Muckraking 101: Documents You Can Use
How can bloggers and online activists use simple investigative techniques to increase their impact? Participants in this practical workshop will learn how to use free or cheap web tools to trace the assets of public officials, decipher the SEC filings of public companies, file Freedom of Information Act requests for government documents, and much, much more. Sponsored by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
Lindsay Beyerstein is an award-winning investigative journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her reporting has appeared in Salon, Slate, The New York Press, In These Times, AlterNet, and other publications. She was the recipient of a 2009 Project Censored Award. Lindsay's photographs have been published in TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, The Austin American Statesman, and on PBS. She is the author of the Morning Coffee, a daily international news bulletin produced by the UN Foundation's UN Dispatch Blog. Lindsay covered the 2008 presidential election for firedoglake.
Esther Kaplan is investigative editor at the Nation Institute's Investigative Fund, which supports in-depth reporting with an emphasis on the independent media. In the past two years, Investigative Fund stories have won a National Magazine Award, a Polk Award, and several other national awards and have sparked Congressional hearings, legislation, resignations of federal officials and an FBI investigation. Esther is a former editor at The Nation and the author of With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and the Christian Right (New Press).
Bill Bastone is the founder of The Smoking Gun, a document-based investigative journalism website that posts exclusive material obtained from government and law enforcement sources, via Freedom of Information requests, and from court files. Before that he was a staff reporter with The Village Voice's investigative reporting team, covering City Hall, criminal justice, and the Mafia.
Brant Houston is the Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where he teaches investigative and advanced reporting. He is the co-author of The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook and author of Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide and is the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In recent years he has cofounded the Global Investigative Journalism Network and assisted in the creation of several new investigative journalism centers in the US and internationally.
