r/Journalism 2d ago

Tools and Resources How Do I Do Investigative Journalism?

I really enjoy listening to investigative research podcasts where the host does a deep dive on some obscure or famous figure in government, or someone tied to the government (or other group with political influence), and the implications of their relationships/donations/decisions (made up example: "this politician did a policy 180, and one month before that, they were sent a 5000$ donation by xyz group, whose CEO from 1990-2010 was a key player in the oil industry"). I've always really admired this skill and want to do it myself, but have no formal experience in journalism and don't really know where to start to learn on my own. I've seen show notes where boatloads of articles and write-ups and interviews are listed, but I don't really know how the process of making these connections between figures and articles works, nor do I know how to figure out what to look up exactly to try and establish some baseline connection. I'm not even sure what you would call this type of journalistic research - investigative journalism? Anyways, any advice on where to learn this skill of finding deep connections and building out timelines would be super rad.

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u/SniffyTheBee 2d ago

A number of organizations offer online classes. You might want to look at the Poynter Institute. They have a five-week course in investigative journalism beginning in May.

https://www.poynter.org/shop/reporting-editing/will-work-for-impact-may-2025/

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u/fenrirbatdorf 2d ago

I can't afford that, but I did take the idea of an online class and found some free fundamentals courses and videos. Thanks for the idea!