... the data (and the real people who populate it).
A little less than a year ago,
The Hartford (Conn.) Courant ran
a four-day, seven-story series that revealed massive lapses in the way the military screens for and treats mental health.
The story prompted Congress to demand that the military change its mental health screening and treatment policies.
Lisa Chedekel and Matt Kauffman, who reported the award-winning series, talked about it this morning in a way that made it seem simple.
Ask questions. Figure out where to find the answers. And go get them.
The driving question for this project: Is the military letting soldiers who are mentally unfit into the military?
In the hour I spent listening to the two reporters, it became clear that they work like a machine. In Lisa's words, Matt is "a data god." Lisa said she is better with people than she is with numbers.
The result is a set of stories that are as thoroughly educational as they are gut wrenching.
I can almost hear you yelling at me. Where are the tips? Here you go.
26 Be the expert. You'll be taken much more seriously if you know what's going on. "Do all you can, read all you can," Matt said.
Becoming an expert isn't easy. Sometimes getting the information you need takes some muscle. Matt slogged through thick resistance before convincing the military to release the data from nearly a million pre-deployment mental health screen forms.
"When people say no," Matt said, "that's not the end of the negotiations."
Data is crucial. It puts the story in context. It explains what Matt and Lisa called "the system" to readers.
But Matt is quick to point out: "Numbers can help you support a story, but they don't make a story. They don't resonate with readers. ... You need people."
27 Be relentlessly curious and relentlessly optimistic. Believe the information is out there and know that you can get it. Don't ever assume people will hang up on you.
Lisa and Matt went looking for soldiers who had committed suicide. Since the military doesn't release cause of death in suicide cases, this wasn't easy. Using a combination of online resources --
www.icasualties.org and
www.legacy.com -- they came up with a list of soldiers whose causes of death were unknown.
And then, they started making calls. They were shocked by the response. "Really, the common reaction to us was just a flood of information coming out," Lisa said, "as if these folks were just relieved we were looking into this."
28 When you have to make difficult phone calls, come up with a game plan.
Jeff Henthorn was one of the first soldiers on the Lisa and Matt's list. When it came time to call, instead of contacting the dead soldier's parents, Lisa called his ex-wife Tricia. They talked for four hours. Tricia led Lisa to Jeff's sisters. Eventually, after she had talked to several other family members, Lisa talked to Jeff's parents.
29 If you work at a small paper, use your size to your advantage. It's not every day that a newspaper the size of the
Courant takes on a national investigative story. Lisa said that worked to the project's advantage.
"We're not the New York Times," she said. "We never really showed our hand that we were looking at mental health."
The reporters worked on the project for eight months. Five days before the series was set to run, they sent a list of questions to the military. A few days later, Lisa followed up.
No comment. The day the first story ran, the military called back. Too late.
30 Team up. Everyone has different strengths. This was the first time Lisa teamed up with another reporter on an investigation.
Her advice on teamwork: "Don't yell at your colleague in the middle of the newsroom."
31 Aim high. "There was no reason," Lisa said, "given the constraints on the
Courant at the time, that when we went to the editors and said we wanted to work on a big project about mental health in the military that has nothing to do with Connecticut and isn't an area we have any expertise in, that they should have said yes."
And you know, I think the simple brilliance of Matt and Lisa's approach is worth repeating -- and counting as a tip.
32 Ask questions. Find out where you can get the answers. And go get 'em.
Coming soon >>> A bit from Eileen McNamara on reporting. Learning about leads. And more!
