Covering 21st century policing in the social media age

By Andrew Kreighbaum

Washington Post reporter Kimberly Kindy said social media has had a profound role in shaping the paper’s coverage of police shootings in 2015. When someone is shot and killed by an officer, readers demand answers in real time from both authorities and the media. Quantifying the issue helps journalists answer those questions quicker, Kindy said.

She and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Brad Schrade spoke about the power of counting in reporting on police shootings.

“The questions that were swirling in social media helped us decide in many respects what we needed to tackle,” Kindy said.

She and fellow Post reporter Kimbriell Kelly found last year that among thousands of fatal shootings in 2015, only 54 officers faced charges. Kindy said they created a database for tracking those cases as they were reading the documents and news stories about the shootings.

Counting an issue like police shootings is the difference between being able to tell a heartbreaking story about one family’s loss and starting to answer questions.

Schrade’s reporting for the Journal-Constitution revealed that half of the Georgians shot and killed by police since 2010 were unarmed or shot in the back. Working with reporters from news station WSB-TV, the newspaper tracked a massive amount of shootings with an online app used internally. That reporting surprised even some Georgia police chiefs, who said they would incorporate the reporters’ findings into their training.

“I really believe they’ve been caught flat-footed by not analyzing this data and publicly reporting it in a credible way in an era of social media when these things can explode,” he said.

Ronal Serpas, a former police chief in New Orleans and Nashville, said that much of the reporting on police shootings hasn’t taken into account context, such as the state of mental health treatment. He urged journalists to reflect those realities.

“The defunding of mental health treatment in America has resulted in police officers confronting the very people who should be confronted by physicians and nurses, not police officers,” he said.

Serpas also said reporters should demand accountability not just from police departments, but mayors and lawmakers, who enact the rules that make it tougher to fire problem officers.

 

Andrew Kreighbaum is currently a graduate researcher at the Investigative Reporting Workshop and recently finished a master's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. He has previously reported on education and local government for newspapers in Texas including The El Paso Times, The Monitor and the Laredo Morning Times.

By Moriah Balingit

It’s an island few outside of Indonesia had ever heard of. Accessible only half the year because of violent monsoons, Benjina is located in the southernmost portion of Indonesia.

The island held a shocking secret: it was where slaves languished -- sometimes in cages -- before they were forced onto boats and pressed into service on Indonesian fishing vessels. And the fish that they caught -- so valuable that they were barred from eating it -- was making its way to supermarkets and restaurants in the U.S.

“Your seafood may come from slaves,” the report revealed.

But to tell this story -- to trace the path of seafood from the hands of slaves to family tables and cat food bowls across the U.S. -- the Associated Press would have to go above and beyond, employing techniques that seemed straight out of a spy movie. The team of reporters won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and an IRE Medal for their work, which revealed not only the widespread use of slaves, but their link to the U.S.

[Read the series: Seafood from Slaves]

The AP’s international enterprise editor Mary Rajkumar detailed the extraordinary lengths that the team of reporters went to. Their investigation, which shed light on an institution that many assumed was a shameful relic of centuries past, also radically changed the lives of the men bonded into labor.

It started with a tip, Rajkumar said. Then, after some probing, reporters found that the existence of slave labor in the fishing industry in the region was an “open secret.”

In Benjina, they laid eyes on the men, some in cages for attempting to escape too many times. And others who never made it, buried in graves in the forest under the fake names they had been given to cover up for the fact that they were working illegally.

The men, from poverty-stricken Burma, were lured by the promise of high wages, Rajkumar explained, and then trapped on boats and the remote islands.

“They’re told that they’re going to have a great job .. and then essentially trapped on these boats,” Rajmukar said.

To get footage of the men on Benjina, reporters, fearful for their safety and the safety of the men who became their subjects, passed a camera to a migrant worker on the island.

“If you see the video, he’s shaking because he’s so nervous,” Rajkumar said.

