Investigative Reporting

Step 2

2.1 Beginning with the narrow topic you selected in chapter 1, select one problem to look into. What major questions come to mind that need to be answered? What might be the challenges involved in carrying out these investigations? Why might this story be important?

2.2 If you will be doing the investigation as a group project, then as a group compare the story ideas and pick one to work on.

2.3 See if you can synthesize the story idea down to a statement of 30 words or less that summarizes what you hope or expect to find.

2.4 Start your preliminary research by doing a basic online search of your topic.

1. Try to find blogs in which people discuss issues events or issues related to your topic.
2. Try to find academic studies that examine your topic.
3. Using a news search engine, try to find news stories related to your topic.

Step 3

3.1 Continue your preliminary research. Consider various places you might find information to help you better understand the topic and that could lead you to the proof of your premise. If you are working on a team project, each team member should concentrate on a different type of research material: government Web sites, news databases, blogs and chat rooms, scholarly research and so on.

3.2 Out of your research, try to come up with the following:

1. The government, industry or watchdog organization that regulates or monitors the problem you are investigating
2. A list of names and contact information of people to interview
3. The initial questions you need to ask these people in the interviews
4. The basic information that you will need to understand the answers they give you
5. Initial data and suggestions for data you might need to track down

3.3 Enter the information you collected through your preliminary research into a spreadsheet. (As team members conduct preliminary research, each should maintain his or her own spreadsheet with the information gathered and post it to the team spreadsheet.) Include the following columns:

• Name: The team member who collected it
• Source: The title of the news story or document or the name of the Web site found
• Person to contact: The name of someone cited in the article or Web site who is worth interviewing
• News angle: Anything the source mentions that could make your story timely or move it forward
• Questions: The initial questions to ask in the interviews

3.4 If working as part of a team, decide what roles in the investigation each team member will play: interviewing, gathering and plowing through reports, data analysis, writing the stories, designing graphic elements or information organization.

3.5 Think of ways to break up your long story into smaller pieces. If you are working as a team, assign the tasks to the team members most capable of producing those story elements.

1. Can you compile a chronology that you can turn into a timeline?
2. Are there geographic elements that you can map?
3. Do you anticipate collecting any documents that you could post online?
4. Will you record or videorecord your interviews so that you can upload them on a Web site?
5. Can you take your readers on a video or slide-show journey?

3.6 Set up your initial interviews with people you found through your research.

Step 4

4.1 As a group, discuss what documents you might be able to request from the government that could help you document and prove your premise.

4.2 Go to the Web site of the Student Press Law Center, http://splc.org. Using the automatic letter generator, write the necessary public records requests that you think might yield pertinent documents and data for your story. Make copies; sign and mail the originals. Have at least two people sign each letter.

4.3 Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your public records requests. In it create columns for the agency you sent the request to, what you requested, when you sent it, the date the agency responds and a summary of information it produces. Add your public records spreadsheet to your Master Sourcelist and anchor it there by creating a hyperlink.

Step 5

5.1 Considering what you learned from your preliminary research, assess the doability of your proposed project.

1. What key pieces of information will you need, where can you get them, how difficult will they be to obtain and how long will that take?
2. Who are the people who are essential to the story, and will you have access to them?
3. Will you need to travel far to get information?
4. Will you need to grant anonymity, and will that affect whether you can get the story  published?
5. Do you have the nerve to ask difficult questions?
6. Is it necessary to pore through reams of reports, and do you have the time and patience to do that?
7. Will you be able to analyze the data, or will you need to seek help from experts such as the people at the National Institute of Computer Assisted Reporting?
8. Will the story depend on your getting secret information?

5.2 If the answers to these questions lead you to believe that the story is not doable as you proposed, try to alter the premise in such a way as to avoid the problems and still turn out a good story.

5.3 Determine the maximum you think you can accomplish with your project and come up with a minimum you can produce that will still result in an informative article.

5.4 From your preliminary research and interviews map out a detailed list of people to interview according to this formula:

1. People affected by the problem you are investigating
2. The people responsible
3. Any policy makers who have the authority to change the situation
4. Independent experts who can help you explain the problem
5. People who will be able to fill in holes after you have done significant amount of reporting

5.5 Create a To Do list. If the investigation is a team effort, post the To Do list on a wiki. Include all the things you think you will need to get to prove your premise and make your story compelling: background research, people to interview, data to get, history to track down, observations to make, meetings or events to attend and experts to find.

5.6 Create a Master Sourcelist spreadsheet. If your investigation is a group project, designate a place where all team members will store a copy of any information they gather; it could be a particular computer or a wiki stored on the Internet. Store the Master Sourcelist there as well to keep track of all information collected for the project. Everytime someone adds a listing to the Master Sourcelist, turn it into a hyperlink to the source of information.

Step 6

6.1 From the information you got from your initial interviews, combined with the information you got from your preliminary research, map out a schedule for your next interviews according to the 5Ws System or the Inductive Approach as outlined in this chapter.

6.2 Create a spreadsheet for your interview notes. Make columns for the name of the person you interviewed, the questions you ask, the answers they give, the major points the answer suggests, questions raised, and To Do.

6.3 Anchor the information in the “Answers” column by creating a hyperlink and ScreenTip.

6.4 Enter the notes from interviews you have completed so far into the spreadsheet. Each time you complete new interviews, enter the notes into the spreadsheet.

6.5 Sort your spreadsheet by the To Do column and add those tasks to your To Do list.

Step 7

Based on what you have found so far in your preliminary research and in your interviews, see if you can answer the following questions:

1. Who are the people most affected, and have you talked to them or will you talk to them?
2. Who are the people who are essential to the story, and will you have access to them?
3. Who do you think is responsible, and how will you document and quantify it?
4. How might your story uncover information that is not widely known or that some powerful person would wish to keep secret?
5. Can you identify possible solutions to the problem?
6. What is the history and scope of the problem?
7. Could legislative changes or enforcement actions solve or alleviate the problem?
8. Do you have someone who can serve as a narrative thread for your story, i.e., who you can center the story around and who will help you tell it and bring it to life?
9. What vivid details can you find that will make the reader feel as if they are experiencing the problem firsthand?

Step 8

8.1 Now is the time to check on those public records requests you made as part of Project Story Step 3.

1. Read any material you obtained and summarize any relevant information in your Interviews spreadsheet. To do that, treat each document as a person interviewed.
2. Follow up on requests that have not yielded information. If your request was too broad, narrow it and resend to the agency. If it was rejected, file a letter of appeal to the head of the agency.
3. In light of the interviews you have done so far and material you have read, consider other public documents you might need and file those public record requests.

8.2 Brainstorm what kinds of documents might be easily available through your local and state governments and at the federal level.

1. Do laws regulate your topic?
2. Try to come up with a list of professionals who could point you to the right documentation: a professor who studies the issue, a lawyer who sues companies over the issue, an independent consultant who works with government agencies or corporate clients on it.
3. Divide up your team and assign the following areas in which to search for documents.
   Local government
   State government
   Federal agencies
   Academia
   Independent consultants