Disclosure: Diane Sylvester is a member of IRE, and she received the Eric B. Sager Fellowship Award to support her attendance at the IRE24 conference in June.
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) is making it easier for journalists with tight budgets to join its ranks.
The nearly 50-year-old news association recently announced it was creating a tiered fee structure for membership and conferences to lower the financial barrier to journalists who may otherwise be unable to afford to become members and take training sessions with the organization.
“The number one priority has been to make IRE more accessible to more journalists,” says IRE President Brian M. Rosenthal, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
As a nonprofit organization, IRE has been a prolific training ground for investigative journalists nationwide for generations. However, the cost of attending their conferences has made it harder for some, including freelancers and those just starting their careers.
“My story with IRE is that without IRE I wouldn’t be where I am today. I know that for sure. But I also know I was fortunate to be introduced to the organization and get financial help to attend my first conference from my first newsroom, The Seattle Times,” explained Rosenthal.
In 2011, Rosenthal was a new reporter who had just landed a staff gig at The Seattle Times when the paper’s two investigative journalists, Ken Armstrong and Michael Berens, won a Pulitzer. The award came with a cash prize, and the duo donated the money to the newsroom so that a few reporters could be sent to IRE’s conference that year. Rosenthal said he’d never heard of IRE before then, and if it hadn’t been for that generosity, he doubts he would have become an investigative reporter. “Not everyone gets that lucky.”
When Rosenthal ran for the IRE board in 2019, accessibility was a high priority. The organization was already focused on diversifying its membership and helping journalists of different backgrounds who were underrepresented in investigative departments across the country, including Black, Latino, Indigenous, women and LGBTQIA community members.
For the past few years, IRE has held an online conference called Accessfest. It was founded to provide a gathering and learning space for journalists from underrepresented communities. The organization has committed to expanding Accessfest going forward to deepen its commitment to diverse communities and to provide a less expensive way of allowing members to gather for learning sessions.
In 2021, the board set up an Affordability Task Force. In May of this year, they announced a reduced annual membership fee of $50 would be available for early career journalists, which IRE defines as having less than five years of experience in the business. To offset that discount, IRE will increase its regular annual fee for professionals, academics and retirees to $75, and students will continue to pay $25. This is the first increase since 2011.
During its June meeting, IRE’s board approved a tiered pricing system for attending its two in-person annual conferences next year. For IRE’s 2025 Annual Conference, where the organization will celebrate its 50th anniversary in New Orleans, the price structure offers $199 for the first 100 registrants who are early career, freelancer or unemployed journalists. After the first 100, the rate will be $299 for those select groups. Professional, academic and retired journalists will pay $375 for early-bird and $450 for regular registration. Students will pay $100 for early registration or $125 for regular attendance. The new tiered pricing also applies to IRE’s 2025 NICAR conference which focuses heavily on in-depth investigative and data training courses.
Conferences are a significant source of revenue for news associations like IRE. At the 2024 Annual Conference in June, IRE reported that of the $2.8 million in revenue the organization earned in 2023, just over $1 million was from conferences and seminars.
Rosenthal said the organization will monitor how the tiered pricing impacts membership and conference attendance. They are also looking for additional philanthropic support to keep expanding the effort.
“Diversifying the field and helping more journalists learn these critical reporting skills is so important. So for now, we are going to start by offering the deepest discounts to the first 100 who register, but if we get funding, we can expand this to more people,” he said.
Rosenthal said their accessibility taskforce is also looking at other ways to lower the cost and is thinking about how to help smaller local organizations. This year, they will hold several regional gatherings to serve local news organizations with meetings closer to home.
“We know the biggest costs can be airfares and hotels. So we are trying to meet people where they are,” said Rothenthal. “Hopefully, these efforts will help us reach more newsrooms and journalists.”
Diane Sylvester is an award-winning 30-year multimedia news veteran. She works as a reporter, editor, and newsroom strategist. She can be reached at diane.povcreative@gmail.com.
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