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Exam of investigative reportToday's investigative reporters lack resources
Chelsea Ide and Kanupriya Vashisht
Special to The RepublicMay. 28, 2006 03:30 AM Newspapers care about investigative stories, but they frequently don’t back that up withresources that reporters say they need to do in-depth work.That’s the major finding of a survey conducted last fall by Arizona State University journalism students. The students were part of an in-depth reporting class assigned towrite about the 30th anniversary of the murder of Don Bolles, an investigative reporter for 
The Arizona Republic
who covered mob dealings and land fraud in Arizona. It iswidely believed that his murderers wanted to silence him.The students wanted to know how investigative reporting -- in-depth reporting generallyfocused on exposing injustices and abuses of power -- has fared at major U.S. newspaperssince Bolles’ death. Their survey, sent to editors and reporters at the 100 largestnewspapers in the United States, drew 86 responses. All respondents were members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the nation’s foremost organization devoted toinvestigative reporting. The survey’s margin of error was 11 percent.Forty-two percent of respondents said their newspapers and senior editors have “alot” of interest in investigative reporting. But the survey, backed up by interviews with 31of the respondents, also revealed that newspapers aren’t offering the resources needed totackle investigative stories, particularly when it comes to time away from dailyassignments.“The reporters themselves are doing a good job, especially with computer-assistedreporting,” said Jon Marshall, adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s MedillSchool of Journalism and a freelance reporter. “Unfortunately, the media corporationsaren’t giving the time and resources that they did 20 and 25 years ago.”Most of the journalists responding to the survey said their papers are more supportive of investigative reporting now than even 10 years ago, but many said the support issuperficial.Thirty-seven percent of newspapers had no full-time investigative or projects reporter ontheir staffs. The majority had two or fewer, and only 10 newspapers had four or more
 
investigative or projects reporters working for them.In addition, 61 percent of the newspapers had no investigative or projects team. Of those,16 percent had teams in the past, but they have been disbanded. Sixty-two percent of thenewspapers surveyed did not have a single editor specifically charged with working oninvestigations.
Time and money
Reporters indicated that there is little travel money, research assistance or training to doinvestigative work. While most said they get some time away from daily assignments anda bit of money to purchase documents or data, it often isn’t enough.The amount of resources allotted for investigative reporting has been steadily droppingsince 1988, said Doug Pardue, special assignment editor at
The Post and Courier inCharleston, S.C.
“We’re an endangered species,” he said. “The mentality is that all reporters areinvestigative reporters, so even if there isn’t a team, we will still get investigativereporting.”But often, reporters say, there just isn’t time to do the job justice.Fernando Diaz, who reports for 
The Democrat and Chronicle
in Rochester, N.Y., said hewas sent to a seminar on computer-assisted reporting within three weeks of being hired inSeptember, but he has had little time to implement what he’s learned. He is assigned tocover five suburban towns – each with a school board and local government. While hiseditors encourage him to work on investigative projects, daily demands leave little timeto do so, he said.Marshall said time is a precious commodity in every newsroom. “The big problem isgetting the time to tackle lengthy reporting projects,” he said. “That, coupled withgovernment crackdowns on freedom of information, has served to make mediacorporations wary of [doing investigative projects].”James Grimaldi, investigative reporter at
The Washington Post 
, said government secrecyis a constant roadblock for him.“Open records laws are not followed as closely as they should be by governmentagencies,” he said. Plus, governmental public relations officers push back everyinvestigative reporter because of a “whole campaign targeted at attacking the journalistwho engages in investigative reporting.”That brick wall came up right after Sept. 11, 2001, said Max McCoy, investigative writer for 
The Joplin (Mo.) Globe
. Because reporters refrained from asking the tough questionsduring the country’s mourning period, reporters are struggling now to get the access they
 
used to have, he said.“So many documents that were open before Sept. 11 are now closed,” McCoy said.“[Freedom of Information Act] requests are taking much longer now and are also morelikely to be denied.”The problems really aren’t new, but they may have gotten worse in recent years, saidStephen Doig, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter who now teaches computer-assisted reporting at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and MassCommunication.“The amount of resources is never enough,” he said. But now “newspapers are dealingwith loss of advertising dollars to the internet and a decline in readership.... They have tostart cutting the budget somewhere.”Budget cuts are one of the main barriers working journalists said they face intransforming an interest in investigative reporting into actual stories. Roughly 2,000 jobswere cut at midsize to large U.S. newspapers last year.David Boardman, managing editor of 
The Seattle Times
and president of IRE, said heworries these cuts will hinder the quality as well as the number of investigative projects.“There is more quality work done today than at most times in the past, but I wonder if it’s peaked,” he said. “I’m very concerned about that, because there are fewer jobs. Newsrooms all over America are cutting back.”Even if newspapers don’t dismiss reporters, Boardman said often the first thing to go isthe training budget, which is crucial to investigative reporters.“To do good investigative journalism, you need training, and a lot of these aresophisticated skills that if there’s nobody to teach it, nobody will know how to do it,” hesaid.JoNel Aleccia said she’s felt the tightening of resources for a decade at the
Mail Tribune
in Medford, Ore., where she is a senior reporter/editor.“We would pursue environmental stories if we had the resources available,” she said.“Resources have gotten tighter from 10 years ago, so it takes more individual gumption.”Those who are optimistic about investigative reporting use words like “gumption” and“drive” to make the point that nothing will hold back a really determined reporter.“It’s not a question of time, it’s a question of mindset,” said Joanne Zipperer, opinioneditor at the
Green Bay (Wis.) Press-Gazette
. “They [reporters] spend plenty of time ontheir stories and it comes out shallow because they aren’t willing to do database reportingto give it depth.”
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