. She also spent a decade as a foreign correspondent for McClatchy, leading bureaus in Baghdad during the Iraq War and in Cairo during the Arab Spring. Her war coverage was honored by the Overseas Press Club and the George Polk Awards.

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Josh Dawsey, The Wall Street Journal

Josh Meyer, USA TODAY Network

Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post

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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.

Speakers

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

Murphy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on ProPublica’s national desk, where he writes about the government, companies and power. He also co-founded the “Local Matters” newsletter.

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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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Learn how public records and data about real estate can fuel your investigations of companies and agencies operating in the home mortgage and commercial property spaces. From foreclosures and contracts to federal programs covering veterans, to private equity transactions that can compromise public services, we’ll decode the jargon, documents and data available for real estate investigations.

Speakers

Robert Benincasa, NPR

Gordon Russell, The Boston Globe

Gordon Russell is deputy editor of The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team. Before moving to Boston in 2024, he served as managing editor of investigations for The Times-Picayune and The Advocate, where he worked for 25 years.

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Caitlin Thompson, Honolulu Civil Beat

Caitlin Thompson is an investigative reporter at Honolulu Civil Beat in Hawaiʻi where she covers everything from ocean safety to the courts. Previously, she was on the investigations team at NPR where her reporting on a real estate company offering sale-leaseback deals to cash-strapped homeowners sparked a Senate investigation, contributed to the closure of the company and won the Barlett & Steele Outstanding Young Journalist Award.

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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.

Speakers

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.

Speakers

Daniela Molina, InvestigateTV/Gray Media

Daniela Molina is an award-winning national investigative producer with InvestigateTV. Over the last couple of years, Molina has worked on consumer investigations and other hard-hitting topics, such as military medical malpractice. She is also the host of a Spanish financial segment called Cuidando su billetera.

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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 themselves as heroes. But behind the scenes, their behavior often fails to mirror that reality. Learn how to scour company behavior (on deadline!) using the Violation Tracker database to explore the backgrounds of companies across 450 federal, state, and local regulatory agencies (including EPA, OSHA, state attorneys general offices, etc). And beyond the regulatory landscape — in many agencies rapidly degrading under the new administration – learn how sources and other records can help expose misconduct. Also get info on the states' version of Project 2025, being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Similar to the national Project 2025, the states-level version seeks to, among other things, empower fossil fuel companies, undermine public education, repress voting rights, and more. Journalists are great at exposing the misbehavior of elected officials – walk away with tips on applying that same sharp scrutiny to company leaders. This session is sponsored by Bloomberg. IRE retains control of content, including the topic and speaker selection, for all conference sessions.

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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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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Nadine Sebai, Freelance

Nadine Sebai is an award-winning investigative reporter whose work has appeared on The Public’s Radio and PBS Frontline. She co-reported Underage and Unprotected, a national investigation into migrant teens working in U.S. seafood processing facilities. Nadine is currently directing a documentary about her own medical condition, using her investigative lens to explore the medical system’s handling of misunderstood neurological disorders.

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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.

Speakers

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.

Speakers

Jenn Abelson, Washington Post

Jenn Abelson is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and co-host of the investigative podcast, Broken Doors. She has spent more than a decade writing about exploited youth and co-authored a memoir with a teenager, "I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope."

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.

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Get real-world examples of reporting that centers the people with disabilities, rather than writing and reporting around them. This session will be packed with tips and insights to help journalists across beats bolster their coverage of disability-related issues and elevate the voices and needs of this key segment of our communities.

Speakers

Emily Hopkins, Mirror Indy

Emily Hopkins is an Indianapolis-based data reporter at Mirror Indy, focusing on accountability. They've investigated a variety of topics and institutions, including failures at the Indianapolis Housing Agency, Chicago's automated traffic enforcement system, financial issues at utilities in Michigan and Indiana, state responses to sexual abuse at an Indiana youth residential facility, and quality of care at Indiana nursing homes.

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Jennifer LaFleur, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Jennifer LaFleur teaches data journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was previously a senior editor at the Center for Public Integrity. She has also worked at American University, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, ProPublica and several newspapers. She is a former IRE training director and previously served on IRE’s board. She is a board member of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

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Amy Silverman, KJZZ-NPR

Amy Silverman is a journalist, teacher and author in her hometown, Phoenix. She's executive producer of KJZZ-NPR's The Show and a columnist for PHOENIX magazine. Amy often focuses on intellectual disability and how to make journalism more accessible to and inclusive of people with ID – like her daughter, Sophie, who has Down syndrome. Amy's work has appeared on This American Life, ProPublica and Slate, among others. More at amy-silverman.com

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Speakers

Bob Blau, Bloomberg

Rose Ciotta, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Rose Ciotta is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative editor who co-edited a project on school violence for The Philadelphia Inquirer that was awarded the 2012 Gold Medal for Public Service. She's a senior investigations editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She founded Investigative Editing Corps, linking editors with local news organizations to do investigative reporting. She attended Stanford University as a JSK Fellow and is a former member of the IRE board.

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Ron Nixon, The Associated Press

Ron Nixon is Director of the Associated Press Local Investigative Reporting Program. Previously, he was AP’s Vice President for News and Head of Investigations, Enterprise, Partnerships, and Grants. He has overseen investigations that have won several awards, including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a George Polk Award, three News and Documentary Emmys, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, and a George Foster Peabody Award, as well as several other honors.

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This panel dives into the challenges, rewards and lessons of the award-winning collaboration between U.S. and Latin American journalists, which investigated deadly migrant smuggling across Mexico using cargo trucks. Come to learn about how to choose the right partners and how to approach and protect your sources(and yourself) in hostile environments. You’ll also learn about useful tools and strategies to uncover cross-border immigration stories and amplify vulnerable voices in this crucial beat.

Speakers

Angela Cantador, Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP)

Àngela Cantador is a journalist who graduated in Journalism and Humanities from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. She works at the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) as a journalist and data coordinator. At CLIP, they uncover abuses of power in Latin America, focusing on migration, disinformation, environmental issues, and corruption through collaborative, cross-border investigations with local media and on-the-ground reporters.

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Martha Olivia López,

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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Ronny Rojas, Noticias Telemundo

Ronny Rojas is an investigative reporter for Noticias Telemundo and a professor at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY. He has led cross-border collaborative projects with newsrooms in the U.S. and Latin America. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including a National Emmy, NAHJ’s Al Newhart and University of Florida investigative journalism awards, the Ortega y Gasset Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

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This session is sponsored by Scripps Howard Fund. IRE retains control of content, including the topic and speaker selection, for all conference sessions.

Speakers

Kathy Best, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, University of Maryland

Kathy Best has led the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University for Maryland since 2019, helping students win an IRE medal and three IRE awards for best student investigations. This year, her students were named Pulitzer finalists in investigative journalism for their collaboration with AP and Frontline. She was previously executive editor of The Seattle Times and Missoulian in Missoula, MT, and a top editor at newsrooms in St. Louis and Baltimore.

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Kathy Best, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, University of Maryland

Kathy Best has led the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University for Maryland since 2019, helping students win an IRE medal and three IRE awards for best student investigations. This year, her students were named Pulitzer finalists in investigative journalism for their collaboration with AP and Frontline. She was previously executive editor of The Seattle Times and Missoulian in Missoula, MT, and a top editor at newsrooms in St. Louis and Baltimore.

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Brant Houston, University of Illinois at Urba

Brant Houston is Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois. He served as the executive director of IRE for a decade. Before IRE, he was an investigative reporter at daily newspapers. He has co-authored “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook” and authored “Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide” and "Changing Models for Journalism: Reinventing the Newsroom." He is board chair for the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

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Maggie Mulvihill, Boston University College of Communication

Maggie Mulvihill is a veteran reporter, data journalism trainer, news entrepreneur, First Amendment advocate, and attorney. An Associate Professor of the Practice in Computational Journalism at Boston University, Mulvihill’s students have won numerous regional and national awards, including this year's IRE top student honor for a collaboration with The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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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In this panel, you’ll hear from experienced consumer investigative journalists and producers. We’ll explore the various ways you can make your consumer investigations impactful. From knowing when a story is a daily turn or a more involved investigation, to showcasing how the nation’s federal consumer protection agencies directly impact your community. We will also discuss how to incorporate solutions-based journalism in your reports and utilize consumer advisors to help make your investigations stronger.

Speakers

Leah Dunn, WSB-TV ATLANTA

Leah is the executive producer of investigations and special projects for WSB-TV in Atlanta. She has worked in the consumer space for more than a decade. Her work highlighting Social Security overpayment issues with Justin Gray along with other investigative teams from Cox Media Group earned her multiple awards including a 2024 Goldsmith. She is passionate about solutions-based journalism giving people a platform to share their stories to educate others.

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Justin Gray, WSB-TV

Justin is the Consumer Investigator for WSB-TV in Atlanta. His investigations have led to changes in state laws & federal rules. He’s won numerous awards including a Murrow, multiple Emmys & he was on the 1st broadcast team named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Gray was previously WSB’s DC Correspondent & also worked at WAGA-TV in Atlanta & stations in Philadelphia, CA & WV. He has a MS in Journalism from Columbia & a BA in History from Emory.

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Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV/Gray Media

Caresse Jackman is an award-winning National Consumer Investigative Reporter at InvestigateTV-Gray Media. Before InvestigateTV, she was a consumer investigative reporter at WSMV in Nashville, Tennessee. She has prior reporting experience at WWL in New Orleans, WJRT in Flint, Michigan, and WCBI in Columbus, Mississippi.

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Transportation is always a beat moving but the last year has seen an increase of high-profile crashes, delays and gutting of federal agencies with already shortstaffed departments in the aviation industry. Learn from those who have covered this topic soaring on our news feeds while raising serious questions about public safety and the integrity of the Federal Aviation Adminstration.

Speakers

Cary Aspinwall, The Marshall Project

Cary Aspinwall is an investigative reporter for The Marshall Project. She previously reported for The Dallas Morning News and is a co-founder of The Frontier. Her work has been recognized with a Gerald Loeb Award, as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting, and the National Magazine Awards for public interest.

