On this episode, host Nakylah Carter chats with the 2024 Don Bolles Medal winner Eric Meyer, publisher of The Marion County Record. 

The Don Bolles Medal acknowledges investigative journalists who have “exhibited extraordinary courage in standing up against intimidation or efforts to suppress the truth about matters of public importance.”

Victim to a police raid in August 2023, the newsroom of the Marion County Record received the 2024 Don Bolles Medal for refusing to be silenced. Just a mile down the road in the small Kansas town, the home of Meyer and his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, was raided at the same time as the newsroom. His mother died the day after the raid.

Meyer and Carter unpack what happened with the raid, the importance of support from fellow journalists, and how he and his newsroom persevered. 

You can find the podcast on Soundcloud, Spotify for Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. If you have a story you think we should feature on the show, drop us a note at web@ire.org. We’d love to hear from you.

Music credit: "Thoughtfulness," De Wolfe Music

2024 Don Bolles Medal recipient: Marion County Record

On this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, host Nakylah Carter discovers how the Georgia Department of Corrections came to win the 2024 Golden Padlock Award for frequently and deliberately withholding public information. 

Guest Lois Norder, senior editor for investigations at The Atlanta Journal Constitution, explains her colleagues’ struggle to cover the government agency despite heavily redacted incident reports, suppressed news of worker arrests linked to contraband, undisclosed prisoner escapes, withheld video footage and more!

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

2024 Golden Padlock Award winner: Georgia Department of Corrections

On this episode, host Nakylah Carter chats with Knight Election Hub’s Erica Peterson and Scott Klein.

The hub — an initiative funded by the Knight Foundation — contains more than 100 free and discounted resources for reporters and editors covering elections. There are voter guides, data sets, source lists and other helpful tools to answer questions about candidates’ backgrounds, policies, election trends and more.

“Any newsroom that can hear my voice please come to us and use our resources to do incredible election coverage," Klein said of the one-stop destination to prepare for Election Day coverage.

Resources:
• Visit the Knight Election Hub at: 
https://accounts.muckrock.com/election-hub/
• Read more in The IRE Journal's 2024 elections issue: 
https://www.ire.org/product/ire-journal-q3-2024/

Production credit: 
Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter reported and hosted the episodes. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: 
Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

Introducing the Knight Election Hub

Although there has been a move to diversify journalism from the stories we tell to the people we interview, the sad reality is that not enough journalists prioritize disability coverage. 

As part of IRE’s virtual AccessFest conference in 2024, a group of distinguished disabled journalists discussed how to cover topics like climate change, mass incarceration, and poverty through the lens of disability. 

In a panel titled, “Disability is part of every beat,” three accomplished journalists joined in discussion. We have excerpted from their panel in this edition of The IRE Radio Podcast. 

The panelists are Jen Deerinwater, founding executive director of Crushing Colonialism; Lygia Navarro, award-winning disabled freelance journalist and editor for NAHJ’s multimedia platform, palabra; and Cara Reedy, former CNN documentarian and founder and director of the Disabled Journalists Association.

IRE Radio is distributed across several podcast platforms, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Podcasts. A full text transcript of the episode is available when accessed through the Apple Podcasts mobile app. Please contact editorial@ire.org if you need any assistance.

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosts the podcast. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the script. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

Disability is part of every beat

More than 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. reported having a disability in 2022, yet people with disabilities have long been underrepresented in news coverage and in newsrooms. To explore this topic — and related concerns facing the news industry — IRE’s 2024 AccessFest Conference featured a panel titled, “Supporting journalists with disabilities and improving disability coverage.” 

In this episode of IRE Radio, you will hear excerpts from the panel featuring: 
• Pauline Arrillaga, executive director of the National Center on Disability and Journalism at ASU and former writer and editor for AP News
• Samantha Hernandez, an education reporter at the Des Moines Register 
• Denise-Marie Ordway, managing editor for The Journalist's Resource at Harvard University
• Wendy Lu, a senior staff editor at The New York Times and a global speaker on disability representation in the media

Ordway also contributed an essay based on the panel to the Q4 2024 edition of The IRE Journal.

IRE Radio is distributed across several podcast platforms, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Podcasts. A full text transcript of the episode is available when accessed through the Apple Podcasts mobile app. Please contact editorial@ire.org if you need any assistance.

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosts the podcast. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the script. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

IRE Radio: Supporting journalists with disabilities

On this episode, Francisco Vara-Orta — IRE’s director of diversity and inclusion — reads an excerpt from his Nieman Lab Predictions for Journalism 2025 piece titled, “The quest for diversity evolves.” In it, he conveys what he believes is the future of diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion in the journalism industry, and how we, as journalists, can continue to strive for inclusion in these confusing times. 

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosted the episode. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

The quest for diversity evolves

“40 Acres and a Lie,” a collaborative investigation by Mother Jones, The Center for Public Integrity, PRX and Reveal, dives into unfulfilled promises to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. The investigation used artificial intelligence to unearth hidden documents from the Freedmen's Bureau, shedding light on the systemic failures and deliberate actions that prevented land redistribution to Black Americans.In this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, Reveal producer Nadia Hamdan and The Center for Public Integrity’s April Simpson discuss their investigation and its significance. “40 Acres a Lie” was runner-up for the 2024 Phil Meyer Award. 

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosted the episode. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

IRE Radio: “40 Acres and a Lie"

In this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, Bloomberg reporters Eric Fan and Zachary Mider take you inside the investigation that earned them the 2024 Phil Meyer Award. Their winning work, “How Thousands of Middlemen Are Gaming the H-1B Program,” (published July 31, 2024) explored new data developments that showed a pattern of certain staffing and outsourcing firms exploiting the U.S. H-1B visa lottery system. Along with Fan and Mider, Bloomberg journalists Denise Lu and Marie Patino co-authored the project. 

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosted the episode. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

2024 Philip Meyer Award winner: “How Thousands of Middlemen Are Gaming the H-1B Program”

In this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, two judges for the 2024 IRE Awards share a behind-the-scenes look at their committee’s selection process. Judges chose winners and finalists from a pool of 546 entries across 19 categories. IRE announced the contest results on April 16, 2025. Featured guests: Contest Committee Chair and Emmy-winner Walter Smith Randolph (executive producer of investigations at CBS New York) and Paroma Soni (IRE Board member and Politico data and graphics reporter).

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosted the episode. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

2024 IRE Awards: Behind the scenes

In this episode of the IRE Radio Podcast, veteran reporter, editor and computer programmer Ben Welsh discusses his journalism career and how he got to where he is today. As founder of the Reuters News Applications Desk, where he is currently an editor, Welsh has gained a multitude of tips and tricks for data journalism. We explore his career advice and his personal website’s archive of data journalism resources.

Production credit: Graduate editorial assistant Nakylah Carter hosted the episode. IRE editorial director Doug Meigs edits the podcast. We are recorded in the studios of KBIA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Music credit: Thoughtfulness (De Wolfe Music)

A conversation with Ben Welsh

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. IRE was formed in 1975 to create a forum in which journalists throughout the world could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques and news sources.