A NEWSLETTER ON WRITING AND EDITING

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1 ABOVE THE FOLD Star Tribune Minneapolis, Minn. A NEWSLETTER ON WRITING AND EDITING January/February 2007 Vol. 7, No. 1 I can t do projects! I have a BEAT! I f you found you had twenty extra minutes in the middle of your day, would you: (a) Go for a co ee (b) Check your (c) Do one thing on your project to-do list (hunt down a source s name or phone number, make an appointment for an interview, request a document) to move that enterprise piece you re working on just a little bit closer to publication. Turn inside to see which one Diana Henriques of the New York Times admits to. (As if you couldn t guess.) 2 Not everyone is detached from a beat in order to do investigations. Most reporters have to juggle. Here s how. J /F 5 Can t make it to Harvard for the narrative conference? Read the advice from the pros in a new collection from the Nieman Foundation. 1

2 Combining BEAT REPORTING with INVESTIGATIVE Fundamentally, investigative stories hold powerful people and institutions accountable for the actions that affect others. By ERIC WIEFFERING Star Tribune AME Investigations New York Times reporter Diana Henriques enjoys two things that have becomee increasingly scarce at most major newspapers: time to develop, and space to display major investigative projects. Henriques spent more than a year working on In God s Name, a sixpart series that showed the conflicts arising from the federal government s increasing accommodations for religious institutions. It ran at more than 25,000 words (you can find it at Previously, she spent a year on a series about the fleecing of young soldiers by insurance and investment companies. Her advice from an editor as she struggled to weave in the stories of soldiers: You re already at 5,000 words so you may as well go up to 7,500. OK, maybe Henriques occupies a journalism universe parallel to the one most of us wake up to each day. But her message that investigative or watchdog reporting matters now more than ever should resonate with any reporter or editor who wants to distinguish their work from the flood of news that washes over readers every day. Better yet, the techniques Henriques developed more than 30 years ago to work on major enterprise or investigations while covering a beat are simple and e ective. They can help any reporter at any paper, whether the investigation is six days, six weeks or six months in the making. 2 ABOVE THE FOLD

3 WHAT EXACTLY IS AN INVESTIGATIVE STORY? In some ways it s easier to say what it is not. It is rarely event driven. It usually goes beyond explanatory journalism. Fundamentally, investigative stories hold powerful people and institutions accountable for the actions that a ect others. It can be one story. It can be a series of stories that appear over consecutive days. It can appear as an occasional series over the course of a year. WHAT TYPES OF INVESTIGATIVE STORIES ARE THERE? Henriques believes most stories can be assigned to one of six categories, though more complex stories might touch on a number of them. At most papers, investigative e orts focus on these three kinds of stories: Someone is doing something illegal Someone is not breaking the law, but they re not observing a code or rule that governs behavior of individuals or institutions in that industry or profession. Someone is doing something that violates our sense of fair play. Paying a nonprofit executive an exorbitant salary and sending board members on a golfing retreat when the company is laying people o isn t illegal, but it doesn t pass the smell test for most readers. Tougher to pull o, but potentially a richer source of untapped material, are stories about: Something that s perfectly legal, but on closer inspection perhaps shouldn t be. As Tony Kennedy showed, there are few, if any, laws that govern how a landlord can treat sober-house residents. As a result of his series, some legislators think there should be. People or institutions whose actions and behavior are at odds with their public image. Unintended fallout from actions of institutions or individuals. Henriques own series, In God s Name, looked at how, in the name of preserving the separation of church and state, Congress had shielded large, powerful institutions from federal and state laws on financial disclosure, licensing requirements, employment law, etc. MOVE UP THE FOOD CHAIN Telling readers that something is happening may not be an investigative story, but moving up the food chain and asking why something is happening can be. Everyone knows predatory lending exists and what it is, but who or what has allowed it to flourish all these years? Who has pulled strings to make sure no e orts to curb it have succeeded? MAKE TIME TO CULTIVATE AND MAINTAIN SOURCES In an ideal world, reporters should be given one week every six months or so to do nothing but cultivate sources. Go to conferences. Read academic and trade publications. Take people to lunch. Reporters should be evaluated on their source development e orts, In an ideal world, reporters should be given one week every six months or so to do nothing but cultivate sources. JANUARY/FEBRUARY

4 Modify your hypothesis. Flesh out what you know. Add to your to-do list. Be honest when you answer so what? Henriques said. At the end of that week, for example, they should be required to show their editors who they ve added to their rolodex. DEVELOP BUSINESS LITERACY We are in a period of American history where big business is establishing the agenda for every arena you cover, Henriques said, so every reporter needs to know how and where to look quickly to get business information about people or organizations they cover. You needn t know how to deconstruct a balance sheet, but every reporter should have a fundamental grasp of business. Business has outlasted most of the other forces that once curbed its power, so it s up to reporters to hold it accountable for how it uses its power, Henriques said. Almost no one else will because almost no one else can. Diana Henriques fool-proof method for getting investigative stories approved and done. As a state government reporter in New Jersey, Henriques faced the all-too-familiar dilemma of finding time to identify and work on investigative stories while tending to her beat. The approach she developedd borrowed from a small but influential book about time management is the one that she still employs today. The most important step is the first one: Don t take your idea to an editor until you do these four things in a notebook: Write down your hypothesis: It should be one simple sentence. It may change over the course of your reporting, but it essentially serves as a stripped-down version of your lede. Write down what you already know. This becomes your source list. Write down what you need to know. This becomes your to-do list. You can work on it when you have down time from your beat responsibilities. Answer the question, so what? If your hypothesis proves true, who will care? This becomes a stripped down version of your nut graf. Update as you report. Modify your hypothesis. Flesh out what you know. Add to your to-do list. Be honest when you answer so what? 4 ABOVE THE FOLD

5 RECOMMENDED READING Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call (Penguin, $15, softbound) Ever wonder if Gay Talese uses a tape recorder? Or how long (or little) Malcolm Gladwell shadows the people he profiles? How about Anne Hull how does she achieve that e ortless smooth prose? Or Louise Kiernan how does she get those amazing intimate details in her stories? The short answers to these questions are: He doesn t. Very little. Rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. And, scrupulous reporting, with a heavy emphasis on documents. For the longer answers, turn to this book. For more than five years, the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University has hosted a winter weekend conference on narrative writing. It draws 1,000 journalists from around the country, who come to hear some of the biggest names in journalism (and some lesserlights, too) talk about the craft. In more recent years, Nieman has added an intimate, invitation-only conference on narrative editing in the spring. Tapes (and CDs and MP3s) of the conference have long been available. But now the most useful talks have been edited down, rewritten a bit, and o ered in book form. It s a very useful little book at Nieman, the talks can be 45 minutes in length, but in this book they ve been boiled down to their essence. You lose the fun of being in Boston for a weekend and hobnobbing with the stars, but you gain the practicality of carrying their wisdom with you. This isn t just a how-to of craft (though it is partly that). There are ethical discussions here, too, such as Anne Hull talking about the dilemma of immersion journalism what would you do if the family you were profiling asked you to drive their ill child to the hospital? Or Katherine Boo s frank examination of the balance of power between reporter and source. Laurie Hertzel You lose the fun of being in Boston for a weekend and hobnobbing with the stars, but you gain the practicality of carrying their wisdom with you. ABOVE THE FOLD is produced for the employees of the Star Tribune. Unless otherwise indicated, its contents are the work of Laurie Hertzel, projects editor and writing coach. Copy editor: Holly Collier. Designer: Judy Romanowich Smith JANUARY/FEBRUARY

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