But the men were desperate to get home, and despite the danger, wanted to talk to reporters. To get to them, reporters pulled boats alongside fishing vessels and conducted interviews shouting back and forth.

Proving slavery existed was just the first step. Linking the seafood caught by slaves to the U.S. market was even more challenging.

It began with tracking shipments of seafood from Benjina using a tool called Marine Tracker. They traced it to the port of Samut Sakhon, located near Bangkok in Thailand. There, Rajkumar said, reporters observed the seafood being off-loaded onto trucks. Reporters then trailed the trucks over four nights to factories around the city. From there, they traced the shipments from the companies in the U.S. through U.S. Customs records.

The Associated Press discovered the seafood shipments were making their way to the U.S. The seafood ended up in U.S. supermarkets and restaurants, where Americans, blind to its origins, were serving it up on dinner tables and at restaurants.

Some of the seafood went into making cat food. It brought into stark relief the gross inhumanity of the supply chain: cats in the U.S. were consuming fish that was deemed too valuable to be consumed by the men who caught it.

“This was heartbreaking,” Rajkumar said. “The men had no idea where the fish was going. All they knew was it was too valuable for them to eat it. Can you imagine giving your life up for cat food?”

The impact of the reporting was immediate, resulting in the liberation of the men at Benjina. But dozens of boats loaded with slaves scattered across Southeast Asia before their men could be rescued. So the Associated Press set out to find them, a needle in a vast, watery haystack. So AP reporters convinced a company, DigitalGlobe, to point their cameras towards the region, capturing images of the boats known to be carrying slaves.

"You can't hide from space,” the CEO of the company told Associated Press.

But Rajkumar said there is still far more to be done. The fishing industry was far from unique in its use of slavery and forced labor -- and it likely still persists.

“In the end, 2,000 slaves were freed,” Rajkumar said,  “and that’s just a drop in the bucket.”

 

Moriah Balingit covers education for The Washington Post. She graduated from American University in 2015 with a master's degree in journalism and public affairs with an emphasis on investigative reporting. She previously was the city hall reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Investigative Reporters and Editors has named the Department of Veterans Affairs as the winner of its annual Golden Padlock Award recognizing the most secretive U.S. agency or individual.

The VA was selected for this honor for withholding records about the qualifications of medical staff who evaluated thousands of veterans for potential brain injuries following service to their country. When TEGNA TV stations across the U.S. formally requested the information, VA hospitals withheld the names, board certifications and medical specialties of doctors performing the exams, saying release of the information "would not contribute to the public's understanding of the Federal Government." Kare11 in Minneapolis first obtained records showing many potential brain injuries were evaluated by staff whose qualifications did not meet the VA’s own requirements, potentially missing cases of injuries that can trigger additional benefits for veterans. Following an internal investigation, the VA now acknowledges 25,000 veterans across the country had their brain injury diagnoses performed by doctors who were not qualified to make those diagnoses. TEGNA is currently in the process of appealing the agency's public disclosure denials. 

"The judges believed the VA represents all of the hallmark attributes that we try to honor with the Golden Padlock -- secrecy, evasion and a fundamentally curious view of what contributes 'to the public's understanding' of government," said IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit.

IRE invited a representative from the winning agency to attend and receive the honor. No response was received.

To learn about the 2016 finalists, click here.

At the IRE Conference in New Orleans, 2016 Knight Scholar Aliah Williamson spoke with Tonya Simpson, executive producer of the investigative team and special projects at WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Williamson: What interests you about investigative journalism?

Simpson: I feel like all journalism is important, sharing stories and shining a light on issues is important overall; but investigative journalism has always been a passion because I feel like that is the type of journalism that affects change. Investigative stories, they uncover wrongdoings, hold people accountable and give a voice to the voiceless. At the end of the day, my goal is to always help people. A lot of times, with general assignment stories I find myself asking questions, and investigative journalism feeds all of my curiosity.

Williamson: What do you do as an executive producer?