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Kate Kelly, New York Times

Kate Kelly is an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. She covers money, power and influence. She is an experienced broadcaster and the author of three books.

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Peter Robison, Bloomberg News

Peter Robison is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg News and author of the New York Times business bestseller Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing. He’s been part of teams recognized with prizes including a Gerald Loeb Award and the Overseas Press Club’s Malcolm Forbes award. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Robison has a history degree from Stanford University, and lives in Seattle, with his wife and two sons.

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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.

Speaker

Joy Mayer, Trusting News

Joy Mayer is the founder and executive director of Trusting News, a project that equips journalists to actively earn trust and helps journalists and the public understand each other. She and her team train newsrooms on strategies for demonstrating credibility and actively earning trust. She launched Trusting News in 2016 after a 20-year career in newsrooms and as a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism.

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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, University of Florida / Brechner Freedom of Information 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.

Christina Jedra, Honolulu Civil Beat

Christina Jedra is an investigative reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat. She uses sourcing and public records to illuminate local issues, from building permit holdups to military contamination. In 2024, Christina and her Civil Beat colleagues were recognized as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for their breaking news coverage of the deadly Maui wildfires. Christina previously worked for The News Journal in Delaware and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland.

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Sydney Sims, University of Florida / Brechner Freedom of Information Project

Sydney Sims is the Outreach Coordinator for the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida. She leads training, communications, and public education efforts to advance transparency. A former journalist, Sims reported for outlets including Capital B News, WABE, and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Originally from Atlanta, she holds a degree in journalism from Auburn University and now resides in Gainesville, Florida.

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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

Jeff Ernsthausen is a senior data reporter at ProPublica, where he was part of a team that produce The Secret IRS Files, a series based on the taxes of the wealthiest Americans. Prior to that, he was a data reporter on the investigative team at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He previously worked as an economic analyst for the Federal Reserve.

Mary Fricker, RepoWatch

Mary Fricker is a business reporter who retired from The Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat. She freelances and publishes repowatch.org, which won SABEW’s Best in Business digital blog. Other awards: three IRE awards, McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage, UCLA Gerald Loeb Award, George Polk award, AP awards for business reporting. She co-authored the best-selling “Inside Job – The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans.” She graduated from the College of William & Mary.

Mary Sanchez, Independent reporter

Mary Sanchez is a syndicated columnist with Tribune Content Agency and a familiar face and voice in Kansas City media. Sanchez’s contributions include time as the senior reporter for Kansas City PBS and a metro columnist for The Kansas City Star; member of the Star’s editorial board, in addition to her years spent reporting on race, class, immigration, criminal justice and educational issues.

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James Steele, Reporter, Author, Teacher

James B. Steele has received virtually every major national reporting award, including two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Magazine awards and six IRE awards for his investigative reporting. He is the co-author with his longtime reporting partner, the late Donald L. Barlett, of nine books, including two New York Times bestsellers. Steele and Barlett worked together for more than four decades at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Time and Vanity Fair.

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The American-led "War on Terror" is in its third decade and expanding aggressively and in unexpected ways under the Trump administration. This defining set of domestic and foreign policies touches immigration, incarceration, schooling, higher education, and journalistic practice. This panel brings together journalists and academics who have recently published work about "War on Terror" policies and expansion, and who can talk about the history of this "war," where it's headed, whom it is likely to affect, and how journalists can hold those steering it to account.

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

Akela Lacy is a senior politics reporter at The Intercept and co-host of The Intercept Briefing podcast. She previously worked at POLITICO and the Pulitzer Center. She is pursuing a PhD in political science at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York.

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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

Tanvi Misra is a freelance writer and investigative journalist primarily covering migration and justice issues. Her 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. She teaches 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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A key question in almost every investigation is how to work with potential sources who have vital information – but are reluctant to share it. They may be victims of crimes, incarcerated people, members of marginalized groups, even possible whistleblowers with access to confidential material. How can you earn their trust? And how can you ensure that they are not retraumatized or harmed by helping you? This panel will equip you with the tools to connect with sources in a variety of vulnerable circumstances.

Speakers

Julie Brown, Miami Herald

Emily Hopkins, Mirror Indy

Emily Hopkins is an Indianapolis-based data reporter at Mirror Indy, focusing on accountability. They've investigated a variety of topics and institutions, including failures at the Indianapolis Housing Agency, Chicago's automated traffic enforcement system, financial issues at utilities in Michigan and Indiana, state responses to sexual abuse at an Indiana youth residential facility, and quality of care at Indiana nursing homes.

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Judith Matloff, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism

Matloff has pioneered security training for journalists around the globe, helping hundreds survive an increasingly dangerous profession. She is the senior safety advisor of the Dart Center and teaches at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Matloff has covered conflict on several continents and contributes to leading outlets such as the NYT and Guardian. Her work has won support from the FIJ, MacArthur Foundation, Fulbright Program & Stanford's Hoover Institution.

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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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Alissa Zhu, The Baltimore Banner

Alissa Zhu is a reporter for The Baltimore Banner. She shares a Pulitzer Prize for a Banner and New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship project examining how Baltimore became the overdose capital of the U.S. Previously she worked at the Clarion Ledger in Mississippi, where she wrote about fatal prison riots and historic immigration raids, and the Springfield News-Leader in her hometown in Missouri, where she reported on local government.

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The outlets represented on this panel all have initiatives designed to support local investigative news. This panel will discuss the different initiatives' aims, approaches, accomplishments, and adversities. Attendees will glean insights into project management techniques and get tips for creating 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.

Speakers

Sarah Blustain, ProPublica

Sarah Blustain is an assistant managing editor at ProPublica, where she runs the Local Reporting Network. This collaborative program supports local newsrooms in creating high-impact, award-winning investigative journalism. A lifelong editor, Blustain most recently worked with a diverse group of freelance reporters at Type Investigations. Embracing the spirit of collaboration in the field, she hasn't edited a non-partnership investigation since 2013.

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Ryan Little, The Baltimore Banner

Ryan Little is the data editor at The Baltimore Banner, a nonprofit newsroom covering Maryland. He leads a team of data reporters whose in-depth, data-driven investigations include its Pulitzer Prize-winning overdose series. His work analyzing data and scraping the web has won multiple national awards and prompted a Department of Justice inquiry. Little is a dedicated mentor to aspiring data journalists and frequently speaks on data’s role in uncovering vital stories.

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Ron Nixon, The Associated Press

Ron Nixon is Director of the Associated Press Local Investigative Reporting Program. Previously, he was AP’s Vice President for News and Head of Investigations, Enterprise, Partnerships, and Grants. He has overseen investigations that have won several awards, including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a George Polk Award, three News and Documentary Emmys, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, and a George Foster Peabody Award, as well as several other honors.

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Cheryl Phillips, Big Local News at Stanford University

Cheryl Phillips teaches data and investigative journalism at Stanford and co-directs Big Local News, a data-sharing collaborative. A former journalist at The Seattle Times and other outlets, she has contributed to Pulitzer-winning and finalist work, including two for breaking news. Most recently, she worked on an overdose investigation with The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times that won a George Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She is a former IRE board president.

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Adam Playford, The New York Times

Adam Playford is an investigations and data editor at The New York Times who works with reporters across the country through The Times's Local Investigations Fellowship. He previously was an editor at The Upshot, oversaw investigations and data at The Tampa Bay Times, and was an investigative reporter for Newsday and The Palm Beach Post.

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Speakers

Jodie Fleischer, Cox Media Group

As Managing Editor of Investigative Content for Cox Media Group, Jodie manages national collaborations and investigations for eight local TV stations. She spent more than 20 years as an investigative reporter at WRC in Washington, WSB in Atlanta, and WFTV in Orlando. She’s earned some of journalism’s top honors, including an IRE Award, a duPont Award, a Goldsmith Special Citation and was a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service. She has served on IRE’s Board of Directors since 2019.

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Cindy Galli, Independent journalist

Cindy Galli is formerly the executive producer of ABC News’ award-winning investigative unit, where she oversaw a team of reporters and producers specializing in government fraud, corporate corruption, racial injustice, consumer, and environmental issues. Cindy also built and oversaw a collaborative team that produced investigations with and across ABC’s owned stations and affiliates nationwide. Cindy currently serves on the IRE board of directors.

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David Hammer, WWL Louisiana

David Hammer is the chief investigative reporter for WWL Louisiana in New Orleans. He is a 6-time regional Emmy winner, a 2025 national News Emmy nominee and has won Murrow, SPJ and Environmental Journalism awards. Over 15 years as a print and wire reporter and 13 years on TV, Hammer’s investigations have helped to put criminals in prison, expose corruption and abuse of power, improve public safety and change inequitable laws.

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John Hillkirk, KFF Health News

John Hillkirk, senior enterprise editor at KFF Health News, was a reporter or editor at USA Today for 33 years before joining KFF in 2016. John’s KFF HN reporting team has won three Gerald Loeb Awards, a Goldsmith Prize, a Polk Award, the Sigma Delta Chi award for public service journalism, the Batten Medal from the News Leaders Association, a Murrow Award, two National Press Club awards, and two Pulitzer Prize finalists.

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Kara Kenney, WRTV

Kara Kenney is an investigative reporter with WRTV (ABC) in Indianapolis. Her investigations into government fraud and waste have resulted in several changes to Indiana state law, including increased accountability for how schools report bullying, as well as greater transparency in school superintendent contracts. Kenney's investigations have earned her an Edward R. Murrow award, as well as awards from the Emmys, SPJ, and the Associated Press.

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Ramon Vargas, The Guardian

Ramon Antonio Vargas is an award-winning journalist and award-winning author who has lived in the New Orleans area his whole life. He is a news desk editor at the Guardian and previously worked for The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate. He has covered crime, politics, sports, general news and investigated the New Orleans Catholic archdiocese's ongoing clergy abuse scandal.

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Legal reporting has never been more critical. Courts are treasure troves of information, but how do you access all those records and proceedings? We’ll explore free tools, techniques and strategies to overcome obstacles and get the story. You’ll learn how to track cases from afar, combine digital tools with courthouse shoe leather reporting, learn legal arguments and hear about coalition-building strategies you can use to gain access to filings and proceedings in person – even when you’re not welcome.

