How a non-profit journalism website investigates companies

Katrina Brooker of LinkedIn interviewed Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation founder Roddy Boyd about his work digging into companies and finding stories.

Here is an excerpt:

Do you really consider yourself the only reporter doing financial fraud investigations? 

There is not really anybody else dedicated to investigating all corporate, all financial fraud journalistically as a living — on the not-for-profit side. Some others dip into it from time to time but I don’t really see anyone else is doing it full time. 

Once a year there is company that steps into a bear trap. They get into trouble and it becomes open season on them. I am not talking about that company. I mean going after a large name that is not already in trouble. 

A lot of people will do a  “There could be trouble…”  types of pieces. Or people are willing to write about smoldering embers after a business crashes. There are so few journalists out there that are really going to write anything painful to a company that is an ongoing business — before the lawsuit hits or before the real trouble starts. 

Read more here.