Though important journalism comes in a variety of forms, it is the investigation that constitutes some of the most admired work in the field. As veteran journalist and former executive producer of the CBC’s The Fifth Estate, Cecil Rosner, put it: “It’s not like daily news reporting. It’s a search for the truth. it’s not just a repetition of what this person said and what that person said, or a report of what happened at City Hall today, like a daily news report. No — it’s, ‘Here’s what this person claims. Here’s what that person claims, and here’s the truth.’”
However, it is also the investigation that often carries with it the greatest liability for journalists and sources alike. Journalists, as Rosner put it, “are a bit like gatekeepers of knowledge no one else knows,” rendering responsible reporting an even more important undertaking in avoiding a lawsuit.
Rosner, who — during the course of his over 30-year career — has compiled a number of best-practice tips for novice journalists looking to take on an investigation. With input from other well-known reporters in Canada, below is a step-by-step (though not exhaustive) guide on how to conduct a thorough and ethical journalistic investigation.
Pre-investigation: Getting the tip
Though many journalism students may believe that verification of a tip’s accuracy should come before every other step in the investigation, Rosner emphasized the importance of making sure that any story that may come from it is something that would be of interest to the audience one is writing for.
“Before you spend any money or devote any extra resources to a story, you have to make sure your audience cares,” he said. “Only when you work that out is when you start verifying.”
Another question journalists should ask themselves upon receiving a tip, noted Erica Johnnson — current host of CBC’s investigative news segment, Go Public — is who the tip is coming from.
“Do they stand to benefit if we tell this story and are they an interested player? If there might be a motivation behind them delivering this tip, that’s something you need to keep in mind as you’re investigating,” she said.
Rosner suggested that student journalists think of a tip or story as a hypothesis, coming to the investigation with an idea as to what might be going on. However, he also stressed the importance of an open mind, and making sure the verification process doesn’t turn into an exercise of solely trying to prove that hypothesis right.
“Let’s say the tip was that food in the school cafeteria isn’t being handled properly,” he said. “That could be your hypothesis. (That) doesn’t mean you believe that to be the case, and that doesn’t mean you’re held then to go prove that. It means that’s what you’re going to inquire into.”
“The task then becomes accumulating evidence, and being open to verification that would either support your hypothesis or disprove your hypothesis,” meaning being prepared for the fact that the story itself may not go anywhere — and not allowing people to know where you stand while you’re interviewing them.
“At this point, you’re not standing anywhere. You should be the receptor of information and never the projector of any of that information.”
When it comes to how to properly go about verification itself, Rosner described two main methods — multiplicative verification (hearing the same story from multiple sources who are independent of each other) and internal verification (interrogating information against itself).
“With the first, you’re looking to see if there’s consistency across the board — if there is, there’s a good chance the information is true,” said Rosner. “With the second, it’s a bit like a police interrogation. Like, if you got home at 8 p.m., and I ask where you came from, and you say you were playing hockey with the guys. My follow up might be, ‘Really? Because I’ve checked, and the hockey game with the guys only starts at 9.”
Johnson echoed the importance of both these strategies, noting that new journalists should never be afraid to ask sources to corroborate their story.
“Of course, you want to do so respectfully,” she said, “but, obviously, as journalists, we can’t just take someone’s word for it. So you’ll want to ask for documents, paper trails — which you might need to file an Access to Information Request for — or other people who can back up what an initial source is saying.”
This means that where an anonymous tip comes in, student journalists should be especially wary.
“It’s very hard to verify the accuracy of information if you don’t know the person behind it,” said Johnson. “At CBC, even if the source remains anonymous once the story is published or broadcast, someone within the organization must know their identity — generally, it’s the investigating journalist and one of their bosses.”
However, perhaps one of the most important things to confirm with your sources at this point, added Rosner, is to make sure their expectations for where the story might go and what sharing it might do are realistic.
“You always want to be honest with your sources — even while you’re making sure you’re not taking a side during the verification process — which means you can’t promise them there will or won’t be a story coming out later,” he said. “All you can say is that you’re trying to find out as much as you can, and that you’ll make your decision once you have all the information you can get at this stage.”
Investigation: Getting the story
So, you know you have a story idea that works for your audience, and you have enough information to know it’s worth pursuing further — now, who do you talk to? And perhaps more importantly, who do you wait to talk to?
More specifically, talking to sources too soon who may end up becoming the target of your investigation may be a liability. For example, questioning the school cafeteria about whether they mishandle their food without having spoken to all the other interested parties may cause them to lock up and refuse later interview requests, meaning your one shot at getting them to reply to every allegation made against you might have been used up.
