In an e-mail interview, Lisa Chedekel and Matt Kauffman share insights into the benefits of their different reporting styles.

EXPOSÉ: In "Question 7," your distinct personalities and reporting styles come through: Matt is "methodical, orderly," Lisa is "impatient, a little impetuous." You work closely together on the investigative team for the Hartford Courant. When did you begin working together? And can you describe how you put to use your different personalities to get the most out of an investigation?

LISA CHEDEKEL: We've actually known each other for about 20 years. Originally, we were competitors covering New Haven for different newspapers. We formed a friendship back then, and it's continued through the dozen years we've both been at the Courant.

We've only worked together on the investigative team for two years, but we know each other's reporting styles well. Matt has great skill -- and patience -- for mining every available source of data for a story. He knows how to navigate Freedom of Information laws, and he's meticulous about organizing information. I'd rather jump on the phone and start filling up notebooks with interviews than negotiate with bureaucrats over data. I like the challenge of getting people to tell their stories, to open up.

In this investigation, Matt and I were a good balance. I tend to want to rush headlong into a story as soon as I see a way in; he's more deliberate, trying to see every angle and obstacle. When one of us ran into a roadblock -- a reluctant family, or a partial response to an FOI request -- we talked it out and decided how to proceed. When one of us got sidetracked by an interview or a policy question, we'd pull each other back on track. We worked out our own pace, piecing together the key elements of the series with that mix of eagerness and caution.

In the end, the series benefited from the teamwork. By chasing both the data and personal stories, we were able to examine specific gaps in mental health care and show the human consequences.

Throughout your careers, how have you learned to recognize when you have a major story? What characteristics need to be present in a big story like "Forced to Fight?"

CHEDEKEL AND KAUFFMAN:To us, what made this series powerful was that it brought readers face-to-face with real people who had very personal and tragic stories, while also exposing the systemic failures that had contributed to those tragedies. And that combination often makes for an important project. We've learned that the best stories need to go beyond compelling tales and identify the causes or pressures or breakdowns behind those tales.

In assessing story ideas, we try to evaluate them as readers would evaluate them and look for the facets that have a universal draw: Are lives at stake? Are the vulnerable at risk? Are promises being broken? Is power being abused? And then: Can we humanize the story? And can we take it beyond anecdotes? Those are the elements of a "big story," and we found them all in this series.

When we began interviewing families and heard their heart-wrenching stories, we knew we had something worth publishing. But it wasn't until we could combine those stories with broader revelations -- that the military was violating its own written policies on deployments, and disregarding FDA warnings on medications, and sidestepping a Congressional order on mental-health assessments for hundreds of thousands of troops -- that we knew we had a significant project.

For your report, you interviewed veterans who suffered from mental health problems, as well as families of young veterans who had committed suicide. As reporters, how do you approach sensitive interviews like those? How receptive were these subjects to sharing their stories with you?

CHEDEKEL AND KAUFFMAN: These were tough interviews for us -- some of the toughest either of us has ever done. Many of the soldiers we interviewed were still enlisted, so they were really taking a risk speaking to us about their mental health problems and the treatment they received. Some of them talked to us only on background, for fear of retribution; others were willing to go on the record. They all gave us insight into how the system worked -- and how it failed.

With the families of troops who had committed suicide in Iraq, most of them had never talked about the circumstances of the death of their son or daughter or husband. The military doesn't identify suicides publicly, so families never have to reveal what happened. Some had never even told relatives or close friends. There we were, strangers calling them from a newspaper in New England, asking them about one of the most taboo topics imaginable -- suicide. You'd think most of them would hang up. And yet few did.

There was no magic formula for getting them to talk. In some cases, it was a matter of calling them once to introduce the topic of mental health care, then calling again a week later, and again a week later -- however long it took. It was trying to build a relationship of trust with them, over time. With other families we contacted, it was almost the opposite: They sounded relieved to hear our questions, after sitting on a painful secret for so long.

Many family members were torn between wanting to tell their stories in the hope of preventing more tragedies, and wanting to protect the memories of their loved ones who died in Iraq. We respected the privacy of those who opted not to speak out. Their stories remain in our notebooks.

Matt, in "Question 7," you describe your struggle to receive documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Can you describe the importance of the FOIA for your profession, and what are the challenges in acquiring information from the government?

KAUFFMAN: For me, and I think for many journalists, the FOIA is a source of great pride -- and great frustration. Pride, because it represents ideals that are key to a democratic society in which power properly belongs to the people. And frustration, because public employees -- our employees -- at all levels of government routinely ignore, defy and pervert Freedom of Information laws with little consequence.

That said, I'm still a believer. I still file requests when I want information from my government, and I refuse to give up after months and months of inaction. So to me, it's extremely important. But some journalists consider the Freedom of Information Act to be a worthless promise and a waste of time, and I understand their despair, because the disconnect between the ideal and the reality is so great.

And the problem is, there is rarely any penalty for flouting the law. When agencies take months -- or more -- to even respond to a request, or redact information they are not authorized by law to redact, or charge absurd fees that have no relation to the cost of providing the records, nothing happens. Filing suit is a time-consuming and expensive proposition; so many requesters simply lose steam or throw in the towel.

There are some grand quotes out there about Freedom of Information. "Democracy dies in the dark" is a good one. But we don't live up to that principle. Too many government officials still don't know the law, or view it as a hassle or an intrusion, and are too quick to forget that the information they control is owned not by them, but by the people.

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The 2006 series, "Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight" that Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman co-authored was a finalist for the Pulitzer in Investigative Reporting in 2007 and won a number of other national awards, including: the George Polk Award for Military Reporting; the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting; the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting; and the Heywood Broun Award from the Newspaper Guild-CWA.

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