Simpson: As the Executive Producer, I pretty much supervise the investigative unit. I work with the reporters and producers to come up with story ideas, I approve story ideas, I come up with story plans as far as who do we want to talk to and what do we want it to look like. I create our calendar and decide when stories are going to air. I work a lot with our creative services team to come up with promos and social media pushes. I am very hands-on with scripts and final versions of the stories.   

Williamson: How do you bring creativity to the newsroom and your investigative stories?

Simpson: As far as creativity with stories, I like doing stories that are enterprise. I am always looking for stories that nobody else is telling. I talk to people everywhere I go. I ask a million questions about everything and so I feel that separates our content from other markets. As far as creativity visually, I work with some awesome photographers. We talk about the vision for stories so they know what it looks like and they give us a lot of ideas. We also have a pretty big graphics staff so we are able to do a lot of animations. One example is, we were covering an officer-involved shooting and we couldn’t get the video, but we had all the details and our graphics department literally did an animated recreation of the whole shoot-out. They created this really powerful animation and it was something that no other station did.

Williamson: What are some specific stories that you find yourself drawn to covering?

Simpson: Two of the things I’m passionate about are education and mental health issues. I have always been passionate about education. I know that it is one of the things that got me from where I was from to where I am. I grew up in the projects on the southside of Chicago and I realized very early that school was going to be important if I wanted to do better. So I volunteer at a high school in Milwaukee and I talk to the young women about the importance of them staying in school and getting a secondary education. So any education issues, I am super passionate about. Mental health is a new thing. I got out of news and I got a job with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. I was their spokesperson. And as part of my duties, I got to work with the mental health hospital. I just learned a lot in the time I worked there. I met a lot of patients and people suffering from mental illness in the community, and I worked with those people on panels and focus groups. I realized how big of an issue it is and the stigma attached to it, and that mental illness wasn’t at all what I thought it was before I got that job. So that became a passion of mine through that job.

Williamson: How do you feel that you have brought more awareness to your passions through your work?

Simpson: We have done a few stories on the mental health hospital in Milwaukee as it is going through a lot of changes in the last few years. They are actually trying to close the mental health hospital and make it community-based. Research has shown that this actually works better because the mental health hospital in Milwaukee is like a jail. So we’ve just been able to keep the community updated on the process as it happens and tell both sides of the story. I understand that there is another side to the story. The community is scared and there is a lot of ignorance about mental health issues. So there is a big contingent of people in Milwaukee who are pissed off and frightened and feel like they don’t want mental health people in their communities and neighborhoods. So every time there is a new development, I make sure that it makes it into a newscast. As far as education, same thing. The Milwaukee Public School system has been going through a lot of changes right now. The county executive has just gotten a commission from state lawmakers to take over underperforming schools. It is a huge issue. Some people feel that it is a good idea; others, such as teachers, think it is a terrible idea. I have been making efforts to talk to the main players and using my connections to report the main issues.

Williamson: If you could only do your job with one tool or skill, what would you choose and why?

Simpson: I think it’s almost impossible to be a good journalist with just one skill, so I will pick a tool. I will say my phone and the reason is, so much happens in the digital space now and so many people get information on their phones and depend on their phones. I can shoot video on my phone, I can get interviews on my phone, I can get all this information to a huge audience with just a phone. So if I could only have one tool, it would be a phone. That is where news is breaking now.

By Reade Levinson

Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri changed the way journalists cover law enforcement. At the 2016 IRE Conference in New Orleans, civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson joined reporters Oliver Laughland of the Guardian US, Errin Haines Whack of the Associated Press, and Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post to discuss what’s next for reporting on policing in America.

Before Ferguson, Lowery said, the American press was “pretty good” at addressing individual incidents of police violence, but ignored the larger system at play. “At the very beginning, so much of our coverage was about the micro level,” he added. “It was about this one shooting in this one place."

But Brown's case led to more scrutiny and investigation into systemic inequality.

Mckesson attributed the change in attitude in part to journalists reporting on protests in the streets of Ferguson. “We all have to be in this sort of traumatic experience together,” he said. “If we have to walk,” one activist had explained to a reporter, “you have to walk.”

