I want to be Richard Belzer

I will start out by saying, I will never become an investigative reporter and never want to. However, if I had to choose a job in this realm (at gunpoint) I would choose Richard Belzer's. He gets to drink coffee while the other main detectives on SVU figure stuff out. He gets to harass the badasses and question the perps. IF... IF I ever went into this investigative stuff... I'd be him.

Now, as of 10/30 on the website, investigative stories under the main section are as follows:
1. Donors to campaigns are getting around finance laws by making them in the names of their young children. The laws currently do not restrict someone from donating based on age. Donors from those who consider themselves "students" have dramatically increased in the past few years.
2. Santa Clara county has more "toxic cleanup sites" involving pesticides than any other county in California. They have only been exposed due to recent development of the area.
3. Detroit's Hardship Committee has been investigated due to possible abuses of the program. This program gives millions in tax exemptions for the poor. The committee keeps no notes at meetings and does not verify applicants' claims. It has so far not been audited. The Detroit News found that some tax exemptions were given to property owners of multiple homes, not considered poor in any way. One of the committee members was removed after being caught giving a tax exemption to her lawyer.
4. Apparently weight gain in athletes can lead to major health problems. The example given is high school football players, whose average body mass indexes have shot up since 1988. They say that if these athletes keep up their weight after playing their sport, they run the risk of leg and back issues, on top of strokes and other heart problems. I am sorry, but isn't this also just common sense? No one should gain weight by daily protein supplements. It's just not healthy.
5. The state of Illinois ranks 49th in the country in terms of disciplinary actions against its teachers. The state education system has no plan in place of investigating teachers accused of misconduct. The interesting part about this story is that the newspaper covering the story actually put together its own database of information, instead of relying on outside data.

The "in the news archive" section simply listed topics with resources for those who wanted to investigate subjects under the main ideas. I, however, do not, so... moving on.

The "beat guide" is actually fairly intriguing. If I worked at a newspaper, as I laugh out loud because lord knows I am no good with pads of paper and those funny reporter hats, I could use this system. To CHEAT. I'd put in my beat title. I chose, for experimentation purposes.. FOIA. Because I have no idea what it means. Let us find out... Want to hear something funny? It never tells me what it is. I had to look it up. It's Freedom of Information Act. So ya know. Now that I know, let's try... disasters. Why not. Did you know that there is an internet disaster information center? It literally has an archive of disasters that happen everywhere. I don't know why this would be helpful... unless your beat were really just naming disasters.

Chapter 18: Investigating things
HA. Okay I am sorry but the first picture that they show is a man in the office sitting at a desk COVERED in papers. Wow do I not want to be him. It seems like the book would want the student (me) to WANT to become a reporter. However, the student in this case (me) is even more turned off by it than usual. Good marketing skills, The Missouri Group.
I actually really enjoy that they say that reporters wear the term "muckrakers" with pride. Um, wow no. It's just not a good name. So anyway, a good "muckraker" would be good at observation, in-depth reporting and interviewing, as well as the skill of analysis.
In order to begin an investigation, there's got to be something to investigate. Unless there's reason to be suspicious of something, most of these stories are unplanned. The reporter (i think we have established by now that this is not me, therefore the reporter is an unnamed person, not me) would come up with a claim. The investigation goes about proving or disproving that claim. This is done by finding sources, reports, records, and such. This includes digging in public records and any database available. Then unnamed reporter must make sure everything gathered is accurate, or else he is screwed. After checking with the paper's attorney (? weird) the reporter can then finally write the story.

I want unnamed reporter to start investigating the large number of resignations at the College lately. Suspicious, eh?