The Investigative
Teaching Lab & Desk
Marcel Metze, founder
The Start, 2011
Creative Funding
Avoiding EU-regulations, Dutch governments supported top-league
football clubs with over a billion euros in 15 years
First changes
• Admission age -> 25
• One single group project
• Workshops (FOIA, Excel, network analysis, etcetera)
• Invite alumni
• ‘Sensitizing’ literature:
• Explaining Hitler (Ron Rosenbaum, 1998)
• Open Secrets (Malcolm Gladwell, TNY 2007)
• Truth wears off (Jonah Lehrer, TNY 2010)
McKinsey & Co
The consultancy firm promises its clients extreme confidentiality. But it allows alumni to peek across
its Chinese Wall, and makes millions by repackaging and reselling sensitive corporate information
Evaluation 2012
• Problems: estimating workload, organizing and planning
• Action:
• Toolkit for teamwork
• Templates (research plans, research memo’s, interviews, logs & etc.)
• Software tools (Dropbox, Google Docs & Drive, Asana & etc.)
• 4 phase structure:
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Introduction, selection of topic, research plan
Main research phase & lacuna session (trace gaps)
Additional research phase
Construction session (storyline) and writing
Evaluation 2014: motive
• Problem: internal tensions in groups 5 & 6
• Cause: team dynamics
• Action: evaluation of program and process
Evaluation 2014: results
• Structural weaknesses:
• Unclear targets and performance criteria
• Uncertainty about expected results
• Inconsistency between learning and production goals
Evaluation 2014: recommendations
• Explicit definition of good investigative journalism
• Describe corresponding methodology
• Expand pool of trainers and lecturers
• Appoint assistant teacher and program manager
• Form advisory council
Dual methodological core
Qualitative methods
Quantitative methods
Dual methodological core
Qualitative methods
Quantitative methods
naturalistic enquiry
data-analysis, surveys, mapping etc.
Observing, Understanding & Explaining
Meaning
Observational
Emic
Etic
Action
Description (facts, behavior)
Interpretation (eyes of actor)
Explanation (analysis)
Investigative Teaching Lab
• Key features:
• Team based approach
• The size and scope of societal problems, the use of new investigative methods and
techniques, the need for multiple narrative styles demand that journalists learn
how to work in multidisciplinary team settings.
• Closer connection with science
• Strengthening the methodology and toolkit of investigative journalism by
importing insights, theories and methodologies from science.
Investigative Teaching Lab
• Results:
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7 editions
30 participants
11 continue as investigative journalists
9 continue as general freelance journalists
1 returned to commercial radio
2 were accepted as PhD-candidates
7 chose other career (university teacher, policy researcher, etc.)
Investigative Teaching Lab
• Results:
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7 big stories
Most with data-analysis and –visualization
Widespread attention in the Dutch media
Questions in parliament
Impact on policy- and decision-making
Nominations and award (alumni)
The Investigative Desk
• Launch: March 2014
• Key features:
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We don’t believe in the investigative journalist as a lone wolf
We prefer working in groups of two to six with multiple skills and disciplines
We use modern data-journalistic techniques and classic journalistic methods
And we use insights from social sciences and ‘interpretative qualitative
research’ methodology.
Example: cost overruns in public ICT
The Amsterdam Financial System:
one for every civil servant
Organizing the investigative process
• Pitch
• Research plan & team formation
• Budget, funding plan, finding media partners
• Research
• Lacuna session
• Further research
• Construction session
• Writing
Case: Professor Inc.
Case: Professor Inc.
Case: Redefining the professor
Case: Redefining the Professor
Case: Redefining the Professor
Case: Redefining the Professor
Case: Redefining the Professor
Case: Redefining the Professor
The Investigative Desk
• Results year 1:
• 12 major stories e.g.
• young African football talents lured to Europe with false promises
• Dutch financial offshore companies pivot in a fraudulent scheme to divert
profits from the transfer of Rumanian football players
• billion-euro losses of the Dutch state gas company
• systematic cost overruns in government ICT-projects.
• Project Energy Billions: co-operation with 10 regional media,
producing 40 stories & items
• 15 projects and 20 partner-projects under development
The Investigative Desk
• Results year 1:
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Widespread attention of other media
Questions in parliament and a parliamentary debate.
Dutch award for investigative journalism,
Nomination for the European Press Prize 2015.
• Financial results:
• Budget + 50% (co-funding and project subsidies)
The Investigative Desk
• Prospects:
• Quadrupling of funds and 3-year commitment major donor
• Increasing number of media partnerships.
• Internationalization