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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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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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, Independent journalist

Cecilia Reyes is a bilingual reporter, formerly 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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Margie Mason and Robin McDowell have been reporting partners for 20 years, helping produce one epic investigation after another, including “Seafood from Slaves,” which led to numerous arrests, the seizure of ships and the freeing of more than 2,000 people. If journalism has a fledgling heir to Barlett and Steele, it could be Mason and McDowell. They’ll talk about what makes their partnership tick; how they regularly swap hats, even though one revels in the Indiana Jones stuff and the other in Robert Caro-level detail and documentation; and how, through it all, they have never once had a fight.

Speaker

Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, Associated Press

Margie Mason and Robin McDowell are Pulitzer Prize-winning AP investigative reporters who worked together for nearly two decades in Southeast Asia. Their reporting exposed slavery in the seafood industry, resulting in more than 2,000 men being freed; labor abuses on palm oil plantations; and massive companies profiting from American prison labor. It has led to convictions, changes in U.S. laws, import bans, and the release of a Minnesota man from prison.

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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.

Speakers

Keri Blakinger, Houston Chronicle

Keri Blakinger is an investigative reporter at the Houston Chronicle and author of the memoir Corrections in Ink. Last year, she was a Pulitzer finalist for her story about the Dungeons & Dragons players of Texas Death Row. This year, she produced an Oscar-nominated short documentary, “I Am Ready Warden.” She’s also worked at the NY Daily News, The Marshall Project and the LA Times and is a 2025 New America Fellow.

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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 Fernandez, Center for Just Journalism

Hannah Riley Fernandez is a writer, communications expert, and advocate based in Atlanta. She works at the Center for Just Journalism, supporting journalists and newsrooms who do reporting on public safety issues.

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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US journalists are suddenly confronted with kinds of power abuse that investigative reporters have long tackled around the world. In this session, international reporters and editors will share some of the tools and follow-the-money techniques that have exposed the tactics and held the unelected allies of autocrats accountable in different regions, the trickle-down corruption of oligarchy, and conflicts of interest.

Speakers

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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Patricia Marcano Meza, Armando.info

Patricia Marcano is an investigative journalist and editor from Venezuela. She is part of the editorial team at Armando.info (a Venezuelan media outlet), and her work includes covering corruption, money laundering, and human rights violations, as well as coordinating the newsroom and the Venezuelan chapter of the FinCEN Files and the Pandora Papers. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a master's degree in journalism at Ohio University and an Alfred Friendly Press Partners Fellow.

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Hoda Osman, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ)

Hoda Osman is a freelance investigative journalist and editor based in New York. She is Executive Editor at Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, where she oversees international projects. She worked on the Gaza Project, investigating attacks on journalists in Gaza, and is currently a co-producer on a PBS Frontline film about Syria. She previously worked with ABC, CBS, France24 and the Associated Press, and trains journalists worldwide in investigative reporting.

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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.

Speakers

Jennifer Hawes, ProPublica

Jennifer Berry Hawes writes about the South for ProPublica. Before that, she was an investigative reporter at The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, where she was part of a team that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for public service. She was also a finalist in feature writing in 2019. Her book about the Emanuel AME Church mass shooting, “Grace Will Lead Us Home,” was a New York Times notable book of 2019 and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

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T. Christian Miller, ProPublica

Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today

The stories of Jerry Mitchell, who leads the investigative reporting team for Mississippi Today, have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a winner of over 30 national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant, he is the author of “Race Against Time,” which tells how his reporting helped convict four Klansmen involved in killing NAACP leader Medgar Evers, four little girls and three civil rights workers.

Cheryl W. Thompson, NPR

Thompson is an award-winning investigative correspondent and senior editor for investigations for NPR. Before joining NPR in 2019, she spent 22 years covering law enforcement and political corruption for The Washington Post, and was part of teams that won the Pulitzer for National Reporting in 2002 and 2016. She was the reporting coach on the NPR podcast "No Compromise," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting in 2021.

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We know you’ve been told, ‘we need to focus on our younger demos, they’re not watching tv.’ But they are watching news. We’ll prove it to you, give you solutions to stop wasting time and start getting in front of as many people as possible. We’ll (try to) absolve you of your guilt about ‘monetization’ and definitely discuss whether dancing anchor videos are good brand builders for investigative reporters. We guarantee there is something you haven’t heard in this hour, hopefully more than one thing! Come with questions.

Speakers

Ben Bradley, WGN-TV Chicago

Ben Bradley is a 10-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter who has spent more than 25 years covering news in Chicago. He joined WGN-TV in January 2017 as an anchor and investigative reporter. Before WGN-TV, Bradley spent 14 years at WLS-TV, ABC7 in Chicago, as a reporter and weekend morning anchor. While reporting for WLS, he has traveled the globe on various stories, including trips to China, Brazil, the Caribbean, and nearly a dozen states.

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Levi Ismail, WTVF NewsChannel 5

Ashlyn Lipori-Russie, Ask Ashlyn

Ashlyn Lipori-Russie is the creator and host of Ask Ashlyn, an SMS and social media-based solution to news avoidance that invites users to ask questions about the news, as if speaking with a journalist friend. Ashlyn is an Emmy-nominated journalist with a diverse background in broadcast and digital news, including the Investigative Unit at NBC Bay Area, ABC 10News, and inewsource in San Diego.

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Ted Oberg, News4 NBC Washington

Ted is part of the I-Team at News4 NBCWashington. Three years ago, he moved to DC after 21 years in Houston. Feel free to ask him about it, moving three teenage daughters across the country, or about his work. Ted likes to talk.

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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, University of Florida / Brechner Freedom of Information 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.

Speakers

Elaine Aradillas, independent journalist

Elaine Aradillas has spent her career writing about crime. For 15 years, she worked at PEOPLE magazine as a senior writer and covered high-profile national cases, including 20 mass shootings. Her expertise has been featured on Dateline, GMA, HLN and more. She co-authored a book and taught journalism at Syracuse University. She has three documentaries in development. She earned an MS at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a BA at the University of Texas.

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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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Greg Lee, Loyola University New Orleans

Alain Stephens, Independent journalist

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This panel will explore notable cases, from the Arizona Project to the Chauncey Bailey Project, as well as the real, life-threatening work that journalists continue to do. Panelists will examine how the landscape of reporting has evolved while the dangers persist. After all, you can silence the journalist, but the story will live on.

Speakers

Richard Behar, Forbes magazine

Richard Behar is the Contributing Editor of Investigations for Forbes magazine; an associate producer of an upcoming docuseries on post-Soviet organized crime; and author of “Madoff: The Final Word” (2024). Prior: staffs of Fortune, Time, Forbes. Probes for BBC, CNN, PBS. Winner of 20+ journalism awards (re Scientology; mafias; terrorists; etc.). He launched Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance probing 2004 Moscow murder of his friend, Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov.

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Rocío Gallegos, La Verdad Juarez

Rocío Gallegos is a journalist in Ciudad Juárez. Co-founder and editorial director of La Verdad Juárez, an investigative journalism site, and co-founder of the Juárez Journalists Network. She worked as a reporter, editor, and information coordinator during the two periods that have most marked Ciudad Juárez: the homicides of women and the violence of 'the war' against drug trafficking.

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Lise Olsen, Texas Observer

Lise Olsen is an investigative reporter, editor and author whose latest book is The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston's Lost Boys (Random House 2025). Her first book, Code of Silence, won the IRE Book Award in 2022. She is a former IRE board member and, from 1996 to 1998, directed the IRE Mexico Project.

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John Quiñones, ABC News

John Quiñones joined ABC News in June 1982 as a general assignment correspondent based in Miami, providing reports for "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" and other ABC News broadcasts. He spent nearly a decade in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama and was one of the few American journalists reporting from Panama City during the U.S. invasion in December 1989. During his 33 year tenure at ABC News, John has reported extensively for all programs and platforms and served as anchor of "Primetime." Quiñones has won seven national Emmy Awards for his "Primetime Live," "Burning Questions" and "20/20" work. Currently in its 17th season, What Would You Do? continues to captivate audiences with its thought-provoking social experiments, offering a unique lens into human behavior. What Would You Do? is the latest chapter in a remarkable broadcast news career spanning 50 years. Quiñones began humbly, working at a country music radio station in San Antonio—where one of his first duties included feeding horses behind the studio. From those beginnings, he rose to become a network news trailblazer, delivering compelling coverage of consequential stories for ABC News and 20/20. As the host and creator of What Would You Do?, Quiñones inspires audiences of all ages around the globe, encouraging empathy, courage, and meaningful conversations about how we treat one another.

Martin Reynolds, Maynard Institute

Martin Reynolds oversees fundraising, client relations, and external affairs at the Maynard Institute, where he also serves as lead Fault Lines® diversity trainer. He co-founded Oakland Voices, now in its 15th year, and formerly directed the Reveal Investigative Fellowship. A former editor-in-chief of The Oakland Tribune, he served as a lead editor on the Chauncey Bailey Project. He sits on Cityside’s board and once recorded a live album in Havana, Cuba, as a lyricist.

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

Speakers

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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How do you get the most out of the best editors? How do you manage to improve your writing even with the less-than-best editors? We'll offer practical tips about enduring the difficult edit, overcoming tension, and getting past the struggles that lead to "good enough."

Speakers

Matt Apuzzo, The New York Times

Matt Apuzzo is international investigations editor for the New York Times. He is based in London, where he manages a team of six reporters and works with bureau chiefs around the world. A former investigative reporter in Washington and Brussels, he has won or shared in three Pulitzer Prizes.

Shawn McIntosh, Retired, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Shawn has recently retired from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after a career as an investigations and data journalism editor and senior newsroom leader. Prior to two decades in Atlanta, Shawn was editor-in-chief at The Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi and in investigative and data journalism roles at USA TODAY and The Dallas Morning News. She is a former board member and board president for IRE.

