Investigative Reporting at Stanford and Northwestern Shows Student Journalists Can Make a Difference

Every semester I tell my students the story of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters whose investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

But you don’t have to work for The Washington Post or The New York Times to do deep-digging reporting that brings about real change. Just look at what happened recently at the student newspapers at Stanford and Northwestern.

At Stanford, President Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned after The Stanford Daily student paper revealed irregularities in some research papers he had authored or co-authored.

And at Northwestern, head football coach Pat Fitzgerald was sacked following reports in The Daily Northwestern that some players had taken part in hazing rituals, and that a racist culture plagued the football program.

Theo Baker, The Stanford Daily reporter who wrote the Tessier-Lavigne stories, is the son of the Times’ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker. He told his dad’s publication that “more than anything, to me, this should raise conversations about the value of student journalism. If you love a place, and I really do love Stanford, you want to push it to be more transparent.”

Granted, both these examples are at prestigious universities with undoubtedly well-funded journalism programs. But investigative journalism programs can increasingly be found at j-schools all over the country.

One example close to home (for me): Last year Temple University in Philadelphia launched the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting, where students report on issues like gun violence, economic inequality, and education and health disparities, with stories that aim not just to reveal problems but to seek out solutions. The program partnered with a local news website to report on educational disparities in the Philadelphia School District.

Indeed, the Global Investigative Journalism Network reports that investigative reporting programs are springing up not just in the U.S. but at universities around the globe. In one case, a Norwegian journalist was so inspired by the investigative reporting program he witnessed at UC-Berkeley that he helped start a similar program at the University of Bergen.

And students in programs like these can bring the skills they acquire to the stories they do for their college papers. Indeed, those aspiring to be the next Woodward or Bernstein would do well to take an investigative reporting course to pick up the skills necessary for doing deep-dive journalism. If that’s not possible, seek out a mentor, maybe a journalism professor or local reporter, for tips and advice on how to track down such stories.

Of course, doing investigative reporting is never easy. Woodward and Bernstein faced enormous pressure from the White House as their reports zeroed in on the corruption at the heart of the Nixon administration. And Theo Baker received threatening letters from attorneys demanding retractions of his articles.

But in addition to reporting skills, investigative journos must possess a healthy dose of intestinal fortitude to question authority and stand up to those in power, especially when the powerful try to attack the messenger.

More on that in a future post.

The First Amendment and Press Freedom

It’s generally agreed the U.S. has the greatest press freedom of just about any country on the planet. That freedom comes from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads as follows.

Want to be a Great Editor? Check the Reporting, But Don’t Forget AP Style

So you’re taking your first editing course, or you’ve signed on to be an editor on your student newspaper or website. Congratulations. Editing is obviously a very different skill from reporting or writing, but these are complimentary skills. Being a good writer makes you a better editor, and vice versa.You probably think of editing as fixing things like grammar, spelling and Associated Press style. You’d be party right. Editing can actually be broken down into two broad categories, what I call macro and micro editing.

Take a look at the graphic below. This is the organizational structure of a typical newsroom. On the left column you see assignment editors, on the right, copy editors. In the middle are higher-ranked managing editors who oversee broad sections of the newsroom, and at the top are the editor and publisher. Obviously, the bigger the news outlet, the more editors there are. A very large newspaper like The New York Times will have dozens of editors.

At the very bottom of the graphic you see macro editing on the left and micro editing on the right. Assignment editors are macro editors, meaning they oversee the “big picture” aspect of news stories. They deal with reporters directly. They assign articles, discuss coverage with reporters, give tips on how to approach stories, and so on. When reporters finish their stories they send them to their assignment editor.

Again, assignment editors – macro editors – are looking at the big-picture. Is the story well-written? Is it thoroughly reported? Is it fair and balanced? Are there any factual errors? These are the issues macro editors are primarily focused on.

