Tag: Investigative

Interviewing tips from an investigative reporter

“Preparation equals success.” That’s Wendy Salzman’s motto and it served her well as an investigative reporter in Atlanta and Philadelphia. She shared tips on preparing for interviews and more at the 2018 Excellence in Journalism conference in Baltimore. Do your…

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Tips for multimedia storytellers

You’ve done a TV story, rewritten it for the web and promoted it on social media. All good. But you can still do more with the story online by adding multimedia elements and there are good reasons for doing so.…

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Strategies for video-poor stories

Some stories just aren’t “made for TV” but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth telling. Take the clergy sex abuse scandal still rocking the Catholic Church. If you can get someone on camera for an interview, you’re doing well. B-roll…

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How to pry loose public records

“FOIA gets violated every day of the week,” says Tisha Thompson, an investigative reporter for ESPN who used to work in local TV news. Over 20 years in the business, Thompson has been ignored, slow-walked and denied when requesting public…

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How to stay on top of long-term stories

Organization is everything to investigative reporter Ted Oberg of KTRK-TV in Houston. “You win or lose on Day One,” he says. “You can’t catch up or recreate notes or contacts you get on the first day and only save on…

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Multi-camera interviews on a budget

As an investigative reporter, Brendan Keefe of WXIA-TV in Atlanta is accustomed to people assuming he works with more than one photographer when shooting his trademark long-form interviews. When his stories air, viewers see him asking questions on camera and…

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Using a game to tell a complex story

How can you help people understand what it’s really like to live through a major news story? Take the experience of people leaving their home countries to seek asylum in the United States. Video is one way of sharing what…

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Investigative journalism in the age of Trump

What’s it like to cover national security in the current climate? Adam Entous of the New Yorker says it can be terrifying. “People are scared,” he said. “The job is much harder.” Entous, who just shared a Pulitzer for his…

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Investigative reporting as an interactive exercise

We all know investigative reporting is different from everyday journalism and it’s not easy to teach. Wouldn’t you love to have an interactive experience that shows what it’s really like? How about an interactive that also makes a bigger point…

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