Starting Sept. 1, PBS will broadcast a series of half-hour features on investigative reporting projects around the country. Produced by WNET in New York, the program is being carried locally by East Tennessee Public Television at 9 p.m. on Fridays, right after the NOW news magazine. From what I've read about it, the series isn't just about what the reporters discovered, but how they did each project.
You don't have to own a trenchcoat to learn something from the investigative reporting series -- even public relations students should be very interested in the "crisis management" issues in the first episode, the story of a year-long South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation of FEMA that found a more than a half-billion dollars in questionable awards. The second episode is about an award-winning pharmaceutical industry expose.
And, speaking of public relations, here's the (rather excited for PBS) WNET press release:
CORRUPTION REVEALED. FRAUD EXPOSED. ABUSE OF POWER UNCOVERED. AIR:
AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS, A NEW SERIES FROM THIRTEEN/WNET NEW
YORK, PREMIERES SEPTEMBER 1ST ON PBS
Weekly Half-Hour Documentary Episodes Will Chronicle Recent
Journalistic Investigations That Have Revealed Betrayals Of The Public
Trust
A healthy democracy requires an informed public. Yet just outside the
din of daily media, the plethora of "news" shows on TV and the
mega-mall information overload of the Internet, there are things going
on behind closed doors every day that adversely affect the interests of
the American people. Whether government corruption, corporate
malfeasance, or any other abuse of power by institutions or individuals
entrusted with the public good, these acts all share one thing in
common: the people committing them want to keep you in the dark.
That's where investigative journalism comes in.
Now, from the producers of the award-winning documentary series Wide
Angle at Thirteen/WNET New York, comes AIR: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE
REPORTS, premiering Friday, September 1 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check
local listings). Each of AIR's weekly, documentary-style half-hour
episodes will chronicle powerful, groundbreaking recent journalistic
investigations, featuring the committed reporters and editors who have
produced them. Whether originating in print, on television, radio or
the Internet, these are the stories that have shaken communities, held
the powerful accountable and tried to make a difference in the
functioning of America's democracy.
"The truth is the greatest protection a free society can offer its
citizens," said Stephen Segaller, executive in charge of AIR, "yet it's
often hidden behind a back-room deal, a confidential memo or the spin
of a political operative. AIR will document the work of journalists
from different media whose investigations have succeeded in performing
a critical role in our democracy - airing the truth to the public."
AIR will cast a wide net, including reports in the fields of government
and the judicial system, business and investment, public safety, law
enforcement, immigration, national security, elections, education,
health and medicine, sports and more. In detailing the impact of each
investigation, AIR will tackle broader issues - Is the public better
protected now? Was the corruption stopped? Did the Congressman resign?
Has the environment improved? And in some cases: Why has nothing been
done?
At a time when government transparency is waning, when journalists are
subpoenaed to reveal confidential sources, when the Freedom of
Information Act - some would say the First Amendment itself - is under
attack, the climate for questioning those in power has never been less
friendly. Yet recent stories in the American media - from Abu Ghraib to
Enron, from FEMA's preparedness for Hurricane Katrina to the BALCO
sports doping scandal - have shown that there remains a vital streak of
investigative journalism in America today.
Investigative reporters and editors are storytellers in their own
right. Along with excerpts from their original newspaper or magazine
articles, television, radio and web reports - some of which have won
such prestigious awards as the Pulitzer or duPont-Columbia - AIR will
feature these personalities and their shrewd insights about their
reporting experiences, providing a rare look at journalism from the
other side of the lens.
Funders for AIR: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS include Bernard and
Irene Schwartz, Park Foundation, The Jacob Burns Foundation, The Betsy
and Jesse Fink Foundation, Tracy and Eric Semler, and Scripps Howard
Foundation.
AIR: AMERICA'S INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS is a production of Thirteen/WNET
New York in association with the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Stephen Segaller, director of news and public affairs programming at
Thirteen, is executive in charge of AIR. Tom Casciato is executive
producer; Scott Davis is senior producer.
Coincidentally, on ETPTV "AIR" will be followed by another WNET/PBS program college students may like, Roadtrip Nation, "about college grads seeking their paths in life." I wonder if any of them will be looking into investigative reporting?
If you can't wait until Friday, you can always find recent investigative reporting projects at Extra! Extra!, a bloglike list of stories that is headed right now by a five-part Times-Picayune series on the Memorial Medical Center deaths during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Other recent Extra! Extra! headlines: "Sexual misconduct and military recruiters," "Vietnam war crimes revisited," "'Adult Interference' inflates test scores," and many more.
12:39:58 PM 
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