Investigative Journalism

Inv estigative Journalism

What will investigative journalism involve?

This stream allows students to write like a journalist to explore a story in which they have an interest. The story must be in the broad field of human rights or social justice. This could include issues from climate change to migration, poverty to protest. It could be local, national or international.

To decide what story you want to write, you might ask yourself "What makes me angry?" or "What inspires me?" Those undertaking a project in this stream will submit their work in the form a piece of journalistic writing (see examples opposite). Students will only have the option of doing this as a 15 CAT Term 2 option (maximum 5,000 words).

Samples of Good Practice

These are examples of 'long form' journalism by professional journalists:

Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi - Memories of a Protest - Lacuna Magazine

Nesrine Malak - ‘Is this justice?’: why Sudan is facing a multibillion-dollar bill for 9/11

James Harrison - The Foodbank Dilemma

What will my project involve?

Your story will be underpinned by research into the issues you want to write about. But you may rely on a wider range of sources (journalistic articles, reports, your own interviews etc.) You will also learn to write in a different style, supported by our expert team (see box opposite).

What kind of support will you receive?

Teaching support is delivered in streams and through supervision by members of the editorial team of Lacuna Magazine (the Law School's own magazine of human rights journalism).

In streams, you will have workshop style lectures that provide training and guidance on getting started, research methods, ethics, and how to write in a journalistic style.

All students will also be supported by a supervisor. Supervision will mainly consist of regular group meetings that will focus on proposals, literature, writing, and reviewing past work. In addition, there will be termly individual supervision to discuss draft written work.

Do you have questions about this stream? Contact the stream lead: Professor James Harrison (J.Harrison.3@warwick.ac.uk)

Working towards a project proposal: step by step guidance

You can download the timeline and all exercises as a word document here if you wish to use it as a worksheet.

Timeline

When?	I need to attend	By the end of the week, I should have..
Week 2 Term 2	One of the project information sessions	Completed Exercise 1 (side tab) and read about different project options to decide on a stream
Week 3 Term 2		Considered an area of law or a broad topic I want to explore further Decided on the stream I want to do my research in
Week 5 Term 2	A stream specific session on developing proposal
Week 6 Term 2		Completed Exercise 2 (side tab) and in particular, narrowed down ideas from a broad topic to a more specific issue and identified five sources relevant to my research and considered why they are important.
Week 8 Term 2	If I have any questions, attend one of the drop-in sessions	Read further into the readings identified
Week 10 Term 2	If I have any questions, attend one of the drop-in sessions	Completed Roadmap to a topic (side tab)
March 20th 2025		Final deadline for submission of my proposal

Exercise 1: Brainstorming

This exercise is designed to help you to get started.

Start by listing all of the ideas for dissertation topic you can think of in about 10 minutes. You can reflect on your past study experiences, news, and personal interests to do this.
List as many pros and cons as you can think of for each item.
After all pros and cons have been identified, rank each item based on the idea, the pros, and the cons.

Exercise 2: Finding focus

EXERCISE 2: Finding focus

Answer the questions on the right in 1-2 sentences per topic you are contemplating.

These questions are designed to help you crystallise your ideas and to find your focus as you are preparing for the proposal.

Questions to consider

What am I actually interested in finding out the most?
What do I hope to learn or gain by choosing this topic?
What kind of research or data would help me answer the questions I am interested in?
Using google searches and the Online Library search function, identify and write down 5 potential sources
Which one(s) of these sources is the most helpful and why? You can just read the abstract/introductions for now, and save the most helpful ones to later to read in full.

Roadmap to a topic

Roadmap to finding a topic

Reflect on all the questions in the infograph; this is an aid to help you find your topic. When you can answer all the questions, you are ready to submit your proposal.

This infographic is made by Alison Phipps and it is freely available on her website: https://phipps.space/resources-for-researchers/ You can find other research resources there too.