Processes Key for Investigative Project

A solid investigative story, whether an inside-page column's worth or a 15,000-word piece on A1, is never out of reach for beat business reporters.

According to Diana Henriques, a financial investigative reporter at The New York Times who has mastered the process herself as her list of awards below shows, it just takes curiosity and a penchant for documents.

The first step, she said last week at a workshop sponsored by the Reynolds Center at API at the South Asian Journalists Association's annual convention in New York, is simply to wonder why. Why do we never see any baby pigeons? Why are there no franchise restaurants within walking distance of Columbia University? Why are military men and women being approached by salesmen about their life insurance and investment habits?

That last question led her to write a series of stories about manipulative insurance sales practices that targeted young members of the military and that won her the Worth Bingham Award, George Polk Award, Goldsmith Prize and a finalist spot for the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting this year.

Her stories started with a phoned tip. But scores of others start with reporters taking a view of the everyday world where they observe anomalies and distortions and question them, she said.

Then, the reporting process begins. In the beginning, it's a bit of a fishing trip, she says. In the end, it's a full-fledged hunt.

When reporters have gathered enough initial information, they should then form a hypothesis the story must prove true. "The hypothesis can change," she said. But it gives reporters a strong starting point.

When it comes to hunting down information, reporters should head straight to the records. First come corporate filings, especially the 10-K (annual reports), 10-Q (quarterly report), S-1 (registration statement), 8-K (material event notice), proxy statement and Form 13-D (investor filing). These aren't easy documents to pore through, she warned, but well worth the time for a newsworthy nugget.

Then reporters should head to local, state and federal agencies and look for regulators, government contracts and bids, property and incorporation statements, and civil, criminal and bankruptcy court filings. Suffice to say, "I fell in love with documents," she said.

As for non-paper sources, Henriques suggests finding regulators, suppliers, rivals, partners and consumers -- people with whom reporters should touch base at least once a year, "even if it's a call to say hi." That way, reporters keep track of where sources are leaving from and heading to, even if that means investing in some new rolodex-like database software.

Though, reporters who have proven their hypotheses still aren't finished. They must then explain why that true hypothesis is so important to their readership -- why should people care about that conclusion? "This step gets skipped most often," she said, and strong investigative work remains on the drawing board for months as a result.

For decades, Henriques' step-by-step process, on the other hand, have taken her investigative projects from that drawing board directly to Page One.