Introduction to Investigative Journalism: Editing: The Investigative Article

Every good story needs an editor. That’s especially true for a great investigative piece. Why? Because it’s easy for reporters to fall in love with their stories and miss things. A good editor compensates for that by serving as the objective party, helping the reporter to produce a solid piece that the reader can easily understand and one that stands up to scrutiny.

That said, not every reporter embarking on an investigative project has access to an editor dedicated to the project. Some reporters, for example, may work at small news outlets with less than a handful of journalists. In these cases, the reporter can take turns with their colleagues in editing each other’s work. Alternatively, the reporter can reach out to someone outside of the news organization to serve in this role. Get creative. Be resourceful. Find an editor. Because at the end of the day, the story will be stronger for it.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Editing an investigative story requires much more than hunting grammatical errors, ensuring clarity, or doing additional fact-checking at the end of a story production process. It demands editors elevate the story to another level: Ensuring that the story remains engaging without sacrificing accuracy or violating legal and ethical boundaries. Not only do readers need to understand the gist of the story, but they also need to connect to it. As editors, we have to make sure our audience recognizes and, hopefully, appreciates the value of the story and its relevance to them.

How do we do that? Great editing relies on good material. And that relies on good planning. Without a good outline and a clear focus during the reporting phase, the story will end up with patchy findings, incoherent structure and a lot of holes.

And that’s the key — planning: By meticulously planning every stage of the reporting and writing process, journalists can avoid certain pitfalls that can undermine the story. This is especially true for complex investigative stories that require months of reporting. Careful planning can also save a lot of time and trouble, particularly when reaching the editing phase.

As a result, it is important to remember that as an editor, your job does not start when the story is finished. It starts right at the beginning of the planning phase, first by questioning the premise of the pitch. It is the editor’s responsibility to question the reporter to make sure the pitch holds up and can become an impactful and compelling investigative story.

Step One: Define the Story 

A good pitch should not exceed one page and can be explained orally in under one to five minutes, depending on the newsroom and its culture. It focuses on the main premise, the background or context of the story — and preliminary findings — and highlights the main question the story wants to answer.

When you first hear a story idea from a reporter, you need to be able to picture the story in your head. Sometimes reporters focus too much on facts and figures and forget to mention what the story is actually about. It is your responsibility to highlight it.

Step Two: Decide the Focus 

There are many aspects to an investigative story and a reporter can easily get lost in a maze of information. Therefore, it is your job to help the reporter elevate the most significant question they want to answer in an investigative project. That question will be the story’s angle, which will anchor all other related and relevant points in the story outline. Once you agree with the outline, the reporter should start the information-gathering process.

Step Three: Organize the Findings

Once your reporters are out in the field, do not let them go there unarmed. You can make sure they do plenty of research, especially background on the sources before meeting anyone. Always discuss and decide together who should be the subject of the initial approach and who follows.

The initial source usually provides background to the story, explains how things work, the regulations, the structure of the organization, etc. These are the experts even if they are not necessarily involved in the issue. The sources approached afterward are the witnesses, people who know what happened but not the perpetrators. Finally, the final sources are those who can provide the key elements of the story, the evidence, and also names of the perpetrators.

Through this process, some of the most valuable support an editor can provide to a reporter is agreeing on how to document reporting during the information-gathering process. There are various tools but the main objective is to agree on how facts and data will be organized and who has access to it. For example, the team can use a Google or MS doc as a living document, constantly adding data, links, and files to various parts of the outline as the reporting goes along.

Making sure that all the back-up documents are organized is a key part of your responsibility as an editor.

Step Four: Check In Regularly 

With a major investigative project that can take months to complete, it is easy for a reporter to lose focus in the middle of the reporting process, or even lose the motivation to complete the story. It is your job as an editor to keep an eye on the progress and make sure the reporter always remembers why we are doing the project in the first place, what the stakes are, and what could happen if the story gets published — the impact. Motivate your reporters and always encourage them to go the extra mile. Sometimes, not getting that one extra confirmation or that one extra source can make a huge difference to the story’s credibility.

At the same time, keep in mind that when there are too many dead ends, you are the one that has to pull the plug. As an editor, you know the limit of your newsroom’s resources and the demand to publish good stories on a regular basis. That is why regular check-ins with the reporter are necessary — so you recognize that point at which the efforts have been exhausted and yet there isn’t enough for the story to work. Sometimes, it’s a matter of timing. You can always come back to the story in the future.

Step Five: Shaping and Refining the Article 

When an editor sits down to edit a story, it means the reporting team has completed most of its work. It also hopefully means that the reporting plan has more or less succeeded, which means the reporter has met and interviewed all the relevant sources and gotten the goods: By this time, not only should the reporter have become thoroughly fluent in the subject but has also been able to provide the evidence to back up the initial premise.

By this time, meanwhile, the editor now has numerous files in the document folders containing recordings of interviews and transcripts, PDFs of letters, minutes of meetings, emails and all other relevant documentation. The editor has examined the story outline the team made at the beginning of the investigative process and proofed all the preliminary assumptions. The editor also should, by now, have the facts and assertions backed up by juicy quotes from the parties involved. More importantly, the team has spoken to the subject(s) of your piece and have gotten their side of the story. At this stage, the first draft is written and now it’s time to do the editing.

