Since its creation a year ago, students at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism have dug into everything from human smuggling to New York sweatshops to the ethical foibles of other journalists.

The Center at Columbia's School of Journalism accepts 15 students annually to prepare investigative Masters projects intended for publication. Renowned journalist Toni Stabile, who uncovered secrets of the cosmetics industry, donated five million dollars for the Center.

"Investigative reporting is a separate genre," Stabile Center Director Sheila Coronel said. "It exposes wrongdoing in the public interest. Investigative journalism is set apart by the fact that it reveals new information."

Under Coronel's direction, students are preparing articles about ethical qualms in journalism to be published in the Columbia Journalism Review, which calls itself the "publication serving as a watchdog of the press in all its forms."

One such project resulted in Jay Forman's confession of fabricating a story about monkey fishing published in Slate magazine in 2001. A story about the students' exposé was published in the New York Times and Slate.

The majority of the 15 students came to the program from non-journalistic backgrounds. "We have two lawyers, an accountant, a biomedical engineer, and someone with an undergraduate degree in physics," Coronel said.

Irene Liu, a Stabile student who traveled to China to research human smuggling for her Masters project, came from a background in non-profit organizations. She dug for information about Yale New Haven Hospital and unearthed that despite its $30 million endowment, the hospital had been seizing bank accounts to pay for low-income patient's medical bills.

"We tried to work with the hospital and got stonewalled ... so I called the editor of the local weekly, who wrote a story," she said. The story mobilized the community to rectify the situation.

"I realized through work in philanthropy that journalism has the power to catalyze change and work against the inertia and the status quo," Liu said.

A large component of the program deals with data analysis. "As technology breaks down the barriers between old and new media, watchdogs have to be more versatile ... in their outlook and orientation," Coronel said at the Center's opening ceremony.

Ellen Gabler, a Stabile student researching sweatshops in New York, worked as a reporter for three years before coming to Columbia to learn more about investigative journalism. "I wasn't exactly sure that investigative reporting could be taught, but as it turns out it can."

Although only in its formative stages, students say the program has exceeded all expectations. "I was very nervous to be in the guinea pig group," Gabler said. "As soon as I met Sheila I knew it was going to be awesome."