GUIDE TO INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
Locating Documents
At the heart of any journalistic investigation are documents: court judgments, corporate reports, property records, tax documents, criminal histories, an incriminating note jotted on the back of an envelope. If you're diligent, and a little bit lucky, this is where you might find your smoking gun. Generally, it's unlikely someone is going to hand you what you're looking for on a silver platter, so you'll have to rely on your own elbow grease and creativity, whether that means wading through stacks of transcripts at the local courthouse, reading your eyes bloodshot on online databases, or rooting through filthy dumpsters. Nobody said investigative legwork was glamorous. But knowing where and how to find important documents can make things a whole lot easier.
Local and State Records
Local governments, as well as most private organizations and non-profits, maintain mountains of records. Some are available to the public, others aren't. Where you start digging depends on what you're looking for. Her are just a few of the things you'll be able to access from government offices in your city, county or state:
- birth certificates, death certificates and marriage certificates
- names and addresses of property owners and business owners
- records of real-estate transactions, building permits and violations
- information on corporations, including officers, addresses, licenses and status
- records from criminal and civil courts, including names of defendants, charges and verdicts
- records from divorce court, bankruptcy court, U.S. Tax Court and probate court
- financial information on individuals, including loans, liens and collateral
- records of campaign contributions to elected officials
- information on government contracts, including documentation of each bid for services
Let's consider a hypothetical situation. Say you've witnessed some strange activities at Norm's Flower Shop on the corner: lots of seedy-looking folks coming in, disappearing into a back room and then leaving, flowerless. Perhaps you've checked the local police blotter and noticed a spike in drug busts in the area recently. Something just doesn't seem right.
You decide to find out who owns the property. A search of records at the county assessor's office, where property tax documents are kept, tells you that the owner is Acme Industries, Inc. But you need a name. You contact your state's secretary of state's corporations division and they forward you Acme's records, including the names of the corporation's officers and its founders. Turns out the founder, CEO and agent for Acme is a James W. Kingpin. You check the state superior court records and learn that Mr. Kingpin was busted a decade ago for selling cocaine. You also find that he's been arrested several times recently for possession with intent to sell, but each time the case has been dropped. Hmm. You return to the corporate records and see that the vice president of Acme is a Michael Grabb. That last name sounds familiar. You obtain Michael Grabb's birth certificate from the county clerk and find that -- presto! -- he is the son of local district attorney Robert Grabb. Furthermore, in the last two elections, Robert Grabb's biggest individual donor has been a Marsha McKinley. On a whim, you do some searching and find, after obtaining the marriage certificate from the county clerk, that McKinley's husband is none other than Mr. Kingpin.
And there you are. With the help of city, county, and state documents -- all of them public record -- you've gone from a hunch to possibly uncovering a government protection racket for a narcotics operation. Naturally, most investigations aren't going to be as easy as this, but the point is that readily available public documents can give you a gold mine of information on individuals and organizations.
Each state and locality has different laws about precisely what is available. To find out about your particular area, visit the BRB Publications public records Web site
which has links to local government sites. You might also try the
Investigative Reporters & Editors records resource or Netronline's public records search tool. Many public records are now available online for free or for a nominal fee; they are also accessible through subscription sites like Lexis-Nexis. With a little online searching, you should be able to locate other Web guides to public documents for your state. You'd also be wise to invest in Steve Weinberg's THE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER'S HANDBOOK: A GUIDE TO DOCUMENTS, DATABASES, AND TECHNIQUES, a great resource on how to find and use public documents.
Federal Records
Just as city, county, and state governments are required to keep records of their activities and proceedings, the three branches of the federal government publish truckloads of material each month -- including information on congressional sessions, federal and Supreme Court hearings, presidential activities, and issues related to most federal departments, agencies, and bureaus -- much of which will be useful to investigative reporters. The sheer volume of published materials can be daunting, however, so knowing how to locate documents is key.
The federal Government Printing Office (GPO) is responsible for publishing most of these materials; the GPO regularly sends copies of these documents to more than 1,250 federal depository libraries throughout the country and issues a monthly catalogue indexing them. Depository librarians are experts at helping you navigate the alphabet soup of government agencies to find what you're looking for. The GPO Web site is also a terrific resource and definitely worth a browse -- it includes listings of local depository libraries, a searchable database of GPO publications dating back to 1994, an online bookstore for government reports, and free access to thousands of other government documents, as well as links to a slew of federal government sites.
The National Archives and the National Technical Information Service,
which have millions of reports on federally funded science and technology projects, are also valuable sources for documents. And the federal court system now maintains a
database site with detailed records on U.S. district, appellate and bankruptcy cases.
It's a wise idea to have some sort of rudder to help steer you through the high seas of federal documents. Check out Judith Schiek Robinson's TAPPING THE GOVERNMENT GRAPEVINE: A USER-FRIENDLY GUIDE TO U.S. GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SOURCES and Joe Morehead's INTRODUCTION TO UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SOURCES -- both are good tools.
Freedom of Information Laws
Some government records aren't available to the general public. But that doesn't mean an investigative reporter can't get his or her hands on them. The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows any individual to request documents from the executive branch of the federal government -- this includes cabinet departments, the military, government corporations, and federal regulatory agencies. Say, for instance, you are investigating the death of an American soldier in Iraq. Military casualty reports are kept closed, but by filing a FOIA request you should be able to get the document. Most documents secured under the FOIA will have "sensitive" or "classified" information redacted by the issuing agency. But remember, the burden in FOIA cases rests with the government agency to explain why certain documents or facts must be kept secret; the individual requesting the document does not have to prove a "need to know."
For more information on the federal Freedom of Information Act and instructions on how to fill out a request, visit the
Center for Public Integrity Web site.
Most states have passed their own freedom-of-information legislation and open-records laws. For more information and links to these local statutes, check out the
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and
NOW's nationwide guide. The RCFP also offers an online guide to Freedom of Information issues, as well as an FOI Letter Generator.
Next: All About Sources
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