Elaine Teng, ESPN

Elaine Teng is a senior editor in ESPN's investigative and enterprise unit, where she works on investigations, breaking news, longform features and cross-platform projects. She was previously a writer and editor at ESPN The Magazine, and the managing editor of The New Republic.

Tisha Thompson, ESPN

Tisha Thompson is an investigative reporter and senior writer at ESPN. Her investigation of MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara won this year's IRE Award for sports reporting. She's also been honored with Peabody, Emmy, Loeb, Gracie, Murrow, Telly, Headliner and Sigma Delta Chi awards, and credits IRE/NICAR and its members with so much of her professional success.

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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, The Pro-Democracy Information Lab/Reporting Right

Kyle Spencer is an award-winning journalist, former NYT contributor, and the author of the critically-acclaimed book Raising Them Right, the Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power (Ecco/Harper Collins). She is the founding editor of Reporting Right, a weekly pro-democracy journalism newsletter, and the CEO of the Pro-Democracy Information Lab, a 501(c)(3) organization that helps news outlets reach a broader audience with pro-democracy news. 

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Not all investigative journalism has to be dense to be impactful. This panel explores how to craft stories that reveal deep truths while keeping the audience engaged and not overwhelmed. Panelists discuss the art of navigating liminal spaces—storytelling that exists as both hard-hitting exposés and character based narratives—to find nuance, and humanity.

Speakers

Najib Aminy, Reveal

Najib Aminy is a reporter and producer at Reveal. His work has earned him accolades like the George Polk Award, Alfred E. duPont Award, and Edward R. Murrow Award. Before Reveal, he was Flipboard’s first news editor and has reported for Newsday and The Indianapolis Star. He’s a Stony Brook alum and a proud New York Knicks fan, and he's mainly working to feed his cat.

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Fernanda Echavarri, Futuro Media / Futuro Studios / Latino USA

Fernanda Echavarri is an award-winning bilingual journalist. She’s a Senior Producer and Editor at Futuro Media, where she makes special podcast series and the weekly show Latino USA on NPR. She was previously at Mother Jones Magazine and Arizona Public Media. She began her journalism career in newspapers 15 years ago. Fernanda is the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, a Regional Emmy, and was a Peabody Award finalist.

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Will James, KUOW

Will James reports, produces, and hosts documentary podcasts for the Seattle NPR station KUOW. He co-created the audio documentaries Lost Patients, which was nominated for a 2024 Peabody award; The Walk Home, winner of a national Edward R. Murrow Award; and Outsiders, which TIME called a "narrative feat" and one of the best podcasts of 2020.

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Anna Sussman, Snap Studios at KQED

Anna Sussman is Editor at Large at Snap Studios, where she has been producing stories for 15 years. She is the host and creator of the limited-run series Fire Escape.

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Speakers

Eric Flack, WUSA9

A Murrow, Emmy, and AP Award-winning WUSA9 Chief Investigative Reporter, Eric Flack grew up in Washington, DC, and was drawn to reporting at an early age. He worked on the school paper in high school and college, where he was a staff writer for the Daily Tar Heel. Eric is incredibly fulfilled by his lifelong dedication to local journalism, but nothing compares to the pride he feels for his two teenage children, Miles and Rosalee.

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Bigad Shaban, NBC Bay Area

Joce Sterman, InvestigateTV/Gray Media

Joce Sterman is the senior national investigative reporter for InvestigateTV. Her stories are seen on 113 TV stations, their websites & included on the national shows InvestigateTV+ and InvestigateTV+ Weekend Edition. She's a National Murrow, National Headliner, and Sigma Delta Chi award winner whose work has resulted in Congressional investigations and federal legislation. Joce's former roles include reporting for WJLA/ABC7 in DC, and WMAR/ABC2 in Baltimore.

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Pamela Colloff and Hannah Dreier are two of investigative journalism’s greatest writers. Their stories are both epic and intimate. They seem always to be in just the right place to capture just the right moment. They’re also huge fans of each other’s work. In this conversation moderated by Louise Kiernan (a third member of the writers’ pantheon), they’ll talk about their approach to stories, the choices they make along the way, and the power of narrative to create change.

Speakers

Pamela Colloff, ProPublica

Pamela Colloff is a reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. Her reporting explores the criminal justice system in the United States, particularly the ways in which it falls short of delivering justice. She is a seven-time National Magazine Award nominee, winning for reporting in 2020 and feature writing in 2014. Her ProPublica-New York Times investigation, "False Witness," received the IRE Award in 2019.

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Hannah Dreier, The New York Times

Hannah Dreier is a New York Times reporter who previously worked for The Washington Post, ProPublica and The Associated Press. She won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Her most recent reporting, “Alone and Exploited,” focused on the reach of migrant child labor across the United States.

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Three reporters and their lawyer share strategies for steering your FOIAs through the bureaucratic abyss. We’ll help you craft smarter FOIAs, identify when it’s time to sue and whether you can afford to sue (usually you can!), and sharpen your wiles when a lawsuit won’t work. We’ll also show examples of what you can do with all your records when you get a bigger document dump than you ever imagined was possible!

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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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.

Speakers

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*

Orion Rummler covers LGBTQ+ news for The 19th. His reporting includes health policy explainers, in-depth court coverage, statehouse news, and features on LGBTQ+ daily life. His reporting has won an Excellence in Journalism Award from the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and a national Edward R. Murrow Award, as part of his newsroom’s four-part series on what it means to choose pregnancy in post-Roe America.

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Marina Villeneuve, Hechinger Report

Marina Villeneuve is an investigative reporter for The Hechinger Report. She previously worked as a statehouse reporter for The Associated Press, as a legal reporter covering Trump's legal battles for Salon, and as an investigative producer at a Boston television station. She is a board member of IRE and the New England chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She earned a certificate in data journalism from Columbia University's Lede Program.

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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.

Speakers

Maud Beelman, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Len Downie Jr., ASU Walter Cronkite School

Len Downie is the former executive editor of The Washington Post, where he worked for 44 years as an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent and metro, national, and managing editor. The Post won a record 25 Pulitzer Prizes during his 17 years as executive editor. Since retiring from The Post, he has been a professor for 15 years at Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Mark Greenblatt, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, Arizona State University

Mark Greenblatt is the executive editor and a professor at ASU's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. He is a three-time Peabody Award winner, whose stories have also won the IRE Medal, two National Emmy Awards for investigative reporting, the duPont-Columbia Award, and the Livingston Award. He is devoting this chapter of his career to supporting the next generation of investigative leaders. Mark is the elected Treasurer and a Member of the Board of Directors for IRE.

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Angela Hill, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

Lauren Mucciolo, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University

Lauren Mucciolo is the Executive Producer of ASU's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. Her students' work has been recognized with 60+ collegiate and professional journalism awards, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist honor. Mucciolo has made more than a dozen broadcast and digital documentaries for PBS Frontline, which have received two RFK Journalism awards, five Emmy nominations, a SXSW Festival Jury Prize and a Royal Television Society best director award.

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Mark Rochester, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Mark J. Rochester is Executive Editor at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Previously, he was Senior News Director for Investigations for The Detroit Free Press. He has held senior management positions at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Associated Press, Denver Post, Newsday and The Indianapolis Star. An Indianapolis native, he has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes at Columbia University.

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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.

Speakers

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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Reporters Committee is developing a suite of resources for reporters who are covering immigration and deportation to make sure reporters know and understand their rights. This panel will give reporters and editors tools to protect themselves legally when reporting on these issues.

This session is sponsored by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. IRE retains control of content, including the topic and speaker selection, for all conference sessions.

Speakers

Melissa Del Bosque, Lighthouse Reports

Melissa del Bosque is an award-winning investigative journalist, specializing in the U.S.-Mexico border region. She is the investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports and cofounder of The Border Chronicle. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and numerous other media outlets.

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Jennifer Nelson, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Jennifer Nelson is a senior staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she leads its pre-publication and pre-broadcast review practice, oversees the publication of and updates to the Reporters Committee’s legal guides, and supervises its hotline for journalists. Nelson also regularly represents news organizations and journalists in public records, court access, and legal defense matters before federal and state courts.

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Alejandro Serrano, The Texas Tribune

Alejandro Serrano writes about Texas politics and government, with a focus on immigration and education issues, for The Texas Tribune. Since joining the Tribune, he has helped investigate the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, spent half a year on the US-Mexico border during a temporary assignment covering immigration, and documented a variety of major events in the state.

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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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Collaborations between print and audio journalists have generated chart-topping, change-making, award-winning podcasts, vastly magnifying the reach of investigative stories.

These collaborations have the power to bring stories to life, take listeners inside the reporting process, and explore universal themes unearthed in the reporting.

But the difference between print and audio storytelling isn't just stylistic; Sometimes these mediums have different aims altogether, and these collaborations force journalists to contend with diverging ideas of "impact" and other questions.

In this panel, you'll hear from journalists who successfully navigated these crosswinds to create print-audio collaborations that have resonated nationally. You'll walk away inspired and equipped to pitch a podcast that draws on the best of each of these mediums.

Speakers

Najib Aminy, Reveal

Najib Aminy is a reporter and producer at Reveal. His work has earned him accolades like the George Polk Award, Alfred E. duPont Award, and Edward R. Murrow Award. Before Reveal, he was Flipboard’s first news editor and has reported for Newsday and The Indianapolis Star. He’s a Stony Brook alum and a proud New York Knicks fan, and he's mainly working to feed his cat.

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Laura Greanias, The Seattle Times

Laura Greanias is the interim investigations editor at The Seattle Times and executive producer of two nationally distributed and award-winning podcasts: The Last Ride (2023) and Lost Patients (2024). Previous leadership roles: the USA TODAY Network, LA School Report, Los Angeles Daily News and 15 years at the Los Angeles Times, including as executive news editor / deputy front page editor, foreign news editor and Metro morning assignment editor.

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Will James, KUOW

Will James reports, produces, and hosts documentary podcasts for the Seattle NPR station KUOW. He co-created the audio documentaries Lost Patients, which was nominated for a 2024 Peabody award; The Walk Home, winner of a national Edward R. Murrow Award; and Outsiders, which TIME called a "narrative feat" and one of the best podcasts of 2020.

