One of the most respected in his field, we visited News Channel 8's Steve Andrews recently. Steve is the Chief Investigative Reporter with 25 years of experience. He has uncovered much scam and political wrong-doing over the course of his career and had a great deal to say and teach us.
He taught us about public records being gold to a reporter. This seems to be a common theme for the speakers to express to us. Steve talked about how time consuming searching through public records can be. He explained how the time spent is worth it and can uncover plenty useful information. This is especially true for an investigative reporter.
He definitely wanted to drive home the point about being polite to people, instead of being a bully, which will make you look unprofessional to the audience. In my opinion, reporters that seem disrespectful or rude look emotionally involved and look like the have a personal vendetta towards the subject of investigation.
Adding to the advice given by Mr. Andrews was to have questions or ideas prepared before you ever approach someone. He said three is a good rule of thumb. Sometimes the approach can get away from what you planned and you must adjust to the situation. Being prepared only helps because people may say things to keep you away from the truth, and this will help you stay on topic. He also explained that knowing the rules of the place your going is vital.
A recent example of his work that stood out to me was the story about the Workforce Alliance spending about $20,000 dollars on food. This all highlighted by $9 dollar cheesecake, was interesting because I had heard about the story but didn't realize that it was his and WFLA's work that brought it to the public attention.
This led to the head of the Workforce Alliance stepping down and many more changes to it's structure and inter workings. It seems like every guest reporter has some sort of story about taking down politicians or corruption amongst government spending. Not a great reputation for them as it is.
In conclusion, it was obvious that Steve knew what he was talking about and had many great tips for our class in future investigations. The main thing I'll take from this is the three question rule and the always being polite to people.
Watch out for next blog post about Clerk of the County Court systems and ways to get public records at the court-house.
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There was one thing that stuck out to me most while reading this blog.... You really enjoyed Steve Andrew's presentation. Some of the paragraphs were difficult to read due to grammatical errors, so maybe read your blog out loud next time! It helps me =)
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