investigative journalism

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.

CBS News is promoting 11-year network veteran Len Tepper to executive director, CBS News Investigative Unit. Tepper is currently the investigative unit’s supervising senior producer.

Everything’s bigger in Texas. Even investigative journalism. Find out why KXAN Austin’s latest investigation involved almost two dozen people in news, digital, production and marketing, and how the station balances that content on TV and digital platforms across all the Nexstar stations in the Lone Star State.

The notion that every TV reporter can and should be digging harder in her or his everyday work, is one of the ideas behind a series of regional training sessions run by the Investigative Reporters and Editors. “IRE believes that every journalist can be a watchdog journalist,” says the organization’s director, Doug Haddix.

After investigative reporter Jeremy Jojola’s recent story on hate groups, an organization known as the Proud Boys posted angry tweets, including: “You are the enemy of the American people we will bring this to your home your work your child’s school. The way antifa does to us. The fury of America is upon you and your communist friends.”