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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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Speakers

Shelby Bremer, NBC San Diego

Jatara McGee, WPXI

Jatara McGee is an investigative reporter/anchor at WPXI in Pittsburgh. She's a natural storyteller and sharp investigator. Her reporting has revealed corruption, fraud and misconduct. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2015 and worked at WSAZ in Charleston, W.Va. and WLWT in Cincinnati. Jatara chairs NABJ's Investigative Task Force. She’s received an NABJ Salute to Excellence award, numerous Emmy nominations and two regional Edward R. Murrow awards.

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Charlie Specht, WGRZ-TV (NBC Buffalo)

Charlie's an investigative reporter at WGRZ-TV in Buffalo. His reporting has led to the resignation of powerful people and changes in New York State law. Charlie’s investigation of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo revealed a cover-up of sexual abuse allegations and led to the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone and the passage of New York's Child Victims Act. Charlie has received regional and national investigative reporting awards, including the Alfred I. duPont Award.

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In communities where local newsrooms are shrinking and disappearing, college journalists are often the ones asking the toughest accountability questions. Join this information-packed session to discover best practices for well-informed campus reporting. This session will help student journalists (and their advisers) produce evidence-based, high-impact investigations on pressing topics like campus crime, immigration enforcement, sports stadium financing and student mental health.

Speakers

Clark Merrefield, The Journalist’s Resource at Harvard Kennedy School

Clark Merrefield is the senior editor for economics and legal systems at JR. He joined JR in 2019 after working as a reporter for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, as a researcher and editor on three books related to the Great Recession, and as a federal government communications strategist. He has been selected for fellowships in juvenile justice and solitary confinement at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and his work has been awarded by IRE.

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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Carmen Nobel, The Journalist's Resource (Harvard Kennedy School)

Carmen Nobel is the program director and editor-in-chief of The Journalist’s Resource at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. She broke into journalism in 1995 at The Winged M, a lifestyle magazine for a fancy athletic club in Portland, Oregon. Since then, she has written for Air Force Times, The Boston Globe, eWEEK, TheStreet, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, NPR Science Friday, and many other publications.

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

Denise-Marie Ordway is managing editor of The Journalist’s Resource at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she reported news in English and Spanish for several major news outlets in the U.S. and Central America. She received national and regional journalism awards and, in 2013, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for an investigation of Florida A&M University she led. She's an Education Writers Association board member and fellow of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

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Time to get real: Media over the last 30 years is failing, complacency has lost us jobs and public trust, and harmful practices 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.

Speakers

Abené Clayton, The Guardian

Alain Stephens, Independent journalist

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From Big Tech to Main Street, companies allegedly use anti-competitive tactics to advantage themselves and hobble their rivals. Both in the U.S. and around the world, governments and people are investigating the dominant roles a handful of companies play in every industry. Hear from journalists who explain the basics of antitrust law, share tips on reporting on complaints of anticompetitive conduct and explain the government antitrust enforcement landscape. They will offer tips on how to develop sources on the competition beat, how to cover antitrust lawsuits and how to find stories from the agencies and courts tasked with enforcing the law. And finally they will offer suggestions about how to engage audiences to care about anti-competitive activities.

Speakers

James Grimaldi, National Catholic Reporter

A multiple Pulitzer Prize winner, Grimaldi is executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter, one of the oldest independent nonprofit news organizations in the country. Grimaldi is a seasoned investigative reporter who has worked for six newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. A frequent college lecturer, he is on the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and is past president of IRE.

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David McCabe, The New York Times

David McCabe covers technology policy for The New York Times. In recent years, he has reported on the federal investigations into whether Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon broke antitrust laws. The government sued all four companies, and he now follows the cases as they wind through the courts. He shared a 2023 Free Speech & Open Government Award from the First Amendment Coalition for work that ensured press access to the antitrust trial over Google’s search business.

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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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Hurricane Katrina irrevocably changed New Orleans. The storm exposed failures in the region's federally designed levee system and changed the way local officials respond to and prepare for disasters. It rocked the city's medical community and raised questions about the ethics in emergencies. The city's recovery from the epic storm was also tainted by corruption. What lessons have local and state leaders learned from the storm and its chaotic aftermath, 20 years later?

Speakers

Kathleen Johnston, Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University

Founding director of the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University. Formerly a long-time senior investigative producer at CNN in Atlanta and held a similar role at CBS News in D.C. Kathleen had an extensive career in newspapers before television production. She has received multiple awards, including IRE, national Emmy, Columbia DuPont, Peabody, and Murrow awards. She specializes in counter-terrorism, homeland security, congressional spending, and breaking news events.

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 Media

Lee is Senior Vice President, News Strategy and Innovation for Gray Media. Before that, he was a longtime anchor and investigative reporter. For 15 years, Lee served as News Anchor and Chief Investigative Reporter at WVUE-TV in New Orleans.

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We keep saying it — but for it to be true, we must make fundamental, sometimes uncomfortable changes. As Einstein warned, doing the same thing while expecting different results is madness. In this panel, funders and journalists confront the hard truth: audiences have moved on, trust has eroded and the old formulas aren't working like they used to. What are we going to do about it? This session will explore bold approaches to redefining investigative journalism with greater community agency and local impact and will discuss what it's going to take to regain trust — and achieve sustainability. The goal isn't just to survive; it's to thrive for the long term.

Speakers

Terry Baquet, Verite News

Terry Baquet is editor-in-chief of Verite News and previously was Page One editor at The Times-Picayune

David Boardman, Temple University

David Boardman is dean of the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University and previously chair of The Markup and executive editor/senior vice president of The Seattle Times.

Rhiannon Collette, Arnold Ventures

Rhiannon Collette is journalism director at Arnold Ventures and previously was an energy reporter at the Houston Chronicle and investigative reporter at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Rufus Friday, Center for Integrity in News Reporting

Rufus Friday is executive director of the new Center for Integrity in News Reporting and previously worked for Gannett and McClatchy, including publisher at the Tri-City Herald (WA) and Lexington Herald-Leader (KY).

Marisa Kwiatkowski, Knight Foundation

Marisa Kwiatkowski is the director of journalism at Knight Foundation. She previously spent 20 years as a reporter, handling investigations at USA TODAY and local outlets in Michigan, South Carolina, and Indiana. Her work has sparked multi-agency investigations, led to criminal charges, resulted in resignations, and prompted changes to state and federal laws.

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This panel will examine the past, present and future landscape of journalists’ use of confidential sources and legal risks and protections for them.

Currently, the industry is facing heightened challenges as whistleblower protections weaken; what can the past tell us about what might be ahead?

Attendees will learn about the importance of safeguarding sources and the necessity to use good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting skills that go beyond tools, such as Signal, to protect those who risk their careers for the sake of transparency and accountability.

You'll walk away with a better understanding of how to navigate these complexities from those who have been doing it for decades and ensure critical information flows despite the mounting pressures.

Speakers

Len Downie Jr., ASU Walter Cronkite School

Len Downie is the former executive editor of The Washington Post, where he worked for 44 years as an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent and metro, national, and managing editor. The Post won a record 25 Pulitzer Prizes during his 17 years as executive editor. Since retiring from The Post, he has been a professor for 15 years at Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

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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Dana Priest, The Washington Post

Tracee Wilkins, NBC Washington

Tracee Wilkins is an investigative reporter with more than 25 years in broadcast, and 20 years at NBC Washington. Her investigations focus heavily on areas of law enforcement, incarceration, racial justice and government accountability. She’s an Edward R. Murrow, multiple Emmy, and AP award winner. Wilkins was the Journalist of the Year for the Washington Association of Black Journalists in 2022.

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Lisa Zycherman, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

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It's tempting to look for a long-form podcast in every investigation. But what are the elements of a great investigative podcast that resonate with a national audience? Editors and producers from Wondery, Reveal, This American Life and Embedded share their strategies for story selection and what their newsrooms look for in the stories they pursue.

Speakers

Rachel B. Doyle, Wondery

Rachel B. Doyle leads creative development for Wondery's Limited Series department, guiding investigative podcasts from research to greenlight. She specializes in six-part series, such as the Loeb Award-winning "Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried," and in shaping narratives that resonate with listeners and push the boundaries of investigative audio journalism. Before working in audio, she reported from over 20 countries while based in Berlin and Nairobi.

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Kate Howard, khoward@revealnews.org

Kate Howard is an editorial director at the Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal and Mother Jones. Previously, she was managing editor at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, where her team was a Peabody Award finalist for the investigative podcast Dig. Howard was a local news reporter working in newspapers and radio for nearly 14 years. She is a board member for IRE and Louisville Public Media, and she's based in Louisville, Kentucky.

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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.

Ike Sriskandarajah, This American Life

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Speakers

Ashley Graham, KSLA-TV

Ashley Graham is the chief investigator and 6 p.m. anchor in Shreveport, Louisiana. She holds a Bachelor's degree in English from Emory University and a Master of Science in Journalism degree from Northwestern University. Her work in Michigan, Florida, and Louisiana brings viewers an in-depth look at issues that directly affect them.

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Melanie Woodrow, KGO

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Covering immigration can be daunting, especially for those unable to keep tabs on the ever-changing policies or latest headlines. This class is for anyone interested in covering immigration beyond the border wall. In this session, you will learn to use public datasets to help find local, state and national stories about missing migrants, work visas and court challenges to immigration policy. We will also spend some time talking about best practices for covering the immigrant community.

Speakers

Alfredo Corchado, Puente News Collaborative

Kristian Hernandez, The New York Times

Kristian Hernández is a New York Times Local Investigations fellow based in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than a decade of experience covering immigration and criminal justice. Before joining the Times, he was an investigative reporter at the Center for Public Integrity and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Hernández has a master's degree in investigative journalism from American University and a bachelor’s in multimedia journalism from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Mary Sanchez, Independent reporter

Mary Sanchez is a syndicated columnist with Tribune Content Agency and a familiar face and voice in Kansas City media. Sanchez’s contributions include time as the senior reporter for Kansas City PBS and a metro columnist for The Kansas City Star; member of the Star’s editorial board, in addition to her years spent reporting on race, class, immigration, criminal justice and educational issues.