On the right side of the graphic we have micro editing. These are typically copy editors. Copy editors get stories after they’ve undergone a first edit by an assignment editor. Copy editors don’t deal with reporters often. They focus more on grammar, spelling, punctuation and AP style. They also typically write the headlines and lay stories out on the page. That’s micro editing.

Of course, these skill sets overlap. Assignments editors can fix grammar and spelling, and copy editors can catch things like factual mistakes or a lack of balance in a story. But broadly speaking, this is how these tasks are divvied up in a newsroom.

Some people are born to be macro editors. They love dealing with reporters and shaping news coverage in a broad, big-picture way. Others are micro editors through and through. They like catching small errors and polishing stories until they’re ready for publication.

You might have a natural talent for either macro or micro editing. But in your editing course you have to be able to do both, because macro and micro editing are equally important. The most important story in the paper can be ruined by thin reporting or factual errors. And even if a story gets the substance right, if it’s filled with misspelled words or AP style mistakes, no one will take it seriously.

So as you edit stories, train your brain to focus on both sides of the equation. I generally tell young editors to read a story through from start to finish before doing any editing, just so you know what it’s about. Then, make sure the story is well-reported, factual, objective and so on.

On the other hand, don’t forget to be exacting and precise in making sure that spelling, grammar and AP style are all correct. That’s where the micro editing comes in. Get both right – the macro and the micro – and you’ll have  a well-edited story.

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Can Reporters, Objective or Otherwise, Uncover Every Kind of Truth?

Many journalists say it’s time to jettison traditional objectivity and focus more directly on pursuing the truth. As I’ve said before, I think objectivity is still a valuable newsgathering tool.

For Journalists, Objectivity Should Be a Tool, Not a Crutch

Every few years, an old debate re-emerges in journalism: Is objectivity a good thing?

Here’s How to Cover a Town Government or School Board Meeting

Town governments and school boards deal with a wide range of issues. Some are important and interesting, some are mundane and, frankly, dull. So the reporter covering these meetings must quickly learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Young Reporters Cover the Biggest Story of Their Careers When Four Men are Slain in Bucolic Bucks County

It was the kind of case one might expect to find in Philadelphia to the south or New York to the north, but the slayings of four young men over a few sweltering days in July became one of the biggest and most tragic stories to come out of the bucolic Bucks County suburbs in years.

A Farewell to a Friend, From a Newsroom Long Ago

I’ve slogged away in many newsrooms over the years but the very first one I ever worked in was at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where, in the early 1980s, students published a plucky little weekly paper punningly titled the Parkside Ranger. It was there that I met Rick Luehr. Rick was a gangly and bespectacled young man who would have been quite tall had he not had a perpetual stoop, this due to the fact that he had lost the use of his legs at a young age and was left to make his way through the world on crutches or, later, a wheelchair. The reasons for his infirmities involved a complex and troubled medical history, but the larger point is that Rick never spent much time dwelling on his problems, so I never really knew nor cared why he was what people used to crudely call crippled, because Rick was not a disabled person to me but a buddy and a good one.

Teaching Journalism in Tumultuous Times

A professor from another college recently sought my advice about how to rejuvenate his school’s journalism program. He asked me two questions, one easy, the other not so much.

Remembering Pete Hamill, Through His Writing

The one and only time I worked with an honest-to-god legend in my career as an ink-stained wretch was when, for a brief period in the 1990s, Pete Hamill was editor in chief of the New York Daily News, and I was an editor on the national desk. I didn’t interact with Pete much; he was, understandably, primarily focused on coverage of the city, the tabloid’s raison d’etre. I do recall coming in late to work one morning at the paper’s old West 33rd Street headquarters. Speed-walking down the corridor lined with famous Daily News front pages, I suddenly found Pete next to me, headed in the same direction. We chatted for a minute or so about this and that – in addition to his myriad achievements Pete was a genuinely nice guy – then went our separate ways as we entered the football field-sized newsroom. I practically levitated the rest of the way to my desk.