Trust #14: All in: my journey in investigative journalism

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Trust #14: All in: my journey in investigative journalism

I needed supportive bosses, the national network of IRE, and a great team

James Breiner

Dec 19

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You’re reading the Your News Biz newsletter. My goal is to help digital media entrepreneurs find viable business models.

Last week I shared with you some of the ways investigative journalism might differ from the day-to-day work of news organizations:

It involves original, systematic research using public records and databases; it often unearths secrets that reveal public incompetence or corruption; and its focus is on social justice and accountability. Here’s the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s definition of investigative journalism.

Investigative journalism takes time and money. It’s a public service that some large, profitable news organizations — not all — choose to subsidize. Small, independent media, many of them nonprofits, have to rely on grants, donations, and other forms of subsidy.

Against all odds, some have found individual readers willing to pay for subscriptions (also called “memberships” or “partnerships”) as a key part of their business models: Mediapart in France, Il Post in Italy, De Correspondent in the Netherlands, elDiario.es in Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, and Dennik N in Slovakia, among many others.)

My journey

I had gradually developed some investigative skill in a series of long-term projects while working at the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

Editor-in-chief Luke Feck had rescued me from battles with a local political figure and put me to work on an economic development question — how to revive the downtown business district. It meant traveling to other cities that showed it could be done. We produced a special 12-page section for the Sunday paper.

I was given a title: special projects reporter. I did some in-depth reporting on crime and corruption as well as how other cities attracted major league sports teams — Columbus had none — by building arenas or stadiums.

Gary Kiefer served as a reporter, an editor and as managing editor in a career at The Dispatch spanning nearly 40 years. — Gary Kiefer retired from *The Dispatch* in 2018. (Dispatch photo)

My immediate boss, Gary Kiefer, approached me with the idea of starting an investigative reporting unit. But I had seen the work of teams at other papers and felt I wasn’t up to the competition. The dialogue went something like, “I’m not good enough to do that,” to which he replied, “If you don’t do it, who will?”

OK, I said, but I would need some help. I had joined the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) organization and read about their seminars. I was impressed by how other media used public records to produce some amazing exposés. There was a small seminar for editors coming up in Minneapolis. Kiefer and Feck agreed to send me.

Learning and sharing

I was by far the least experienced and accomplished of the dozen who attended. Among the editors at that meeting were Robert Green, the Pulitzer-prize-winner from Newsday, and John Ullmann, the investigations editor of our host, the Star Tribune.

I was surprised by the spirit of collaboration and generosity among all the editors. Although they were ambitious and competitive, there was no braggadoccio. We were there to learn from each other.

What I learned from Ullmann, and made a part of my toolbox for decades, was to do line-by-line editing when finalizing a project for publication. The editor and reporters had to review every fact in each line of a story with a document or interview notes before going to the next line. The idea was to make it bulletproof. Trust and credibility were the goal. One factual error could tarnish a lengthy investigation.

My takeaway from Green was to build trust with news executives by keeping them informed with regular progress reports. Be as transparent and honest as possible while still protecting sources. No surprises. You had to reassure your managers that you weren’t wasting their money or staff time or chasing phantoms. You wanted to have their support when a project would inevitably produce angry phone calls. Again, trust.

Lessons for a career

We formed a team of five in-house reporters and hired one more. We also collaborated with others in-house who proposed projects. Over the next several years, our group did many series that helped establish The Dispatch as a leader in watchdog journalism, community service, and science reporting.

Kiefer told me recently that two of those projects in particular had lasting impact.

Among them, reporter Robin Yocum’s series on the teenage prostitute problems in the area just north of downtown. As Kiefer recalled, “The series really forced the city to deal with the problem, and that paved the way for new businesses to thrive.” That Short North area now “is the hot spot today for trendy restaurants, bars, and apartment developments.”
Reporter Mary Yost’s series on child-abuse deaths also focused attention on a significant issue. “So many of those deaths were being shrugged off by prosecutors and courts, as if the children didn’t matter,” Kiefer said. “I sincerely believe this series and the follow-up reporting opened many eyes and began to change how society looked at the problem.” (Sadly, Mary passed away earlier this year.)

I took those lessons with me through my career, first as editor-in-chief of Business First of Columbus, then publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal, and then teacher/trainer/media consultant.

Investigative journalism techniques produce excellent results in almost any discipline: pay attention, ask questions, listen actively, dig deeper, question your conclusions, publish what you know, admit what you don’t know, correct errors fully, and assume the process of verification never ends. Curiosity, relentlessness, and humility are the watchwords.

You’re never too old to learn.

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