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Learn tips and tricks for uncovering interesting stories and sources through local government meetings. Panelists will discuss how they uncovered compelling stories by following local government public meetings. Whether you're monitoring committee hearings in the state legislature, regularly attending your local government's city council or commissioners court, or examining how agencies oversee police departments, this session will help you identify newsworthy developments, pinpoint unique accountability stories, discover new sources, and track issues that matter to your community.

Speakers

Kate Huangpu, Spotlight PA

Huangpu is a government reporter at Spotlight PA, a non-profit newsroom covering Pennsylvania state policy and politics. She tracks legislation and its impact on communities across the state. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School’s data journalism program, Huangpu previously worked at ABC’s World News Tonight and MSNBC.

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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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Mark Puente, The Marshall Project

Mark Puente, a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, leads the investigative reporting for The Marshall Project - Cleveland. Puente, a former truck driver, has 20 years in journalism and a proven track record in accountability reporting. He has worked for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, The Baltimore Sun, the Tampa Bay Times and the Los Angeles Times. At The Marshall Project, Puente has written about traffic stops, reentry services, judicial misconduct and jail deaths.

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This panel will talk about how to navigate reporting on such a large-scale tragedy. Some of the topics will include the contagion effect and how your reporting may or may not contribute to the described phenomenon. We’ll discuss what we’ve included in our coverage and what we haven’t and the process by which we came to those conclusions. Panelists will also discuss lessons learned from covering such events.

Speakers

Manny Garcia, Independent journalist

Manny García is an award-winning news executive and a former president of the IRE. He is being honored this year in IRE's Ring of Honor. Manny is a mentor and newsroom leader. He is the recipient of the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year award for his coverage of Uvalde. As a reporter and editor, he has been part of Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects.

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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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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.

Speakers

Terri Langford, The Texas Tribune

Terri Langford is a University of Texas at Austin graduate and health reporter for The Texas Tribune. She has worked for several news organizations including the Associated Press, the Houston Chronicle, WNYC, KUT/Texas Standard and The Dallas Morning News.

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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-NPR

Amy Silverman is a journalist, teacher and author in her hometown, Phoenix. She's executive producer of KJZZ-NPR's The Show and a columnist for PHOENIX magazine. Amy often focuses on intellectual disability and how to make journalism more accessible to and inclusive of people with ID – like her daughter, Sophie, who has Down syndrome. Amy's work has appeared on This American Life, ProPublica and Slate, among others. More at amy-silverman.com

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No matter how powerful our findings from data and documents, we still need people to propel our story. We’ll show how you can dive into data, docs and other troves of records to find them. We’ll also touch on the needs of different media, showing, for example, how the right character for print might be the wrong character for TV.

Speakers

Jason Grotto, Bloomberg News

Ivana Hrynkiw, AL.com

Ivana is an investigative reporter covering the Alabama criminal justice system and prisons. A native of Birmingham, she has been a Livingston finalist and was named one of Tomorrow’s News Trailblazers by E&P Magazine. Her work has been recognized by the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Awards, IRE, the National Headliner Awards, and more. Ivana has experience in audio, digital, and print reporting and formerly hosted a daily live news show.

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Craig Lyons, Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism

Craig Lyons is the managing editor at the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism. Lyons has spent over 15 years covering government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels in Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Lyons’ work has earned recognition from the Chicago Headline Club, the Michigan Press Association, the Hoosier State Press Association, and the Indiana Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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Taylor Mirfendereski, Independent journalist

Taylor Mirfendereski is a two-time Peabody Award-winning multimedia investigative journalist. Her stories have led to new state laws, institutional reforms, and public policy changes protecting society’s most vulnerable populations, including people with disabilities, incarcerated people, and foster youth. She most recently worked at KING-TV in Seattle. She handles every aspect of digital and broadcast story production, from reporting and writing to photography and video.

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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.

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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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

Manny Garcia, Independent journalist

Manny García is an award-winning news executive and a former president of the IRE. He is being honored this year in IRE's Ring of Honor. Manny is a mentor and newsroom leader. He is the recipient of the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year award for his coverage of Uvalde. As a reporter and editor, he has been part of Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects.

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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

Denise-Marie Ordway is managing editor of The Journalist’s Resource at Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she reported news in English and Spanish for several major news outlets in the U.S. and Central America. She received national and regional journalism awards and, in 2013, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for an investigation of Florida A&M University she led. She's an Education Writers Association board member and fellow of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

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Martin Reynolds, Maynard Institute

Martin Reynolds oversees fundraising, client relations, and external affairs at the Maynard Institute, where he also serves as lead Fault Lines® diversity trainer. He co-founded Oakland Voices, now in its 15th year, and formerly directed the Reveal Investigative Fellowship. A former editor-in-chief of The Oakland Tribune, he served as a lead editor on the Chauncey Bailey Project. He sits on Cityside’s board and once recorded a live album in Havana, Cuba, as a lyricist.

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Robin Carter, KXAS NBC 5

Robin Carter is a Special Projects Photojournalist for NBC 5 Responds, using impactful storytelling to help North Texans navigate consumer issues. With over 30 years of experience in TV news across Virginia, Texas, and Florida, Robin’s work has earned 13 regional Emmy awards.

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Ryann Grochowski Jones, ABC News & Owned Stations

Ryann Grochowski Jones is the director of data journalism at ABC News and Owned Television Stations. Previously, she was the data editor at ProPublica and an investigative data reporter at inewsource in San Diego, California. Ryann received her master's degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she was a data librarian at IRE/NICAR. Ryann began her career as a municipal beat reporter for her hometown newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

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Aubry Killion, WDSU-TV

Aubry Killion is a seven-time regional Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter for WDSU-TV in New Orleans. He excels in crafting compelling stories that simplify complex information, under tight deadlines.

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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

Ziva Branstetter has edited and managed investigations honored with over 15 national awards. Since 2022, she has helped lead ProPublica's "Life of the Mother" investigation, exposing the deaths of five pregnant women in abortion-ban states, honored with the Pulitzer Prize for public service. She has held editing roles at The Washington Post and Reveal and founded The Frontier, an Oklahoma startup. She's a former IRE board member.

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Cassandra Jaramillo, ProPublica

Cassandra Jaramillo is a national reporter at ProPublica, covering reproductive health and voting rights. She recently won the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service reporting, along with three colleagues, for revealing how state abortion bans have warped maternal medicine and led to preventable deaths. In 2023, she was a finalist for the Livingston Award and won an Edward Murrow for investigative radio reporting in a team effort at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

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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

Annie Burns-Pieper, Inclusive Development International/Freelance

Annie Burns-Pieper is Deputy Research Director at Inclusive Development International, a human rights NGO where she leads follow-the-money investigations into harmful corporate practices in the Global South. Also an investigative reporter, she has 15 years of experience with Canadian teams at The Globe and Mail, CBC, and CTV, and internationally with Al Jazeera. She specializes in public interest investigations focused on health, gender, and corporate accountability.

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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

Jennifer Forsyth is the Washington Investigations Editor for The New York Times, tasked with exposing corruption. Previously, she was The Wall Street Journal’s deputy chief of investigations. She’s had the privilege of editing stories by dogged reporters that have won a Pulitzer Prize, a Gerald Loeb award and the Worth Bingham award for investigative journalism. A collaboration with Frontline was an Emmy finalist for outstanding investigative documentary.

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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

J. David McSwane is an award-losing reporter for ProPublica, an award-winning investigative nonprofit. His reporting on COVID profiteers led to his first book, "Pandemic, Inc." He is under contract for a second book based on his 2024 investigation "Eat What You Kill." He sucks at pickleball.

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Effective interviewing is crucial to impactful journalism, but these interactions can quickly become fraught in environments where sources are vulnerable or institutions are opaque. We'll teach you how to navigate these obstacles across different beats and communities, including in jails and prisons, child detention centers, indigenous communities and medical settings.

Speakers

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

Kelly Garcia reports on youths, prisons and the court system. Before joining Injustice Watch in 2022, Kelly was a staff writer at the Chicago Reader, where she wrote about news and politics on the Southwest Side. In 2022, the Chicago Journalists Association named her Emerging Journalist of the Year for her reporting on the private music festivals occupying Douglass Park.

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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

A multiple Pulitzer Prize winner, Grimaldi is executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter, one of the oldest independent nonprofit news organizations in the country. Grimaldi is a seasoned investigative reporter who has worked for six newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. A frequent college lecturer, he is on the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and is past president of IRE.

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Cheryl W. Thompson, NPR

Thompson is an award-winning investigative correspondent and senior editor for investigations for NPR. Before joining NPR in 2019, she spent 22 years covering law enforcement and political corruption for The Washington Post, and was part of teams that won the Pulitzer for National Reporting in 2002 and 2016. She was the reporting coach on the NPR podcast "No Compromise," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting in 2021.

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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 | The New Orleans Advocate

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You’ve been crunching the numbers and following the paper trail for years. You’re confident that your investigation is going to reveal something new, and you think it’d make a great narrative podcast series. In a crowded industry, how do you catch the ear of the people who can help you do it?

NPR’s Embedded team will help you tell the story of your story. In this interactive session, we’ll dive into the essential elements we look for in serialized podcasts, teaching you how to identify compelling characters, formulate sticky questions and create narrative momentum. Along the way, you’ll learn how to pitch Embedded — NPR’s home for ambitious, deeply reported documentary series.

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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Speakers

Scott Friedman, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Scott Friedman leads the NBC 5 Investigates team at the NBC network-owned television station in Dallas-Fort Worth. He is a two-time Peabody, duPont-Columbia, and IRE Award winner.

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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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Darcy Spears, KTNV (ABC Las Vegas)

Chief Investigator Darcy Spears has won 23 Emmys, 10 (including 2 national) Edward R. Murrow Awards, AP awards, and is in the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. She's a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and the Medill School of Journalism.