Rosner suggested that student journalists look at each story they pursue like a spiral. “At the centre is the school cafeteria — that might be the last call you make, because you want the rest of the spiral to fully inform you on what you should ask.”
“Essentially, you’re working your way from the outside, in. Maybe there have been previous stories about the cafeteria food, or a report done 10 years ago about the state of the cafeteria. So you want to start with reading those. … Then, maybe you find a food expert who will tell you general things about how cafeterias should operate. Then you progress to people who used to work there, and then you progress to people who are working there right now, and, ultimately, you’ll then want to talk to the person in the very center of your spiral.”
However, this doesn’t mean springing the details of an investigation on an “accountable party” at the last minute, added Johnson. Instead, student journalists should view interviewing other sources beforehand as preparation to give said party the right to properly respond and consider the risk to their reputation, business, etc.
Mike De Souza, director of enterprise and investigative reporting at the Narwhal, also emphasized that this doesn’t mean giving the accountable party a copy of the story ahead of time. Instead, journalists should aim to address each allegation made against them, and give them full opportunity to respond to each, which may also mean going back to an earlier source for additional verification.
“You want to make sure you aren’t just springing a story or an allegation on them when you’re publishing,” he said. “That’s not just unfair — it’s also not good journalism.”
However, when it comes to building that spiral, Rosner noted that the best sources are always the most direct — specifically, people who have seen or experienced something first-hand. He recommended students consult Reuters’ Handbook of Journalism and its gradation of source types when evaluating the strength of a source for a story — from something witnessed by the journalist themselves as the strongest verification, to an unnamed single-sourced story as the weakest.
To name or not to name: What to do when a source asks to go anonymous
When and when not to permit an anonymous source is a prickly subject, even for the most experienced journalists. All the journalists interviewed for this report emphasized that a named source should always be preferred over an unnamed source in a story, and that an unnamed source should only be used where the information they share cannot be reported any other way.
“You also have to make sure the person is credible,” said Rosner. “So that means that, even if the source is unnamed in the story, you need to know their identity, where they got their information from, and corroborate that information.”
“Where they’re sharing an opinion — especially a negative one — you should be even more cautious about printing,” he said, given many people may be inclined to share sometimes unfounded opinions if they know their name will not be publicly associated with them.
As such, Rosner emphasized the importance of, where appropriate, helping sources understand the credibility ramifications of anonymous sourcing, and the weight named sources hold in a story versus unnamed sources.
Though Johnson echoed these sentiments, she also noted the importance of warning anonymous sources that, even should they choose to stick with keeping their name on background only, their anonymity may not stretch as far as a court of law, should it come down to it.
“Really what we’re talking about here is confidential sources, because anonymous would mean no one (within the organization) knows who they are, which would never be the case at CBC,” she said. “But a lot of times, a confidential source will say, ‘So if we get sued, you guys will defend me, right?’, because they don’t really know how it works.”
“In reality, if a defamation suit does happen, the CBC will defend the journalists that worked on the story, and the people in the story may also be supported because they are part of the story — but we can’t be their lawyers. So there’s always that risk.”
This may mean that responsible journalists should prepare their sources for the potential legal ramifications of being quoted — even anonymously or confidentially — in a story, as a source can be sued regardless. Further, a journalist or media organization may be forced in some instances to disclose the identity of a source as part of the legal proceedings or settlement, putting the source at personal and legal risk.
Often the most difficulty journalists have when conducting an investigation is getting sources to open up. Though there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, Rosner noted that over the course of his career, one of his biggest takeaways was that gaining the trust of one individual often requires gaining the trust of those around them who are also impacted by the story.
“This means spending a lot of time (on gaining trust) — but be persistent, and don’t give up. Even if someone rejects you right away, it doesn’t mean you can never go back to them,” he said.
“Just be cognizant of the balance between being persistent and being harassing.”
Equally as important during the investigation is how one interacts with one’s sources, added Rosner.
“Keep in mind that you should be recording and saving everything — every email, every document, every interview, every phone call,” he said, “because if you’re sued for defamation, all of that can be subpoenaed in court.”
Working with vulnerable sources: Balancing journalistic integrity and victims of sexual assault
With the rise of reports on and awareness of sexual assault on university and college campuses in Canada, more and more student newspapers are tackling the challenges associated with investigating serious and complex stories with vulnerable sources at their centre. Though numerous organizations have produced guidelines on the subject — including the Dart Institute’s guide on Reporting on Sexual Violence — Rosner emphasized sensitivity and thoughtfulness as a journalist’s two most important tools in doing these stories justice.
