investigative journalism

Stephen Stock has been named national investigative correspondent; Nicole Vap is executive producer of content development; Chris Hacker is an investigative data journalist; and Aparna Zalani has been named an investigative producer.

NBCU’s KNTV leveraged king-sized reporting resources into a six-part, digital-native docuseries that elevates a small human-interest story into a large-scale examination of San Francisco’s culture and systems.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with Madison Carter, a journalist with the Atticus investigative unit at WXIA Atlanta and Monika Diaz, content director at Tegna, about the work behind their new, three-part investigative series, A Different Cry, about rising suicide rates among Black youths.

Both KXAN Austin, Texas,  and KING Seattle have made investigative journalism the foundation of their branding. But what about the reporters who do the leg work? What’s their take on the stations’ branding?

KCRA, Hearst’s NBC affiliate in Sacramento, Calif., spent 22 months investigating outrageous abuses of California’s unemployment system, which the station says is the worst taxpayer fraud in American history.

It promotes and adds to its InvestigateTV team that provides innovative, original journalism from a dedicated investigative team and partners.

WWL’s investigation exposing corruption in a New Orleans city agency triggered a raid by the FBI to seize records just hours later. The three-part investigation, Hidden Dangers, reveals how months of painstaking, dogged detective work uncovered a practice literally ready to explode. And linear TV news viewers tuned in at the appointed time to watch.

Gray Television’s investigative team of the same name is launching a weekly show across the group’s stations in 102 markets beginning this weekend.

Cold, a true crime podcast produced by Salt Lake City’s KSL, has kickstarted a major content and revenue front for the broadcaster, drawing Amazon Studios as an exclusive broadcasting partner. Editor’s Note: This is the latest of TVNewsCheck’s “Newsroom Innovators” profiles, a series showcasing people and news organizations evolving the shape and substance of video reporting. These profiles examine the inception of their innovations, the tools they employ and how they’re reconciling experimental approaches to news storytelling within daily workflows. You can find the others here.

The veteran journalist and media executive will serve as Scripps Washington deputy bureau chief and executive producer of investigations.

ABC Owned Television Stations’ relatively new data journalism unit, headed by John Kelly, has quickly come into its own via the massive twin stories of the election and the pandemic. The team’s work has already impacted equity issues at the polls and made inroads with a younger audience that Kelly says “particularly values evidence, hard facts and data that they can easily consume and share with one another.”

“Project Baltimore” at Sinclair’s Baltimore flagship Fox affiliate WBFF, is a team focusing only on education, a perennial problem in the city’s well-funded but badly underperforming public schools. The Project Baltimore group works in a separate building, isolated from the newsroom, free of daily news obligations.

The Ocoee Massacre of 1920 been described as the single bloodiest day in modern American political history, yet it’s also a story held back from most history books. Until now.

Some people flock to streaming platforms for juicy dramas. Others queue up quirky comedies. But there’s also an audience willing to binge-watch local journalism. Just ask NBC Bay Area (KNTV). Last week, the NBC O&O dropped its second season of Derailed, an in-depth digital series investigating problems at BART, the Bay Area’s beleaguered public transit system. The whole project lives on NBCBayArea.com, YouTube and Apple TV, ready to stream in six digestible episodes ranging from about 4 to 15 minutes long.

InvestigateTV, Gray Television’s national investigative unit, has been producing dozens of in-depth pieces airing across its stations and on an OTT channel dedicated to its work. Fronted by WVUE anchor Lee Zurik in New Orleans (above), its pieces are making an impact even in markets where Gray doesn’t have a station.