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There may be no topic in contemporary journalism more dauntingly abstract than climate change: Carbon emissions are invisible and impersonal, and even though their consequences are increasingly apparent in the environment around us, the link between those effects and human action is frustratingly opaque. However, the scale of the challenge requires journalists to find ways to connect this seemingly overwhelming process to recognizable human dilemmas and conflicts. This panel discusses the ways that reporters can center human (and non-human) drama to better illuminate contemporary environmental dilemmas.

Speakers

Adam Mahoney, Capital B

Adam Mahoney is the national climate and environment reporter at Capital B News. He has reported from more than a dozen U.S. states and Palestine, Mexico, Uganda, and Vietnam for newspapers including the New York Times and The Guardian. He is the co-author (with Judith Enck) of The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It's Too Late (The New Press), he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

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Naveena Sadasivam, Grist

Naveena Sadasivam is an investigative journalist at Grist who covers the oil and gas industry and climate change. She previously worked at the Texas Observer, Inside Climate News, and ProPublica and has won accolades from the Society of Environmental Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, and Radio Television Digital News Association. She is based in Oakland, California.

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John Thomason, Grist

John Thomason is the Features Editor at Grist, a nonprofit newsroom that has covered climate change since its founding in 1999. Prior to joining Grist in 2020, John was the Research Editor at The Intercept. He has edited stories that have won awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Hillman Foundation, the Online News Association, and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Boyce Upholt, freelance writer

Boyce Upholt is a writer and "nature critic" based in New Orleans. His first book, The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi, was published by W.W. Norton in 2025 and won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing.

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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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The journalism industry has faced a tremendous amount of challenges and changes. How does investigative journalism persevere — and grow?

Speakers

Keri Blakinger, Houston Chronicle

Keri Blakinger is an investigative reporter at the Houston Chronicle and author of the memoir Corrections in Ink. Last year, she was a Pulitzer finalist for her story about the Dungeons & Dragons players of Texas Death Row. This year, she produced an Oscar-nominated short documentary, “I Am Ready Warden.” She’s also worked at the NY Daily News, The Marshall Project and the LA Times and is a 2025 New America Fellow.

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Len Downie Jr., ASU Walter Cronkite School

Len Downie is the former executive editor of The Washington Post, where he worked for 44 years as an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent and metro, national, and managing editor. The Post won a record 25 Pulitzer Prizes during his 17 years as executive editor. Since retiring from The Post, he has been a professor for 15 years at Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

David Fahrenthold, The New York Times

David Fahrenthold is an investigative reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau, writing about the world of nonprofits. He joined The Times in 2022, after 21 years at the Washington Post. He won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his reporting on President Trump's charitable giving -- or lack thereof.

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Lea Thompson, Retired - NBC News

Lea Thompson was a Chief Correspondent for NBC News or co-head of “The Investigators” at Washington’s WRC-TV. Thompson and her team were the driving force behind three acts of Congress, as well as dozens of congressional and federal agency hearings, and numerous state and local actions. She is the multiple winner of every major broadcasting award, including 4 IRE Medallions. She served as an officer or committee head on IRE's Board of Directors for seven years and co-chaired IRE’s Miami Conference.

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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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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 2 News

Amy Davis is a duPont-Columbia and 2024 IRE Award-winning investigative journalist whose reporting has changed laws, exposed corruption, and put criminals behind bars. With four regional Emmys and honors from the Texas AP, her work hits where it hurts—and helps where it matters. Off-camera, she's raising three fearless truth-seekers of her own. Her mission: dig deep, speak loud, and never back down.

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Melissa Del Bosque, Lighthouse Reports

Melissa del Bosque is an award-winning investigative journalist, specializing in the U.S.-Mexico border region. She is the investigations editor for Lighthouse Reports and cofounder of The Border Chronicle. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and numerous other media outlets.

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Jeremy Finley, WSMV-TV

A four-time IRE award winner, Jeremy Finley is the chief investigative reporter and evening anchor at WSMV-TV in Nashville, TN. An internationally published novelist, his books have been featured on NPR, People Magazine and the New York Post. As an advocate for writers, he the host of the literary public affairs show A WORD ON WORDS on Nashville Public Television. He lives in Nashville with his wife and daughters.

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Jack Sapoch, Lighthouse Reports

Jack Sapoch is an open source investigative journalist at Lighthouse Reports, where he works on cross-border investigations into migration, border enforcement, and state violence. He combines remote sensing, digital forensics, and 3D modeling to reconstruct incidents and expose hidden systems of control. His work has contributed to investigations which have been recognized with honors including the IRE Award, the Sigma Award, and the One World Media award.

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Andrea Slaydon, KPRC-TV, NBC Houston

Andrea Slaydon is a duPont Columbia award-winning TV producer with 20+ years of experience in investigative journalism and news production. Currently, Andrea is a Senior Investigative Producer/Special Projects Producer at KPRC (NBC Houston). She co-leads a team of nine investigative journalists and co-manages all promotable stories and projects for the news department. Andrea is a proud wife and mother of two.

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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 News

Leon Yin is an investigative data journalist at Bloomberg News. He builds datasets and develops methodologies to report on technology. Before joining Bloomberg, he worked at The Markup and served as a research engineer at NYU.

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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

Ginger Thompson is a managing editor at ProPublica, with decades of experience as a reporter, including as a Latin America correspondent. Before joining ProPublica, Ginger worked at the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times. Her work has won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.

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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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Christopher Drew, Louisiana State University

Christopher Drew holds the Fred Jones Greer Jr. Endowed Chair at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication. He also has been a reporter for The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Times-Picayune. He co-wrote "Blind Man's Bluff," a bestselling book about submarine spying during the Cold War.

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Sarah Gamard, Center for Community News

Sarah Gamard is a program manager for the Center for Community News, specializing in strengthening local news across the U.S. via university-led news partnerships. Before, she covered government and politics for several news outlets in Louisiana, Maryland, Delaware and D.C.

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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 political scandal, reporters need to know how to thoroughly and quickly background people and companies involved in breaking news events and long-term investigations. In this panel, journalists will share concrete tips on how to mine social media accounts, maximize Nexis searches, unearth public records, find friends and relatives and turn hunches into distinctive stories.

Speakers

Michael Biesecker, Associated Press

Michael Biesecker is a global investigative reporter for The Associated Press. Biesecker’s work tracking potential war crimes in Ukraine was recognized with the 2022 IRE Gold Medal, as well as the top award for investigative reporting from the Overseas Press Club of America. He is a two-time Pulitzer finalist and was a contributor to the AP team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Biesecker also teaches investigative and environmental reporting at Georgetown University.

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Jennifer Gollan, San Francisco Chronicle

Jennifer Gollan is an investigative reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. Investigations she led have prompted new federal and state laws and national rules for police chases. An investigation she led into deadly police pursuits was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting in 2025. Among her other honors: an IRE Award, an Emmy Award, two Hillman Prizes, two Sigma Delta Chi Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

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Yami Virgin, KABB WOAI

Yami Virgin, an Emmy and AP Award-winning Investigative Reporter and Anchor at KABB/WOAI in San Antonio, is recognized in Texas and Wisconsin. She hosts and produces the Edward R. Murrow Award-winning podcast, "Immigration Crisis: The Fight for the Southern Border." Known for endless sources at local, state, and national levels, Yami brings two decades covering immigration, crime, and border policy. She is finishing a Master's in Digital Audience Analytics.

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In this discussion and Q&A, Larry Graham will share some of his experiences placing journalists in some of the top newsrooms in the country and offer insights on topics like negotiating severance, navigating career pivots, making the most out of a job or promotion offer and even leveraging multiple offers for the best deal possible. Whether you've just been fired, laid off, or you’re interested in taking the next step in your career, these are answers you won’t hear anywhere else.

Speakers

Daphne Duret, The Marshall Project

Daphne Duret is a staff writer for The Marshall Project. She reports on policing issues across the country. She was previously on the investigations team at USA Today. Before that, she covered legal issues for The Palm Beach Post and has worked at the St. Louis Post Dispatch and The Miami Herald.

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Larry Graham, The Diversity Pledge Institute

Founder of The Diversity Pledge Institute, Larry provides leadership coaching while working with organizations on long-term strategies for recruiting and maintaining underrepresented talent. Larry spent most of his career in sports, working in newsrooms like ESPN, The San Diego Union-Tribune and several others. After leaving the newsroom, Larry was the deputy director of local news transformation at the American Press Institute, training newsrooms in change management.

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Well-crafted narratives help engage readers in investigative reports that convey complex information. Compelling narratives don't need to be 4,000 + words. We explain what you need -- and don't need -- to tell a story in fewer words.

Speakers

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.”

Jenifer McKim, GBH News

Jenifer McKim is the editor of investigations and podcasts at GBH News in Boston. She is a multimedia journalist who has worked in many newsrooms, including the OC Register, The Boston Globe, and the San Juan Star in Puerto Rico. She's the recipient of dozens of awards, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and a finalist nod for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.

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Robbie Morganfield, Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting

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Experienced editors share their best tips on deciding when to pursue long-form audio stories, developing story arcs that grip listeners and guiding your team through creating a revelatory and impactful podcast.

Speakers

Kate Howard, khoward@revealnews.org

Kate Howard is an editorial director at the Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal and Mother Jones. Previously, she was managing editor at the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, where her team was a Peabody Award finalist for the investigative podcast Dig. Howard was a local news reporter working in newspapers and radio for nearly 14 years. She is a board member for IRE and Louisville Public Media, and she's based in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Brendan McCarthy, The Boston Globe

Brendan McCarthy is Spotlight Editor at the Boston Globe. He oversees the newsroom’s investigative work as well as its data team. He has led projects that have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, Peabody Award, Columbia-Dupont Award, and IRE honors. He previously served as founding editor of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and worked as a reporter at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

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Peniley Ramírez, Futuro Media

Peniley Ramírez is an Emmy and IRE Award-winning investigative journalist. Co-CEO and Executive Director of Futuro Media. She writes a column for Reforma. She was a correspondent for Univision and authored a book on corruption and the drug war. Under her leadership, Futuro Media has received Murrow and Nonprofit News awards, and has been nominated for the Peabody, the Loeb, and two Emmys. She holds a Master’s in Business and Economics Journalism from Columbia University.