“You don’t want to do things in a radically different way than you would do for anyone else,” he said, noting verification as an example. “But there are certain things you can do to put people more at ease and, there are things that you ought to be aware of in terms of how to pose questions, for instance.”
He also noted the importance of allowing vulnerable sources agency, which may sometimes mean allowing them the opportunity to withdraw their participation. Johnson echoed this strategy, noting that interviews should be — to the extent possible — conducted on the vulnerable source’s terms.
“You should aim to do it in a location that makes them comfortable,” said Johnson. “Let them take breaks, ask them if they need a sip of water — as a student, you might not be able to rely on your reputation as a senior reporter, but patience goes a long way in making people comfortable enough to open up to you.”
“A lot of journalists feel like they need to control every aspect of the interview, but sometimes it’s OK to let the source drive the bus a little bit, and to let them know that we can stop at any point where it gets to be too much for them.”
In particular, courts may be on the lookout for anything that might indicate malice, such as a rude comment scribbled in a notebook, or a salacious text chain with one’s colleagues.
“So you have to be very careful—keep it neutral, and keep it professional.”
This also means having a foolproof method for organizing one’s investigative materials. For Rosner, this means following what he dubbed the “Harvey Cashore methodology,” named for the current senior producer for the CBC’s The Fifth Estate.
“For any investigation, you should have four documents,” he said. “One is a to-do list, so as you’re thinking of things to do, you add them. One of them is a source list, where you write down who you need to talk to. Then when you talk to them, you write down the day you talked to them, the time you talked to them, and what they said — so, if necessary, you can say ‘I spoke to such and such a person on June the 18th at 3 p.m. Here’s what they said with all their contact info.’”
“The third document is a question list. So as a question occurs to you, you write it down, and you keep that full list to make sure you get those questions answered. And the fourth document — and often the most important one — is a chronology … of all the key dates in your piece. And if you maintain those four documents, it helps with your narrative, it’s good for verification, and it’s good for seeing connections.”
In terms of organizing the documents, interview clips, or other materials one may gather over the course of an investigation, Rosner noted that it’s not so much the methodology that matters — so long as you know where to find everything, and also make sure it’s backed up — but that you keep everything you come across in case you have to prove the veracity of a claim later on.
Post-Investigation: Drafting and publishing
Though gathering information amidst an investigation may often be the most unpredictable part of an investigation, what comes after — fact-checking, writing, and publishing — often carries with it some of the biggest difficulties for a novice journalist, said Rosner.
“Even though you’re working with a lot more information, you should remember that there isn’t any big material difference in any good story,” he said. “Good storytelling is how you engage an audience, whether it’s a news story, an investigative report, a documentary or a podcast.”
“If you just regurgitate a bunch of facts in chronological order, you’re not exactly going to captivate your audience, and you’re not going to get anything across.”
More specifically, Rosner noted that journalists shouldn’t be afraid to write their investigation in a way that leads the audience to a particular conclusion. “But it shouldn’t be an opinion piece — an opinion piece tries to get an audience to draw a conclusion, but doesn’t do it based on evidence or facts. A good investigation marshals the evidence” and presents it in a way that makes a founded claim.
This also means being cognizant of the fact that, as the reporter, one may be inclined to take some context for granted, and may have difficulty envisioning the kind of explanation the audience might need to make sense of the story.
“You have to remember that your audience is coming at this for the first time, likely with very little to no background,” said Johnson, “so it’s your job to give them that background in a way they’ll find interesting enough to engage with. You have to come up with your thesis, but also think about the key points that support that thesis.”
“It’s also good to think of investigative journalism as a privilege — it takes a lot of time and resources,” added Johnson. “So if you just sort of give the reader a smorgasbord of facts and tell them to figure it out, I’m not sure who you’re serving. You have to be prepared to do some explaining so the (audience) doesn’t just understand the information, but understands why it matters by drawing those conclusions.”
De Souza echoed this point, pointing to the importance of the nut graph — or explanatory paragraph or two located near the beginning of the article — to set the stage for readers.
“It should be clear and concise, but really, that’s your opportunity to explain to your readers what you’ve been covering and why it’s important,” he said. “That also means that you have to find a way to balance both sides in the graph — so if your story is about a really serious allegation against someone, you’ll want to include a high-level summary of their response high up in the story, too.”
