I spent the better half of last week in Orlando, across the street from SeaWorld (Hi, Shamu!). About 1,300 journalists, including myself, got together at the Renaissance Orlando for the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference to learn from some of the best reporters in the business on how to better investigate the companies, governments, and people we write about—and make sure we’re going after the stories that most need to be told.
Peers from other newsrooms laid out how they’re digging into stories we’ve been covering in Term Sheet, such as the regional banking crisis. Others shared how they’ve uncovered the Romanian gang behind a slew of compromised ATMs around the globe. In the world of the ever-elusive private markets, where information is often kept closely guarded by non-disclosure agreements, this kind of work is really important, even if it’s hard and takes more time.
