The Science Writers' Investigative Reporting Handbook: A Beginner's Guide to Investigations

"The Science Writers' Investigative Reporting Handbook: A Beginner's Guide to Investigations" is a practical, step-by-step guide that gives writers all the tools they’ll need to add accountability reporting to their stories. In a concise, easy-to-follow format, it lays out strategies and resources designed to empower beginners to launch science-based investigations. It draws on the experience and insights of teachers and practicing journalists alike to illuminate the fundamental principles of investigative reporting, offering tips on cultivating sources, choosing an investigation, working with data, organizing materials, interviewing subjects and bulletproofing stories to avoid legal and ethical pitfalls. Real-world examples demonstrate the responsibility that comes with going beyond showing how science works to revealing how it is used and, too often, abused to the public’s detriment. And, at a time when the need for science-savvy reporters has arguably never been greater, “The Science Writers' Investigative Reporting Handbook” makes a compelling case for why journalists should cover science with the same skepticism they would bring to any other human endeavor.

Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Deborah Blum calls it “not only a guide to good reporting — it’s a compelling treatise on why it matters so much.”

This book is part of a series of handbooks: “The Science Writers’ Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, Publish, and Prosper in the Digital Age," which the author contributed to, and "The Science Writers' Essay Handbook."

Read more about the series at PitchPublishProsper.com

Liza Gross is an award-winning independent journalist and editor at the science journal PLOS Biology. She has covered a wide range of scientific issues, ranging from conservation and environment to autism and psychedelic medicine. She's also a contributor to "The Science Writers' Handbook" and a reporter for the Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent, nonprofit news organization that produces award-winning, high-impact investigative and explanatory reporting on food, agriculture and environmental health.