Guest 2

Matt Doig, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, investigative reporter (data base specialist).

Matt Doing was another interesting speaker. He was extremely informative, and his personal experiences where great to hear. I like how he was able to tell us what he has encountered on a day to day basis, and some of the big stories that he has published. Some of what Matthew mention he does is, reporting in which the reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or another type of scandal. It was also interesting how he got a hold of some of the public records, for example there was an employee that requested something from the FBI, and it was not till 5 years later that eh received the document. Matthew informed us that with that you cannot put a time limit. He was surprised to see this documents, but being that the former employee requested it when he was employed with the company, there fore it is the property of the company that he was employed by when the request was made.
Another point that Matthew mentioned is when he calls in to request a public record they say “Oh, ok we have to give it to you because you are from the newspaper”, this comment irritates him because anyone has access to that not ONLY people form the news paper.
Being an investigative reporter is rather interesting because a lot of it does coincide with TV. Much of what is written in the newspaper can become a news story. He mentioned this several times throughout his talk that many paper stories can also be news stories for us TV News people.
Another point that Matthew made is how an investigative journalist may spend a considerable period researching and preparing a report, sometimes months or years, whereas a typical daily or weekly news reporter writes items concerning immediately available news.