Another useful element of the graph that has been a popular approach by media organizations within the past few years in particular, remarked De Souza, is an explanatory paragraph informing readers of how a journalist got the story in the first place.
“You’re not going to give them all the details on how you might have gotten your initial tip, but it’s good to share how many interviews were done, how many and the kinds of documents you reviewed, and other steps that were taken to (build) the story,” he said.
“It gives the reader more information, but it also makes the story more solid in an era where trust in the media isn’t always that high.”
Following the drafting process, journalists should ensure their editor engages in a thorough fact-check of the entire story. At many big-name journalism organizations, this often means a line-by-line, footnoted fact check of the entire article by numerous editors, where reporters are expected to link interview transcripts, documents, and other materials to substantiate each sentence.
“For a smaller organization that doesn’t have a lot of resources, really what you need to focus on is making sure every claim is substantiated,” said Rosner. An editor should “sit down with the reporter, and with each line, ask them a very simple question: ‘How do you know?’ And make sure you see whatever proof they’re talking about.”
De Souza noted that at The Narwhal, this process also includes sitting down with a lawyer to go over what potential liabilities there may be within a particular story — which may not be possible for most stories within a small paper, but should be something student journalists keep in mind as an occasional step for particularly sensitive stories.
However, perhaps one of the most important pre-publication steps is the accountability letter — i.e., a letter written to parties who may be particularly affected by the contents of a published article notifying them of its impending publication, and providing them one last chance to provide comment or respond to the allegations made within the piece.
“This isn’t a question of should you give opportunity to comment,” said Rosner, “but you must give opportunity … the Supreme Court says you must if you want to rely on the defence of responsible communication.”
Accountability letters should contain a notice of the impending publication, a general breakdown of the allegations made within (so that the receiver may meaningfully respond, should they wish to do so), and be sent to the party with a reasonable amount of time for response, which may vary with the circumstances — though in most investigations, amounts to multiple business days.
“You don’t have to be completely forthcoming with everything you have, but it does have to be an honest presentation of whatever story you’re working on — especially since most people end up declining to be interviewed for an investigative story,” added Johnson. “So it’s really important to be thorough enough to give them that fair opportunity for response.”
It is also inevitable that with a particularly meaningful — and often controversial — story, journalists should understand their obligation to inform their sources of the legal, social, professional and financial repercussions that may come with its publication.
“Obviously, these things are impossible to quantify or calculate with any precision ahead of time,” said Rosner. “But you have to be honest with people, especially with the fact that you may not be able to protect them or (legally) defend them if you do get sued for defamation.”
Johnson noted the importance of this step for vulnerable sources in particular, who may have to relive their trauma in the form of backlash to a story making an allegation against another.
“You should really be doing this earlier on, so they can weigh that against the benefit of getting the story out,” she said, “but reminding them of that risk is part of being a responsible journalist.”
For someone who may be more of a whistleblower, said De Souza, keeping expectations realistic about what the story can do to benefit their situation is equally as important as being honest about what it might do to worsen it.
“I try to make a point of making sure they understand that we can’t fix their problem, and that we can only bring issues into the public domain,” he said. “We don’t have control over what happens after that, other than continuing to report the truth.”
Further, where sources (or other affected parties) may ask to have their names or quotes removed from a story, Rosner noted that these demands should be met only in “very exceptional circumstances,” particularly where someone may be in danger, there may be some kind of legal issues — like the violation of a publication ban — or a factual error should be corrected.
“You want to think about what’s going to serve your readers,” he emphasized, “so if someone you sent an accountability letter to missed your deadline by an hour and they want their comment included, you should probably include it.”
“What’s so sacred about your deadline that you can’t work around it? What version of the story are you putting out there?”
Facing backlash: Where the heat comes down on you, you don’t back down, says Rachel Gilmore
Though sources often face their own repercussions for sharing the information that brings a controversy to light, threats, harassment and violence directed towards journalists have become an increasingly serious issue across the country. One IPSOS poll from 2021 found that 72 per cent of journalists surveyed that year had experienced some form of harassment that year — oftentimes, from anonymous online users.
However, few journalists in Canada are as intimately familiar with this issue as Rachel Gilmore, a current independent journalist and former Global News reporter whose beat focuses on extreme conservatism and far-right hate groups in Canada and abroad. Aside from her work reporting on the increased risk these communities pose online and in-person, Gilmore has gained particular recognition for the harassment and intimidation she has experienced as a result of her reporting.
