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Investigative Reporters Handbook (2020)
Published
Sixth edition, by Brant Houston and Mark Horvit for Investigative Reporters and Editors (2020)
The closest thing the trade has to a standard reference, and the one to keep on the desk. Its 23 chapters cover data, documents and writing up the finished investigation, along with a wide range of specific beats, so a reporter can turn straight to the part that matches the story in hand. The sixth edition was thoroughly rewritten and adds chapters on working in news collaborations and on investigating social justice issues. It is a textbook with a textbook price, so check for a library copy or a used one before buying new.
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Story-Based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists
Free to download in its original UNESCO edition, and the best single answer to the question of how an investigation actually starts. Mark Lee Hunter and his co-authors treat every story as a hypothesis until it is verified, then build the method out from there: backgrounding, working with human sources, setting the project up to succeed, writing, quality control and publishing.
The chapters on organization and quality control are the ones most reporters skip and most need. First published with UNESCO in 2009 and translated into more than ten languages, it was substantially updated in a 2025 edition, which is the one to look for.
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The Art of access (2010)
Published
Second edition, by David Cuillier and Charles N. Davis (CQ Press, 2019)
Knowing the public records law is only half the job; this book is about the other half, getting an official to actually hand the records over. Cuillier and Davis treat access as an art that needs an organized approach and an understanding of human behavior, and they work through finding which records exist and where to ask, dealing with the officials who hold them, handling a denial and knowing when to use more forceful options. They also explain how to get data and whole databases. At under 250 pages it reads quickly, and it pairs naturally with a state-by-state guide to the law itself.
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Data for Journalists (2018)
Published
Sixth edition, by Brant Houston (Routledge, 2026)
The practical route into data work for a reporter who has never opened a database manager. Houston, a former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors who went on to hold the Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, covers spreadsheets and database managers before moving on to coding and more advanced analysis, along with finding and scraping data and building a database, so each skill pays off on real stories before the next one arrives. The new sixth edition adds a chapter on data visualization and material on free software such as Google Sheets and Datawrapper, which matters for anyone in a newsroom without a software budget.
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Numbers in the newsroom (2001)
Published
Second edition, by Sarah Cohen (Investigative Reporters and Editors, 2014)
The fastest cure for the moment a budget, a crime rate or a poll lands on the desk and the story depends on getting the arithmetic right. Cohen, a former economist at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, covers fractions, rates, percentages, change and averages, always in terms of the stories they produce. Her core rule is that almost every number needs comparing with something: another time, another place or a total. Read it before the data books, not after.
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The Data Journalism Handbook How Journalists Can Use Data To Improve News (2012)
Published
Second edition: Towards a Critical Data Practice, edited by Liliana Bounegru and Jonathan Gray (Amsterdam University Press, 2021)
Free to read online, and the widest view of how data reporting is done around the world: 54 chapters from 74 contributors. It is a collection of perspectives and case studies rather than a step-by-step course, so it suits a reporter who already knows spreadsheets and wants ideas for where the next data story might come from. Dip into the chapters that match a current project instead of reading cover to cover.
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Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting
Free, and the guide for the part of an investigation that now happens online. Edited by Craig Silverman for the European Journalism Centre, it applies verification to long-form work: search and research techniques for online investigations, checking open data before building a story on it, fact-checking and using material posted by members of the public ethically.
It dates from 2015, so specific platforms and sites have moved on, but the habits it teaches, tracing where a claim or dataset really came from and documenting each step, have not. Read it for the method and update the tools yourself.
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Precision journalism (1973)
Published
Fourth edition: A Reporter's Introduction to Social Science Methods, by Philip Meyer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)
The oldest book here and still the one that explains why a pattern in the data is or is not evidence. Meyer argued that reporters should borrow the tools of social scientists, and the fourth edition covers data analysis, statistics, surveys, experiments, databases and election analysis, along with lurking variables and regression. The software chapters have aged; the reasoning about cause, sampling and confounders has not. Worth it for the reporter who wants to defend a data finding against an official's pushback.
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Talk to Me (2019)
Published
The interviewing guide on the list, and the most readable entry. Dean Nelson, who founded the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University, argues that good interviews come from careful preparation and good journalistic habits rather than luck, and backs it with case studies of famous interviews. It also covers choosing whom to interview, structuring questions, recording and taking notes.
It is not specific to investigations, so it says little about whistleblowers or confrontational accountability interviews; take it for the preparation and habits that every source conversation needs. Published by Harper Perennial in 2019 and also available as an audiobook.
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Open Government Guide (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)
The reference to check before filing any request to a state or local agency in the US. The Reporters Committee's guide covers open records and open meetings law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with each state's outline prepared by volunteer attorneys who are experts in open government law there. Every state follows the same standard outline, split into access to records and access to meetings, so one state's rules can be compared directly with another's. Free online, and the natural companion to a book on access tactics.
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Safety Kit (Committee to Protect Journalists)
Investigations make enemies, and this free kit covers the precautions most handbooks leave to a closing chapter. The Committee to Protect Journalists groups basic physical, digital and psychological safety information for reporters and editors: a security guide on risk assessment and physical safety, short safety notes on specific threats, crisis-specific advisories for assignments and contacts for organizations that help journalists at risk. Work through the risk assessment before a story starts drawing attention, not after.
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Reporting Guides (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
The most current entry here, because the Global Investigative Journalism Network keeps publishing and expanding it. Each free guide focuses on one subject, with recent titles on fossil fuels, food insecurity, foreign lobbying and spotting AI-generated content under deadline pressure. Older guides get updated too: the war crimes guide gained new chapters on the arms trade, forced displacement and starvation. Pick the one that matches a beat or a running story and use it as a starting plan for the project.
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