Whack and Lowery spoke about their experiences reporting on the ground and how they began asking bigger questions after hearing story after story of police violence. “Every person would give you this anecdote,” Lowey said, “about why they don’t trust the police. It would be hyper-specific and every single time it would be the craziest thing you’d ever heard.”

The panel was asked the ways in which reporters’ own ethnicity and race affects coverage. Whack discussed feeling validated by finally having data to prove issues she already knew existed. The new flood of information also helped “dispel any 'biases' that black journalists might have in covering or wanting to cover these types of issues.”

For reporters looking to dig further, Mckesson recommended investigating:

• The complaint process, especially the process involved in filing complaints against officers.

• Civilian oversight boards. Often police chiefs are the final arbiter in internal disciplinary decisions, allowing them to circumvent the oversight boards.

• Policies on “use of force.” For example, in many cities, it’s still legal for officers to use a chokehold.

 

Reade Levinson is a graduate student at Stanford University and a data intern at Thomson Reuters. As a radio reporter, she traveled to the Calais “Jungle” to report on an emerging program to teach refugees reporting skills so they can produce their own stories.

At the IRE Conference in New Orleans, 2016 Knight Scholar Arriana McLymore spoke with attendee Francisco Vara-Orta, a graduate student at the University of Missouri.

McLymore: What interested you in journalism?

Vara-Orta: My mother always had newspapers in the house. We didn’t always have the money to buy certain things, but she would say that she wanted me to have food for thought. Because of my mother, I grew up with a really strong appreciation for journalism. Even though there weren’t any journalists in my family and none of them went to college, they felt like it was their only window out into the bigger world. That stuck with me.

McLymore: What’s the biggest piece you’ve worked on? How did it impact you as a writer?

A: While I was doing a training program from the Tribune company, I got to write about a young Latino man who had been paying for his community college with cash. He worked at CVS Pharmacy and he would pay semester by semester. It was taking him forever to get an associate’s degree because he didn’t want loans. I wrote about the cultural implications of why Latinos are afraid to get loans and why people of color are weary of loans and banks. The story ran on the front page of the LA Times and someone who read the story contacted me to get in touch with the student. Months later the student reached out to me to say that the reader was a benefactor for the student’s education because he was so touched by the story. He ended up playing for the student’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

McLymore: What are your plans after graduate school?

Vara-Orta: I would love to do in-depth journalism. I think that doing thoughtful, nuanced, in-depth journalism is really important. We have to make sure that we are incorporating different types of voices. I want to work for a place that supports me that way and that values their workers. I want to in a place that I can thrive.

McLymore: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing journalists today?

Vara-Orta: Competing with the massive amount of misinformation. There’s misinformation that we as journalists already have to figure out, but there’s also public perceptions that are formed by social media. We no longer have the monopoly on the press.

McLymore: What is your favorite part of the IRE conference?

Vara-Orta: The relationships are my favorite. You are either coming back to someone you haven’t seen in awhile or you’re planting a seed. You can become close friends with the people here or you can find a way to get your dream job.

By Taeler De Haes

We live in a world of billionaires who exert quite a bit of influence over our lives, especially as reporters.

At the recent IRE Conference in New Orleans, a panel of investigative journalists discussed getting sued by billionaires, including Donald Trump. They gave tips on how to bulletproof their work, defend themselves in court, and, if need be, recover from the fall.

The panel consisted of Lowell Bergman, formerly of 60 Minutes and now the Distinguished Chair of Investigative Reporting at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism; Monika Bauerlein, CEO of Mother Jones; Stephanie Grimes, former deputy editor of features at the Las Vegas Review-Journal; and Timothy L. O’Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg View and Bloomberg Gadfly. The panel was moderated by Reg Chua, the executive editor of editorial operations and data and innovation at Reuters.

The following is a list of tips for when billionaires bite back.

• Be prepared. Suffering the consequences when doing something right is not always something journalists are prepared for.

