IRE will offer several of its core sessions, designed to improve your ability to find information on the Web quickly, and point you to key documents and data that will help you add depth to your daily work and produce quick-hit enterprise stories. In addition, this workshop will give you tips on building a watchdog culture, navigating FOI and open records laws, and digging deeper on the Web with social media, search engines and more. These sessions are designed for reporters, editors, and producers from small, midsize and large publications, TV, radio stations, Web-only news sites and news blogs. Freelancers, students and journalism educators are also encouraged to attend. Join IRE’s experienced trainers and a group of veteran reporters for our Watchdog Workshop Thursday, September 6. Session details and speakers can be found here. Get the tools and the tricks of the trade that you need to be a better, faster, watchdog journalist. This program is made possible thanks to support from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation.
Registration for the IRE Watchdog Bootcamp is $25. Registration is available for $25 (includes a one-year IRE membership for attendees that meet the IRE membership terms and a one-year renewal for current IRE members). The fee does not include NLGJA National Convention registration. Registration for the IRE Watchdog Bootcamp is available here.
If you wish to attend convention events outside of the bootcamp, you must separately register for NLGJA National Convention here.
Panelists: Doug Haddix, Norberto Santana Jr., Joel Grover, Maya Lau, Nicole Vap
DOUG HADDIX is executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. His 20-year newspaper career included a decade as investigative projects editor at The Columbus Dispatch and stints as city editor of daily newspapers in Scranton, Pa., and Danville, Ill. Before returning to IRE, where he previously worked as a training director, Haddix served as an assistant vice president at Ohio State University and director of the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism.
NORBERTO SANTANA, JR. is an award-winning investigative reporter with more than two decades reporting experience, largely focused on local government across Southern California. He’s worked as a staff writer for the Orange County Register, the San Diego Union Tribune, the San Bernardino County Sun, the Virgin Islands Daily News and Congressional Quarterly. Since 2009, he’s led the digital nonprofit newsroom, Voice of OC, covering civic life in Orange County, California.
JOEL GROVER is the investigative reporter for NBC4 Los Angeles. He has won nearly every major award for investigative reporting, including the Peabody, the DuPont-Columbia, numerous Emmys, six National Edward R. Murrow Awards, and two IRE Medals. He is nationally known for his undercover investigations, which have resulted in millions of dollars in refunds to consumers, changed laws, and sent people to prison.
MAYA LAU is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Her stories have revealed secret evidence of officer misconduct and spurred a D.A. to review past criminal convictions that relied on the testimony of those officers. In 2015, she was the lead writer on a series that won an IRE award for uncovering the business dealings of a powerful Louisiana prison warden.
NICOLE VAP, Executive Member (at-large), is the Director of Investigative Journalism at 9NEWS in Denver, and TEGNA Inc. Vap leads a team of award winning reporters and producers in Denver, and coordinates joint projects and training company wide. Her team are winners of a 2018 National Edward R. Murrow award, a 2017 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Television Journalism, a 2011 DuPont Silver Baton for excellence in Broadcast journalism, multiple regional Edward R. Murrow and Emmy awards as well as being named a finalist for the IRE Freedom of Information award. She has also worked at television stations in Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kansas.