The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques [Paperback]

Brant Houston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0312589972 | ISBN-13: 978-0312589974 | Edition: 5

Published with Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE), The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook is the best-selling classroom and newsroom classic. Useful as a textbook in advanced journalism courses and as a reference for professional journalists, this book shows students how to use fundamental news reporting and writing skills like gathering sources, tracking information, and interviewing to pursue investigative stories in a variety of beats — from the government and education to healthcare, the environment and real estate. In addition to discussing the latest techniques and challenges in the profession, the fifth edition is now thoroughly streamlined, making it easier to locate the resources that investigative reporters need to get the story.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brant Houston is the Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting at the College of Media at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism for 10 years. The author of three editions of "Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide," Houston served as managing director of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting for three years after working in daily journalism for 17 years. He was an award-winning investigative reporter at The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, The Kansas City Star and several news organizations in the Boston area.

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. IRE was formed in 1975 to create a forum in which journalists throughout the world could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques and news sources.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 554 pages
• Publisher: Bedford/St Martins; 5 edition (February 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312589972
• ISBN-13: 978-0312589974
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, October 12, 2011

By 

Justin Turner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques (Paperback)

This text covers a grab bag of techniques that investigative reporters can use in putting together an investigative piece. It offers practical advice (e.g. don't get absorbed in documents, don't get absorbed with sources, but carefully manage your interviews with sources and use them to guide your documents enquiry) as well as specific advice (e.g. problem banks, insurance companies, politicians, etc).

This book is written for an American market, so when it refers to sources of information, like government offices of a particular stripe, it will be a uniquely American information source. You'll have to work out what equivalent sources you have in your own country.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for students, or professional journalists, investigators, ombudsman, lawyers, private detectives, and more!, April 23, 2010

By 

Orion X (SALEM, OREGON, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques (Paperback)

I purchased this book for a course in investigative journalism at the University of Phoenix brother college Axia for associates degree-seeking students. I am taking a rather advanced class in Communications, which deals with research, and investigations probing social issues like poverty, medical patient abuse, and corruption. This book is essentially a guide to the various tools that are out there to assist in researching, and investigating a wide variety of issues, in fact about all you can think of in the realm of journalistic investigation. This book will teach a student to professionally construct, as well as investigate a variety of issues, and would be a great tool for professional journalists as well as anyone in a career that requires investigation. It is written for journalists, but it appeals to students, and professional journalists specifically. I would say this book has the highest real-life value of any text I have every had in my college career, as humble as it has been of 18 months, yet this is by far the most impressive text I have ran into as reader. I've also been big into non-fiction reading, and I've never encountered such an easy-to-use manual of resources to investigate business, not-for-profit, and industry-specific dealings, along with explanations of the concepts alongside. I would have to rate this as 10/10 on a 1-10 scale, 10 being the best.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good tool, February 8, 2009

By 

Sid Kaskey "sidkaskey" (south miami, fl United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Investigative Reporter's Handbook: A Guide to Documents, Databases, and Techniques (Paperback)

This publication belongs in the collection of anyone who needs to do background research on people or institutions. It is well layed out and extensive in its coverage. It is a very useful book.