Of course, when you deal with a months-long investigative story, it is often not a straightforward story but one that involves complex issues that have layers of facts and revelations from multiple sources. Your most important job as an editor is to make sure your readers understand the findings, the context, and the process your reporter undertook to reach the conclusions in the piece. If you fail to deliver, the story won’t make the impact it deserves.

Once all the material is ready and your reporter submits a first draft, it’s time for you to start shaping and refining the article. Since you have already been involved in the reporting process from the start, it shouldn’t be difficult to understand the story.

First of all, the lede and opening grafs should be strong enough to capture readers’ attention and compel them to continue reading while also simplifying complicated findings for readers to easily understand.

You can achieve that by emphasizing the relevance or the magnitude of the story for your audience.

Secondly, you want to create a narrative flow with strong and interesting characters. You need to build a narrative arc and find ways to compellingly describe the people involved in the story.

Lastly, you want to keep it balanced and ethical, to protect the reporter, the publication, and especially the story. The best way to do so is to make sure the article is airtight, with everything backed up with documents and confirmation. To help achieve that, I usually ask my reporter to insert a link to every sentence that needs further back up or evidence. The link can refer me to another document, or a published report, or a news article.

Some editors break down the articles by sentence by adding a space between each and then they closely examine and annotate each sentence with the backup material.

Tips and Tools

Fact-checking 

If there is no fact-checker on the team, the editor takes the role, verifying every fact, statistic, and statement. Cross-check each with multiple sources, including documents, interviews, and public records. Use databases and verification tools such as LexisNexis, Pipl, and Factiva. (See also the fact-checking chapter of this guide.)

LexisNexis: A comprehensive database of public records, legal information and news articles.

Pipl: A deep web search engine for finding information about individuals.

Factiva: A global news database for extensive research.

Maintaining Narrative Flow  

Ensure that the story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. Use narrative storytelling techniques to keep readers engaged, such as building tension, creating vivid scenes, and developing characters.

Scrivener: A writing software designed for long-form content, which helps organize and structure complex stories.

Evernote: A note-taking app that helps keep track of research, interviews, and ideas.

Contextualizing Findings

Provide context to help readers understand the significance of the findings. This includes background information, historical context, and explanations for technical terms or concepts.

Google Scholar: Features academic articles and research papers that provide background information and context.

MuckRock: A platform for filing and tracking public records requests.

Ensuring Fairness and Balance 

Present all sides of the story and avoid bias. Strive for impartiality. Give subjects of the investigation an opportunity to respond to the allegations in the story: Once you have gathered the evidence to support the allegations made in the story, write a letter asking for confirmation and comment from those you are accusing of wrongdoing in the story.

Different news outlets have different opinions on how long you should give these people a chance to respond, but the general consensus is between four days to one week. Moreover, you shouldn’t send the whole article to be reviewed but only a list of questions you want them to answer and the assertions you have made in the piece you want them to address.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Be aware of the legal implications of publishing certain information. To protect the journalist and the publication, consult with legal experts to avoid defamation, libel and privacy violations. Adhere to ethical guidelines such as those from the Society of Professional Journalists.

A Journalist’s Guide to Avoiding Lawsuits and Other Legal Dangers, a GIJN and Media Defence guide.

Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma: Provides training material, legal resources and support for journalists.

Committee to Protect Journalists: Provide support for advocacy and legal protection for journalists all over the world.   

Case Study

Pangolin Reports

This was an almost year-long investigation into a criminal syndicate that trafficked pangolin (mammals also known as scaly anteaters) across Asia and Africa to mainland China.  More than 40 journalists from 15 countries and territories reported collaboratively, conducting countless interviews with hunters, traders, and buyers, and even going undercover to gather evidence to document this environmental crime.

Screenshot. The Pangolin Reports

The editors were actively involved from the beginning, discussing the reporting plan, agreeing on an outline and giving advice and suggestions when reporters were unable to get the story. The key to successfully collaborate on this scale is certainly meticulous planning. The editors and key reporters all met in Hong Kong at the start of the project, discussing the story outline, angle, and reporting plan. Once it was all agreed, they had a weekly meeting to track progress and decide another plan if the initial one failed.

Conclusion

Editing a month-long investigative story is a crucial task that can make or break an investigative article. Besides requiring meticulous fact-checking, ensuring narrative flow, providing context, ensuring fairness and balance, and considering the legal and ethical implications of the work, editing a complex investigative story needs proper planning and preparation from the beginning. In other words, editors need to be involved from the start.

Editors have to refine these complex stories to ensure they are compelling, accurate and impactful. In doing so, we uphold the highest standards of journalism and hopefully contribute to creating a positive impact on our society.

Wahyu Dhyatmika is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tempo digital. He is responsible for planning and guiding Tempo’s digital transformation, as well as leading the business of PT Info Media Digital, a subsidiary of Tempo Media Group. He was the editor-in-chief of Tempo Magazine, Indonesia, in 2019-2021. In 2015, he led the Panama Papers reporting in Indonesia, the collaborative cross-border investigative project initiated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Wahyu is a board member of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, of the advisory board of Environmental Reporting Collective (ERC), and member of the advisory committee for the Southeast Asia Rainforest Journalism Fund at the Pulitzer Center.