OUT
OF THE SPOTLIGHT BUT ON THE MARK
BY
TRACY BARNETT AND STEVE WEINBERG
Anybody
who thinks investigative reporting is diminishing should visit
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), an international organization
based at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. (What
is IRE? Click here.) Every January,
entries for the IRE awards inundate the office. In the print category,
they arrive from the expected gigantic news organizations, The
Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago
Tribune, and so forth. But hundreds of them — including
some of the highest quality — come from newspapers barely
known outside their home states. Reading these is always educational
and usually inspiring. Much of the time, in newsrooms large and
small, the investigative effort is a true collaboration of reporter,
editor, and publisher. Some of the time, however, the reporters
must swim upstream, piecing together a project on their own time
because newsroom managers are too cheap, too scared, or both to
court controversy. For free-lance investigative reporters, time-consuming
projects are especially selfless. The print reporters profiled
here are largely unknown outside the craft and in some instances
even inside the craft. Dozens more deserve to be so recognized,
but for reasons of space are not. Those who are included are meant
to represent the best unsung investigative journalists working
in print in the United States.
Elizabeth
A. Marchak
The Plain
Dealer (Cleveland) Washington bureau since 1993
Duff Wilson
The
Seattle Times since 1989
Karen
Dillon
The
Kansas City Star since 1991
Barry
Yeoman
Free-lance;
previously with the Independent Weekly, Durham, North Carolina
Melvin
Claxton
The
Detroit News since 1998
Robert
Dreyfuss
Free-lance
since 1992; formerly Public Citizen.
Mary
Hargrove
Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette since 1994
Fred
Schulte & Jenni Bergal
South
Florida Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale)
Schulte since
1978, Bergal since 1981
Steve
Weinberg is a contributing editor to CJR, and a
former executive director of IRE. Tracy Barnett is a free-lance
writer and editor.
