Investigating Breaking News

By Ben Gelinas

The Seattle Times won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage this year for their exhaustive work on the shooting deaths of four police officers last November. The paper had an action plan for covering such a big story. It happened on a weekend and the newsroom was bare. But as the news broke, numerous reporters and editors dropped their plans and came in to help. Breaking off into groups with specific goals, they flooded their website with new information as it was confirmed, and all met regularly to make sure they weren't stepping on each others' toes. They broke the name of the alleged shooter online while police still searched for him. A photographer staking out an apparent stand-off with the man live-tweeted the whole affair.

Click here to see the Seattle Times' work on the day of and in the months that followed. Note the sidebar: "Coverage from the days following the Lakewood shootings."

Attached is a tipsheet for covering big stories like this, drafted by Seattle Times editor Suki Dardarian and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editor Greg Borowski. The latter paper won the 2010 Pulitzer for local reporting.


INVESTIGATIVE BREAKING NEWS TIPSHEET
By Greg Borowski and Suki Dardarian

Before News Breaks: Get tools, technology and training

Databases: Build databases and provide access to information services (like Accusearch) not just for long-term investigations but breaking news. Your goal is to track down people, their property, businesses, vital statistics, friends and relatives, voting records, court records.

Technology: Make sure your breaking news reporters and photographers have smart phones or other tools with web access, the ability to take photos and send back information to the newsroom quickly via text, tweet, e-mail, etc.

Social connections: Reporters and editors should have Twitter accounts or access to your company accounts, along with any other social networking tools. Use them regularly to know their advantages, limitations, and importantly, to build followers.

Virtual reporting hub: Inside your system or ina protected place outside your system, establish a sport to store information (databases, documents, notes) so it's accessible by the staff. (Ben's note: this is especially important when news is breaking and one person is writing from multiple reporter files).

Physical hub: Is your newsroom able to accommodate a vast influx of reporters and editors? Are there open desks where reporters can drag their laptops and work?

Training: Do it regularly, across the staff, to stay proficient in all these tools.

Practice: Use smaller breaking-news events as practice opportunities. Build and change based on successes and failures. A good plan gives you a jump well before news breaks.


When News Breaks: Engage the team; collaborate

Flood the zone and clearly define roles: Get bodies deployed in and then out of the office. Assign all taskes; define all roles. Don't leave any meeting with key questions unanswered or key decisions unmade. Assign lead writers for print and online.

Delegate/break up into triage teams: Find themes around which to organize mini teams: The event; the suspect; the victims; the system. If themes don't work, try location-based teams: in-office research, scene teams, etc.

Share everything: Keep talking/e-mailing during the day. Everyone should empty notebooks into central files all have access to. A witness who seems unimportant on Day One may turn out to be critical later. Check it frequently, to spot information that is suddenly relevant. Organize it so it's easy to follow.

Huddle/meet regularly: It may be a 10-minute stand-up meeting among editors and key reporters, or a more formal meeting to sketch out assignments and strategies. Collective knowledge is more valuable, and powerful, than individual knowledge. Stay focused on the key unanswered questions -- they provide a road map for pursuing the story.

Start a timeline: As you know key facts and details, put them in a timeline format. Save it in a public spot, so others can add to it. This can help reporters visualize what happened, minimize errors in stories and can be adapted for print and online publication.

Think presentation: You're reporting for online and print. Get a running conversation going about needs and ideas. Should pieces be broken into sidebars? Interactive maps? Get all departments - photo, graphics, design - involved early.

Search public records: Keep some reporters back from the scene. Start identifying key documents on the Internet, or by going to government offices. Make formal requests - inspection reports, license applications, audits, (parole documents, land titles) - early, before your competitors.

Use social media: To push your stories and information out, certainly. But social media is not just a megaphone. It's a listening device as well, a way to share information, monitor what others and saying and often to get first-hand accounts of what is happening.

Expand your source lists: Identify outside experts on a topic. Check your e-mail regularly for tips. Readers with a deep interest or knowledge in a topic are often itching to share information. And keep an eye out for ideas and tips made in comments sections on stories, posts on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere.

Make community a priority: What information - or social connections - do your readers need? How are you serving those needs?

Reinforcements: Make your colleagues a priority, too. Supply lots of healthy food and drink. Pace yourself and your team. Send people home and tell them specifically when to return.


As the dust starts to settle: Be strategic; develop a vision

Start over: Huddle; review all the information you've gathered, identify questions left to answer. be sure everyone knows what they're supposed to start on the next morning.

Keep meeting: Don't let the steam go out of a good story; keep meeting, and make specific assignments. Use records and sources to advance the story, push it beyond the news conference updates and official word.

Think Sunday: Consider if there is merit in re-telling the story - or a slice of it - in a narrative form. Is there a new perspective to offer, a step-back piece? What will readers need most after days of breaking news stories? If you can, begin to make sense of the story - but don't overshoot your reporting.

Build a plan: Look even further down the road. Does the story point to underlying issues with systems, government or business? Build a strategy to pursue those stories and questions of rthe coming months - and years. If a reform took place, check in at six months to see if it's working as promised. Editors should make clear decisions about the level of commitment to following the story, including when to scale back coverage. Set benchmarks for periodic check-ins.

Investigative Reporters and Editors Annual Conference, June 2010
Session: Investigating Breaking News
Presenters: Greg Borowski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Suki Dardarian, The Seattle Times