Kristina Peterson bought prescription drugs online without a prescription.
A 2009 alumna of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism, Peterson was investigating a Web site that illegally sells prescription drugs last May, when she decided to order the product herself.
“The day that it arrived, we shrieked and took all of these photos. It was great to see something candid that we’ve gotten,” she said.
It is this kind of thorough reporting that takes place in the three-year-old Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.
According to Sheila Coronel, director of the Center, more than 100 students applied this year, marking the largest and most diverse pool of applicants since the program’s inception in 2006—despite the fact that investigative reporting in today’s media environment is threatened.
Stabile students are required to complete the investigative track on top of traditional M.S. concentrations in broadcast, newspaper, magazine, and digital media. And with new computer-assisted reporting methods, Stabile has evolved every year in response to the changing media landscape.
“You read a lot about how investigative reporting has to be done through the Web, using new techniques that the Web allows ... The Stabile Center is part of this trend,” Coronel said.
The program also focuses on how changes in technology create new opportunities to present content and influence the models for funding investigative reporting. Coronel said that not many other graduate programs provide this focused opportunity. “Other universities have investigative reporting classes, but not a dedicated track,” she said.
“It’s definitely challenging,” said Amy Brittain, Journalism ’10 and a current Stabile student. “It’s almost like having a second major.”
Students are also required to complete specialized reports for their master’s project. In the past, students have mapped the rise in methadone prescriptions, explored Internet pharmacies, and reported on global trade in substandard drugs.
Some alumni have carried their work from the classroom into the professional world. Two years ago, Peterson wrote a story that ran on the front page of the New York Times, about athletes who lack adequate health care coverage.
“It was the most fantastic experience ever,” she said. “The purpose of being a journalist is that you find things that people involved don’t necessarily want to be news, and you bring that to the attention of your readers. That was why I, in concept, wanted to go to the Stabile Center.”
Brittain said that this kind of reporting reflects the growing importance of technology in journalism. “It’s part of the new media emergence, and it’s a justification for why journalism school still exists. We need people to do this for the history of our country,” she said.
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