Investigative Story Week 1

So it turns out that none of our story pitches were excepted, at least not in their original form. Unfortunately, Craigslist was nixed, so we had to turn to our other options. Our third story pitch about handymen in Columbia was also given the red light. That left us with only one of our story ideas still standing, the story about the stimulus money being used to give two Columbia fire stations a face lift. The editors thought that this was a decent idea but wanted us to refocus our story to be more encompassing. At first Tony and I decided that we were going to take the same approach that we did to the fire stations and investigate if five other projects were using their stimulus money wisely. After some discussion with the editors and much deliberation, Tony and I decided that we would be even more encompassing and just investigate all stimulus spending in Columbia. We set out to give citizens an overview of what projects were slated to receive stimulus money, how those projects were chosen, how the stimulus funding mechanism works for Columbia, and what Columbia citizens stand to gain and loose with the completion of these projects. This was undoubtedly a daunting task, as the stimulus package is a highly complex issue, but we were able to get a great head start by interviewing the assistant city manager of Columbia, Paula Hertwig Hopkins. Hopkins is in charge of the city's stimulus spending and gave us an excellent overview of how it works. Currently, Tony and I are exploring important individual projects the city is seeking stimulus funding for. I am very excited about this story because I think we are fulfilling both the watchdog and the explanatory roles of investigative journalists. We have conducted several interviews already and have several more lined up for next week. i am confident that we have put ourselves in good position to produce an excellt story.