Beginning investigative reporting skills for projects

Sarah Cohen, October 2014

Empirical journalsim

Documents reporting
Reporting with public records
Enterprise reporting
Investigative reporting
Original research

Other data journalism

Number crunching
App development
Reporting on others' research
Data visualization for publication

A little history

New York World
May 7, 1893

Nellie Bly feigned insanity to get admitted to the asylum on Blackwell's Island and independently documented reports of mistreatment and overcrowding

The Chicago Sun-Times

1977

The newspaper created a tavern to catch inspectors and other officials taking bribes.

The Mirage Bar was, indeed, a mirage.

Hail to the copy machine

The 1963 introduction of the Xerox machine would eventually make undercover work less common and would change the ethics of journalism

Detroit Free Press, 1967

As part of its award winning coverage of the Detroit riots, Philip Meyer conducted a survey of rioters that debunked much of the common wisdom. He went on to write "Precision Journalism," the classic text on empirical journalism.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 1973

In "Crime and Injustice," Don Barlett and Jim Steele, with the help of Philip Meyer, used social science techniques to sample paper court records and showed that black defendants were more likely to be jailed than whites for the same crime

Elliot Jaspin, late 1980s

Traveled the country teaching reporters to use computerized records and founded the Missouri Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting -- later renamed NICAR. In 1990, Bill Dedman won the first Pulitzer Prize for a CAR story, "The Color of Money".