Trust, transparency and inspiration: these are just some of the lessons from the IRE conference for our Student Journalist of the Year, Brendan Kearns.
Journalism is not just about what is easily accessible - it is about going deeper to build sources, extract information, and notice what is hidden both in plain sight and behind closed doors.
That is what I took from the 50th Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in New Orleans, which I had the privilege of attending, kindly supported by the Melbourne Press Club as part of the award for Student Journalist of the Year.
It was at the conference that I watched American journalists reveal how they build collaborative relationships with underheard communities, reveal systemic problems rather than band-aid style reporting, and go from passive receivers of information to assertive seekers of it.
During an early session on how to cover communities that you are not a part of, experienced investigators spoke on how they gain trust and build long-term relationships in areas they want to cover.
Firstly, trust must be earned and not assumed.
This could be as simple as publishing a first story that proves your credibility.
But importantly, these journalists emphasised that we need to help communities that we report on access stories about them.
If they can see responsible and accurate reporting, it builds trust and deepens those ties.
Data and information were, of course, major themes at the conference.
However, during a session on hunger, the panel posed that a lack of data can be just as important a story.
In this case, a lack of data on starving communities led the reporter to ask, “why is this not being tracked?”
For me, this was a key message: to go beyond surface-level data and ask structural questions about what our government tracks, what they don’t, and why those decisions are made.
I was struck at the conference by the assertiveness of American investigative reporters.
Their use of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests was beyond liberal, while the emergent technologies such as AI were proposed as tools for political accountability.
While Australian journalists cannot rely on the same constitutional protections as our friends in the US, I was inspired by how they push for transparency.
At one session, journalists gave examples of 40 different FOI requests that they encouraged each reporter to bring back to their own newsrooms.
Tools were shared to track websites and social media profiles using AI, and tips were given for how to find information hidden online.
While we operate in a different system from the US, their mindset of pushing for transparency and going deeper than just what is accessible was inspiring, and something I hope to apply to my work.
Brendan Kearns was the MPC’s 2024 Student Journalist of the Year.
He currently works for The Australian.