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Speakers

Jamie Grey, InvestigateTV

Jamie Grey is the Director of Investigations for Gray Media's national investigative team, InvestigateTV, which produces video and digital investigative reports for the company's stations in 113 markets, as well as for a daily and weekend show. She loves dogs, football, and data - and data about dogs and football.

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Andrew Lehren, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

Andy Lehren is editorial director for the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and director of investigative reporting at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. He is on the IRE Board of Directors. A former investigative reporter for The New York Times and NBC News, he has won over 100 journalism honors, including Polk, Peabody, Emmys, multiple IRE awards, contributed to a Pulitzer, and was part of a Pulitzer finalist team. Works extensively in data journalism, including for NICAR.

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Rhona Tarrant, CBS News

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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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David Enrich’s new book, “Murder the Truth,” details how the powerful—billionaires, politicians, corporations—use litigation and threats to stifle reporting that could hold them accountable. Enrich will talk with Lauren Chooljian, to which a chapter of his book is devoted. Chooljian was subjected to vandalism and threats while investigating sexual misconduct; four men were ultimately convicted of criminal charges in connection with a campaign to silence her station’s work. They’ll discuss the intimidation tactics being used against journalists, and what reporters and editors (and their lawyers) can do when faced with them.

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

David Enrich is a deputy investigations editor at the New York Times. He is the bestselling author of four books, most recently "Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful."

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Elon Musk has said that the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, is a transparent cost-cutting government initiative, but its inner workings have largely been opaque. What is DOGE? Who is DOGE? These journalists have been working to uncover the actions of the federal initiative, as well as its impact, and will share tips on how national, local and beat reporters can cover DOGE.

Speakers

Sophie Alexander, Bloomberg News

Sophie Alexander is a reporter for Bloomberg News, where she writes about the ultra-rich and how their wealth and power impact society. Her work has spanned a billionaire’s near-total control of a Hawaiian island home to 3,000 people, fraud, safety concerns, and sexual misconduct allegations at celebrity disaster relief nonprofits and a disgraced insurance tycoon’s attempt to have 50 children. She is based in New York.

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Sophia Cai, Politico

Sophia Cai is a White House reporter at POLITICO and co-author of West Wing Playbook, a daily newsletter about Donald Trump’s unprecedented overhaul of the federal government. Before joining POLITICO, she covered Congress and the 2024 presidential campaign for Axios and the White House for Bloomberg News.

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David Fahrenthold, The New York Times

David Fahrenthold is an investigative reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau, writing about the world of nonprofits. He joined The Times in 2022, after 21 years at the Washington Post. He won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his reporting on President Trump's charitable giving -- or lack thereof.

Jenna McLaughlin, NPR

NPR Cybersecurity Correspondent Jenna McLaughlin has been reporting on the intersection of technology and national security for over a decade at publications including CNN, Foreign Policy Magazine, Mother Jones, and now NPR. Since the inauguration, McLaughlin has been investigating the activities of DOGE, particularly focused on the legal and security implications of their access to massive amounts of highly sensitive data about Americans.

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Annie Waldman, ProPublica

Annie Waldman is an investigative reporter at ProPublica, specializing in health care. She joined ProPublica in 2014 and was a finalist for the Explanatory Reporting Pulitzer in 2025 for a series on how insurance companies deny mental health care. She is based in New Orleans.

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What can we learn about investigative reporting from the Real Housewives franchise? Plenty. Preparing for accountability interviews, recognizing and dismantling bias in storytelling/narrative perspective — and how to bring the receipts. Get ready for the reunion!

Speakers

Cary Aspinwall, The Marshall Project

Cary Aspinwall is an investigative reporter for The Marshall Project. She previously reported for The Dallas Morning News and is a co-founder of The Frontier. Her work has been recognized with a Gerald Loeb Award, as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting, and the National Magazine Awards for public interest.

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Ko Bragg,

Marissa Evans, Investigative Project on Race and Equity

Marissa Evans is the investigations editor with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. Previously a health reporter at the Los Angeles Times, she covered race, healthcare, and entertainment. While at the Star Tribune, where her investigative work exposed how the state allowed private hospitals to seize tax refunds from individuals with unpaid medical bills, leading to legislative action in 2021 aimed at ending the policy.

Arionne Nettles, Florida A&M University

Arionne Nettles is a professor, culture reporter, and audio aficionado who serves as the Garth C. Reeves Eminent Scholar Chair and instructor for digital journalism at Florida A&M University. As a journalist, her stories often examine Chicago's history, culture, and racial and class disparities. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything and Journalism for Dummies.

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When you’re a reporter in a small, local newsroom it can be hard to find time to work on investigative projects. On this panel, four local audio reporters with experience on investigative projects will talk about how they managed to carve out space and energy to chip away at investigations while juggling daily news and still being present in their newsrooms. This panel will be helpful for any local reporter – in audio, or not! - who wants to make the jump into investigative journalism.

Speakers

Alex Hall, KQED Public Radio

Alex Hall is an enterprise and accountability reporter for KQED, San Francisco's NPR station. She covers courts, criminal justice, and East Bay politics. Before KQED, Alex was an investigative reporting fellow at Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Watch. Her audio documentary about a series of deadly COVID-19 outbreaks at Foster Farms won a national Edward R. Murrow award and was named an IRE award finalist.

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Anna King, Northwest Public Broadcasting

Anna King reports for Northwest Public Broadcasting. She covers the wide opens of Washington and Oregon. Her latest large-scale project is Not One Drop Of Blood. The documentary film digs into mysterious cattle mutilations in rural Oregon. She also created the popular podcast Ghost Herd. Anna’s earned: two Gracie awards, a Sigma Delta Chi Award in Breaking News, Washington State University’s Woman of the Year and this year she’s been nominated for a regional Emmy.

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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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Camille Phillips, Texas Public Radio

Camille Phillips is the education reporter for Texas Public Radio in San Antonio. Her work includes an investigation into reports that special education teachers often get hurt at work, Golden Pennies, which breaks down the reasons Texas school funding still isn’t fair, and The Enduring Gap, which explores the Latino college gap in San Antonio, what can be done to close it, and what the rest of the country can learn from it.

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Come to this session to hear rapid-fire lecture from broadcast pros. Moderated by Charlie McLravy; talks will include:

1 Jailhouse Interviews

2 How to pitch your investigative story to your managers

3 Check Your Bias: Tools for Cultural Competency

4 Tips for Negotiating your new contract

5 How to win over your Promotions Team - and why it matters

6 Don't Miss the Moment

7 Don't forget to decompress! (focus on reporter mental health)

Speakers

Dawn Clapperton, NBC6 South Florida

Dawn Clapperton has been the Vice President of News at NBC6, the NBC owned station serving South Florida, since 2020. Before taking that role, she supervised investigative units in Miami, West Palm Beach and Indianapolis.

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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Rick Gevers, Rick Gevers & Associates

After 12 years as a news director in Toledo and Grand Rapids, Rick Gevers in 1995 began a career as a talent agent for on-air TV news people. He also publishes a weekly newsletter on news manager comings and goings which is widely read.

Charlie McLravy, Inside Edition

Nate Morabito, WCNC Charlotte

Nate Morabito is an award-winning investigative reporter at WCNC-TV. Nate joined WCNC's team in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 2018 after spending 14 years with WJHL-TV in Johnson City, Tennessee. His investigations have led to changes in federal and state laws, public policy, and the outcome of criminal investigations and convictions. In 2017, he was named a finalist for an IRE Award.

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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Dorothy Tucker, WBBM-TV

Katie Wilcox, 12News

Katie Wilcox is the I-Team Executive Producer at 12News in Phoenix, where she leads her team to produce data-driven investigations that expose waste, fraud and abuse. Katie also worked as a data journalist in Denver at 9NEWS and Rocky Mountain PBS. Her work has prompted legislation and policy changes in Colorado and Arizona. Katie grew up in southwest Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with her bachelor’s degrees in economics and journalism.

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Trump and his aides are withholding huge sums of money and barring international students from college campuses, aiming to shift the ideological tilt of higher education. Colleges are fighting back in court and in Congress. Documents, data and source work reveal what’s really going on in the trenches.

Speakers

Torsheta Jackson, Mississippi Free Press

Torsheta Jackson, the award-winning education and equity reporter for the Mississippi Free Press through Report for America, has 19 years of experience as an educator. She is dedicated to telling personal stories of systemic injustice in Mississippi’s education system, particularly in under-resourced and historically excluded communities. She also serves as program manager for the Mississippi Free Press Youth Media Project. Her work has appeared in YES! Magazine, Mississippi Scoreboard, Eater, Jackson Advocate, and more.

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Vimal Patel, The New York Times

Vimal Patel is a higher education reporter for the New York Times. Before he joined the Times in 2021, he was a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education, in Washington DC, where he wrote about graduate education, social mobility, and free expression. He started his career at The Eagle, a daily in Bryan-College Station, covering Texas A&M University. He graduated from Colorado State University.

Jessica Priest, The Texas Tribune

Jessica Priest covers higher education for the Texas Tribune in partnership with Open Campus. She joined in 2022 as an engagement reporter for the ProPublica/Texas Tribune unit, contributing to a Pulitzer Prize finalist series. Her previous work at outlets like USA Today, the Fort Worth Report and the Victoria Advocate focused on criminal justice, the environment, and local government. Her reporting has led to reforms and a new trial for a death row inmate.

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Joe Stephens, Princeton University

Stephens is a Ferris Professor and Founding Director of Princeton’s Journalism Program. He was previously a long-time investigative reporter at The Washington Post. He’s a three-time winner of the George Polk Award and a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Stephens has judged the IRE and many other contests, and twice served on Pulitzer Prize juries. A frequent public speaker, he is also an advisor and former Fund for Investigative Journalism board member.

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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 Hamdan, Center for Investigative Reporting

Nadia is a reporter and producer for Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting. She has worked on a wide range of investigative stories, including the Big Lie, immigration, the post-Roe healthcare crisis, gun violence, and more. Most notably, Nadia co-reported and produced the historical investigation Forty Acres and a Lie, exploring a reparation that wasn’t, and the wealth gap that remains. The project was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize.

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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