UCSC SciCom: Policy and Investigative Reporting

This class focuses on in-depth and investigative reporting, where science and technology meets public policy and society. We will cover essential skills of investigative reporting, including obtaining documents through public records requests, using online reporting resources, and analyzing data and documents. We will also explore ethical and legal issues. Over 10 weeks, students will work in pairs to complete a substantial article on an issue of societal/political importance.

Schedule

Week 1

• Apr 1: Introduction

  What do we mean by investigative journalism? How to find a story worth reporting, by asking the right questions. Defining the minimum story, and the reporting needed to deliver it. Using checkpoints and green/red lights to avoid wasted effort. Avoiding procrastination. The secret of successful reporting: Call, call, call, and email, email, email!

• Apr 3: Narrowing it down

  Brainstorm your story ideas.

Week 2

• Apr 8: Investigative approaches

  Discuss investigative reports selected by students, studying the methods employed.

Week 4

• Apr 22: Interviewing data

  Beyond the spreadsheet: We’ll use R and the tidyverse, which you worked with last quarter, to ask questions of data and find story leads.

• Apr 24: Working with documents

  Many investigations depend on systematically analyzing masses of documents. We’ll discuss examples, and explore two tools to help you work with large document sets: DocumentCloud and Overview.

Week 5

• May 1: Backgrounding non-profits and companies

  Guidestar and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer for researching non-profits; Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Sqoop, and other tools for researching companies.

Week 6

• May 8: Privacy, security, and e-sleuthing

  The tracks you leave online, and how to cover them. How to protect yourself, and your sources, from prying eyes. Using social media and other tools to investigate people.

Week 8

• May 20: Guest lecturer: Ben Welsh

  Ben Welsh, Los Angeles Times data desk editor, will explain how the LA Times integrates data journalism into the newsroom.
  IMPORTANT: Ben will also meet with students, to discuss their projects.

• May 22: Individual meetings

  After initial edits and Ben feedback, a catch-up to make sure everything is on track to deliver the best article possible!

Week 9

• May 29: Scientists behaving badly

  Reporting on scientific misconduct, research ethics, sexual harassment, and other bad behavior by scientists.

Week 10

• Jun 5: Ethics in journalism

  Case studies in journalistic ethics. What would you have done?