“It really started with my reporting on the Freedom Convoy,” she said. “I started making TikToks to promote the articles I was writing, which made my work a lot more personal because they had my face on them.”
“Obviously, a lot of them didn’t exactly approve of everything I had to say, so there was this concerted effort and campaign to harass me from then on, I guess.”
Though the harassment began as demeaning though relatively innocuous online insults, it quickly devolved into violent threats and sexist rhetoric, escalating to violence threatened against her family members, doxxing and offline stalking.
“I do think I’ve gotten it quite bad, but it’s really sad to say that this is a pretty common thing for journalists nowadays, especially women and people of colour,” she said.
“I did go to the police, but a lot of the time they would interpret the Criminal Code in a way that basically didn’t make the threats serious threats — so unless someone was using mafia-style language and talking about putting a hit on me or something like that, they claimed they couldn’t do anything about it.”
Though Gilmore has made an effort to take precautions to protect herself physically — such as being particularly careful in public, and making sure to avoid sharing details like her real-time location online — most of the work she has done to protect herself has been mental.
“You know, one of the main suggestions I got … was to shut down or private a lot of my social media,” she said, but as a journalist, that’s basically like kneecapping your own career, and you’re almost giving the attackers what they want, because they’re silencing you.”
“Instead, what I found helpful was to speak out publicly about it, and get some community support,” she continued. “I really found a lot of comfort in these small little support networks of journalism peers, where we would comfort one another and talk to each other and exchange advice — which is something I would always recommend to someone in a similar position.”
Gilmore also noted the utility of taking a break from social media, emails or other communications technologies when the backlash might be especially apparent, as well as making trusted allies aware of the situation.
“You want there to be people who have your back and can look out for your safety,” she said. “Whether that’s campus security — so you can at least have something documented — or even a friend or teacher who can let you hang back after class, or walk with you to wherever you’re going next.”
She also emphasized the importance of keeping a record or paper trail of in-person and online harassment, both by writing down in-person encounters and screenshotting or recording threatening online behaviour. This way, should it eventually be necessary, this material can be used to demonstrate a sustained pattern of harassment that may have consequences for the perpetrator.
“And I think, on a personal level, remember that fact that if people are coming after you, it’s because you’ve done something impactful, and you should be proud of the fact that your work is making a difference,” she said. “Hold onto that, and don’t let them intimidate or scare you away from the important work you’re doing just because it’s exposing their wrongdoings and making them feel uncomfortable.”
“Unfortunately, it’s part of the gig,” added Gilmore, “so be mindful and cautious of that, but don’t let it silence you … because we’re like a vanguard of democracy, and bad actors are never going to stay quiet when they’re being called out for their bad acting.”
Johnson also noted that journalists should be prepared, if necessary, to follow up with a second story where the developments may exceed the addition of an in-text update a week or so afterwards.
“Of course, in radio or television, you can’t really update the original story itself, since they’re long gone by the time they’re broadcast,” she said. “But I do think that we should view print similarly.”
“Where a story warrants it, a good journalist should be okay with following up with sources, going back and getting more information, and providing their audience with the continuation of that narrative — which may even mean reporting the story from the other side’s perspective, if you didn’t have the information to fully do that the first time around.”
It goes without saying that the continued existence and success of student media boils down to more than just a familiarity with defamation law and responsible reporting — and any principle applicable to the survival of journalism as a whole applies tenfold to the realm of post-secondary media.
Though challenges remain ahead, student journalists should take solace and pride in the fact that though their jobs may often be thankless — and underpaid — ones, they are nevertheless crucial for their communities and future careers.
“Even through all the trials and tribulations,” said Martins, “keep in mind how important it is that student newspapers exercise their right to express themselves and to do it in a responsible way so that they inform their readers — and a lot of the time, themselves.”
If there is one takeaway from this report, it is the fact that even as a student journalist, you are never alone. Whether it’s a lawyer taking on your case pro bono, an experienced journalist from your community, or even a peer in the newsroom, there is always someone else to help you work through the tricky legal and professional hoops one must jump through in order to report the truth.
“Really, it’s about doing you due diligence,” said Stone. “That’s really what should be at the front of your mind when you’re thinking about how to go about your reporting — ask yourself what you could be doing to make sure your bases are covered. Who haven’t you interviewed? Who haven’t you consulted?”
And perhaps, most importantly, remember that student journalism is still journalism, and the stories student journalists tell have a wider impact than they might realize.