5 takeaways:
➀ Be ready, open and available to your audience and advocates. Tips are an important part of investigative consumer reporting. Newsrooms rely on their audiences to sound the alarm or raise concerns over people, products or companies that may seek to take advantage of consumers. And scams spring eternal. “Cheaters and liars never go away, might be put away, but there’s another coming to replace them,” Torres said. Asking readers or viewers to “contact us” makes consumers feel heard — and may lead to stories. Cultivating sources with consumer advocacy groups and experts is essential as well, especially since “they’re always willing to talk to you,” Torres said.
➁ Regulate the regulators. Some of the best consumer protection stories come from taking a hard look at the performance of the government agencies that are supposed to protect the public. When scams or harms surface, investigate how well the agencies responsible for protecting consumers did their jobs, and if they failed, investigate why. “Always look at ways that you can find people, and delve deep and talk to regulators,” Torres explained. “And trust me, sometimes they don’t want to talk to you. You just have to find a way.”
➂ Identify and interact with inspectors. Florida’s Department of Health wouldn’t allow Torres to follow a restaurant inspector around for one of her award-winning investigative stories, but she still recommends that reporters try this technique. “Always ask to follow an inspector because you can learn so much,” Torres said. If access is denied or curtailed Torres advises reporters to find former or retired inspectors to gain bureaucratic insights. Use LinkedIn and other professional social networking services to identify and interact with inspectors from all sorts of business, industry backgrounds.
➃ Identify the stakes in scams and frauds. Ask yourself: “Who wins, who loses, who cares?” Torres said. “If you cannot answer those three in a story, you need to go back and do more reporting,” she said. These stories aren’t just supposed to be about scammers and victims — accountability should plays a crucial role in the narrative structure. Why has the wrongdoing persisted? Whether it’s missteps by a state, federal or local agency, or prosecutor or court, shining a light on their mistakes and missteps is as important as spotlighting the problem.
➄ Explore uncharted angles and anticipate roadblocks. “You never know how a story is going to evolve” or the eventual outcome, Torres learned the day she went to interview a contractor suspected of wrongdoing. “The investigators were around the corner, waiting for me to leave the place…. and then they arrested him,” she recalled.
Speaker:
Mc Nelly Torres, Investigative Journalist and Editor, Center for Public Integrity
This program was funded by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
