By 2008, the financial instabilities facing newspapers was leading to a precipitous decline in investigative reporting in New England and around the country. In January 2009, and –in collaboration with Boston University College of Communication Dean and former Miami Herald executive editor —launched NECIR to expose injustice by producing and teaching in-depth, impact-making journalism. NECIR-produced stories have appeared in The New York Times, , , , , in mid-size newspapers across Massachusetts and New England and on radio and TV news outlets in the Boston area such as WGBH and WBUR. These stories have led to changes laws, policy and behavior. Past stories revealed:
Unreported abuse, neglect and deaths of children monitored by Massachusetts child welfare officials, triggering to a public outcry and the governor’s decision to reform the assessment system used by the Department of Children and Families.
Holes in an arson and murder conviction, leading directly to the release of a man who had served 30 years in prison for the crime.
Poorly understood contracts for reverse home mortgages were forcing the elderly out of their homes, prompting readers to raise enough money to save one senior from eviction.
Unacknowledged corporate influence over research and advocacy from some of the nation’s most respected policy “think tanks” in Washington.
False reports by Boston’s Department of Public Works of pothole repairs, spurring the mayor to adopt a “311”city accountability call system.
Awards and recognition
One of the NECIR's investigations—a comprehensive look at mobile phone apps dispensing medical advice—ran in the Washington Post’s Health and Science section, on the Scripps News Service and on Hearst TV stations nationally. In 2011 NECIR won two awards for its and shared a national award for an article on campus sexual assaults. It won several more awards in 2012 for a year-long investigation on the sentencing of juvenile killers, which was also cited in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Another NECIR story, produced in collaboration with Boston inner-city high school students, prompted immediate state action and a Boston Globe editorial. In 2019 NECIR and WGBH won an Edward R. Morrow Award for reporting on the business of illicit massage parlors and a Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Radio Journalism for a radio series about a wrongfully convicted man’s effort to rebuild his life after nearly four decades in prison
Training
Effective July 2019, Boston University has taken over NECIR's Pre-College Summer Journalism Institute for high school students, with continued involvement of NECIR reporters.
Staff
Paul Singer, investigations editor; Phillip Martin, senior investigative reporter; Jenifer McKim, senior reporter; Chris Burrell, investigative reporter