• You are probably right in the end.

• Have really good lawyers.

• Foster simulated learning.

• Be prepared for people to call you a scumbag.

• Remember that the truth will prevail.

• Email discipline is key. Make sure your motives and questions are always neutral to prevent any allegation of malicious intent.

 

Taeler De Haes graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in May. She received her MA in investigative journalism and her BJ in broadcast journalism.

IRE members elected seven new directors to the IRE board on Saturday evening at the organization's annual conference in New Orleans.

The newly elected members are: Sarah Cohen, The New York Times; Andrew Donohue, Reveal + The Center for Investigative Reporting; Ellen Gabler, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Jill Riepenhoff, The Columbus Dispatch; Nicole Vap, KUSA-TV-Denver; Phil Williams, WTVF-Nashville; and Lee Zurik, WVUE-TV-New Orleans.

The board then selected members of the executive committee. They are: Matt Goldberg, president; Ziva Branstetter, vice president; Ellen Gabler, secretary; Andrew Donohue, treasurer, Phil Williams and past-president Sarah Cohen.

The membership also elected two members to the Contest Committee. They are: Jim Polk, formerly of CNN, and Saleem Khan, INVSTG8.NET.

By Reade Levinson

How do you begin investigative reporting when you’re short on cash? Start by searching Google for documents tagged “confidential.”

At the “Investigative Reporting on a Shoestring” panel, past and present freelancers — including Lee Fang from The Intercept, Kathryn Joyce, a freelance journalist and author of two books, Trevor Aaronson from the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, and Kelly Virella and Seth Wessler from the Investigative Fund — shared strategies for independent journalists on cultivating sources, building a beat, and finding low-cost legal advice.

Or, as moderator Esther Kaplan phrased it, how to turn your army of one into a large, ad hoc army of many.

Joyce spoke about how past work acts as a calling card, especially now that “more sophisticated sources are making decisions about who they trust to tell their stories based on what they read of you.” Understand that your sources are assessing you, and:

• Have long conversations, and be willing to listen to stories that don’t immediately seem relevant. The longer people talk, the more they open up and the more naturally eloquent they get.

• Start by casting a wide net. “Imagine that you’re learning about your subject for the first time, and figure out who you need to talk to.”

• Every issue has it’s own online community, and you can listen in when those forums are public.

Fang talked about finding documents online, made (often unintentionally) public by private organizations. Start with document sharing websites like:

• ScribD

• Slideshare.net

• Issuu.com

Wessler talked about finding cheap legal counsel to help with FOIA requests. Lawyers are often willing to help independent journalists because:

• A FOIA suit is a great way to get a young lawyer into court, and the amount of work is fairly minimal.

• Lawyers look for (pro bono) work that makes them feel like they’re doing good in the world, and investigative stories can do that.

Aaronson emphasized building up a beat as a way to make it easier to find and sell stories. Technology has “torn down the barriers for independent journalists,” as well as made it easier (and cheaper!) to protect sources. Use no-cost smartphone apps (Telegram? WhatsApp?) to talk to sources on encrypted channels.

Virella talked about bringing on interns as a way to build out a newsroom at low cost. “If you have a good training program and really great procedures for insuring the integrity of your work,” she said, “you can do so much with working with someone who has virtually no experience working in journalism.”

Virella listed two organizations she’s used for legal advice:

• The Online Media Legal Network, part of Harvard University’s Berkman Center, has a network of legal clinics and pro bono media attorneys that offer help to nonprofits with a yearly budget below $250,000 or individuals making $45,000 or per year.

• Different Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts programs are also “totally willing to work on media related stuff” offer drop-in clinics and legal advice for a $100 membership fee.

Key takeaway: “People really want to help” independent journalists.

 

Reade Levinson is a graduate student at Stanford University and a data intern at Thomson Reuters. As a radio reporter, she traveled to the Calais “Jungle” to report on an emerging program to teach refugees reporting skills so they can produce their own stories.