A panel of experts discuss the complexities of investigative journalism from an editor's perspective. They discuss the challenges of going in-depth on a story, and explore the new opportunities that online media presents.
The editors include: Jim Impoco (Reuters), Bill Marimow (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Rhonda Schwartz (ABC News), Clara Jeffery (Mother Jones), James Neff (Seattle Times). The panel is moderated by Lowell Bergman and IRP Fellow Matt Isaacs.
Bio
Lowell Bergman
Lowell Bergman, Director of the Investigative Reporting Program, is also a producer and correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline, and the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism. After working in the alternative press, Bergman co-founded the Center for Investigative Reporting in 1977. Soon after, he joined ABC News where he became director of investigative reporting and a producer at 20/20. In 1983, Bergman joined 60 Minutes, where over the course of 14 years he produced more than 50 segments. His 60 Minutes investigation of the tobacco industry was dramatized in the Academy Award-nominated feature film The Insider. In 1998, Bergman forged a unique collaboration between The New York Times and PBS Frontline, to co-report stories for print and broadcast with the participation of graduate students. In 2004, Bergman received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded to The New York Times for “A Dangerous Business,” which detailed a foundry company’s egregious worker safety and environmental violations. Bergman was a New York Times correspondent until 2008. Bergman has received numerous Emmy’s, as well as five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University silver and golden Baton awards, three Peabodys, a Polk Award, a Sidney Hillman award for labor reporting, the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Career Achievement from The Society of Professional Journalists. Bergman has lived for nearly 40 years in Berkeley, California. He is married to Ms. Sharon Tiller, the Director of Digital Media at the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Jim Impoco
Jim Impoco is a New York-based writer and a former Sunday business editor of The New York Times; he covered the rise and fall of the Japanese bubble economy as a foreign correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and as a reporter for The Associated Press.
Clara Jeffery
Clara Jeffery is editor-in-chief of Mother Jones magazine. Before joining the staff of Mother Jones, she was a senior editor of Harper’s magazine, where she worked for almost seven years. Seven pieces that she edited have been finalists for National Magazine Awards, in the categories of essay, profile, reporting, public interest, and fiction.
Works she edited have also been selected to appear in various editions of Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Science Writing. While at Harper’s, she also conceived and organized a series of public forums broadcast on WNYC. Previously, Jeffery worked at Washington City Paper, where she wrote and edited political, investigative, and narrative features, was a columnist, and frequently appeared on FOX-TV’s reporters’ roundtable on behalf of the paper.
Jeffery received an MSJ with honors from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in 1993 and graduated cum laude from Carleton College in 1989. She grew up in Arlington, Virginia.
William Marimow
William Marimow is the editor and executive vice president of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
T. Christian Miller
T. Christian Miller is an investigative reporter who writes for the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau. In his ten years as a professional journalist, he has covered four wars and a presidential campaign, and has reported from more than two dozen countries.
Miller was the first reporter to chronicle the dangers faced by Halliburton’s blue-collar truck drivers and their lack of body armor.
James Neff
James Neff is the Investigations Editor at the Seattle Times.
Rhonda Schwartz
Rhonda Schwartz is a Senior Investigative Producer for ABC News. Ms. Schwartz joined ABC News in 1995, along with Chief Correspondent Brian Ross, to form the Brian Ross Investigative Unit.
The unit provides breaking news and in-depth investigative reporting for all the ABC News programs, including World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America, 20/20, Prime Time Thursday and Nightline.
Collection, preparation, and distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials through media such as pamphlets, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, television, and books. The term was originally applied to the reportage of current events in printed form, specifically newspapers, but in the late 20th century it came to include electronic media as well. It is sometimes used to refer to writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation. Colleges and universities confer degrees in journalism and sponsor research in related fields such as media studies and journalism ethics.
