David F. Sutherland & Associates

Vancouver, B.C.

"Hey!" says the editor, after reading investigative copy, "I’ll bet this story has legs!"

At that precise moment, when that compliment is delivered to the reporter, whether it is said out loud or not, that newsroom has decided that the story is worth follow-up -–that the saga of whatever was being investigated will probably yield newsworthy copy in the future. Both the editor and the reporter recognize that the first story is newsworthy and should be published immediately, but the story leaves questions unanswered or it will provoke responses. More will emerge; more that will be newsworthy. It’s the kind of story that readers follow, and in rare cases, it’s the kind of story that has readers eagerly anticipating each successive issue of the paper.

It’s not a Woodward and Bernstein kind of thing – bringing down the most powerful individual in the world. It’s always far more mundane. For example, in February every year stories seem to break about financial advisors fleecing investors. Those stories tend to be "investigative journalism," at least until the complaint gets to court or the Superintendent of Financial Institutions issues a report. Reporting on court proceedings or official reports is usually covered by a qualified privilege and, as a result, the reporter and editor only need to think about accuracy, not truth. If there’s a privilege, it’s not really investigative journalism. You are relying on the court transcript or the official report to prove that your story is an accurate account – not relying on sources, who are eye-witnesses, in whom you have to have enough confidence to believe you can prove truth two years later at a trial.

Anyway, let’s use the "investor loses lifesavings" type of story as an illustration. Sure enough, as RRSP deadlines approach, there are stories like this every year. Some readers are interested because the victims are known in the community. Others wish to avoid the pitfalls illustrated. Still others want to know how well or poorly the government and the industry is regulated. There is usually interest in details about the person who took advantage – how long they remained in the community after their scheme began to unravel, what church and service club they attended. There are lessons to be learned from the early warning signs, whether heeded or unheeded by the victim(s). There may be an employer or large institution which served (or was used) to lend credibility to the scam artist. This sort of story, if it’s not under a privilege, requires the reporter to go hither and yon for statements from a variety of angles, each responding to the statements and suggestions of others.

Now let’s say the story is published. It’s got everyone’s viewpoint and, to a great extent, it leaves the readership to decide for itself concerning the issues of ultimate responsibility and fault.

Perhaps some institution wasn’t careful to disassociate itself from the scam artist. Perhaps it claims that its stationery must have been stolen, but the reader is left to wonder how quickly or thoroughly it investigated once it started getting complaints about unknown employees. Why would it sublet space to a business, at least partially competing? (This scenario is entirely fictitious.) Your story is detailed and the reader is left to balance the credibility of the players, although some statements don’t seem very probable.

Next, let’s assume the story has "legs." So, sometime later, maybe a week, maybe a month later, another newsworthy development emerges. It’s at this time, while attempting to remind your readers of the earlier piece, that special problems can arise. These problems have a label, "in a nutshell."

"In a nutshell" is the problem of how to remind your readers that the new report is connected to your earlier item. Frequently, reporters summarize the earlier report or aspects of it. For example, you might summarize, in a nutshell, that your paper has previously reported that the scam artist "had an office arrangement that lulled investors into a belief that they were dealing with the [identified] larger institution." You don’t want to report everything that you’ve previously reported. You don’t have space to outline the signage, layout of offices, and all the aspects you previously reported (and left for the readers so that they could draw their own conclusions). ; However, you do want to connect the new story to the previous one.

There is a tendency to encapsulate the story in a nutshell by stating what you believe your readers concluded. You believe that your readers concluded that investors were "lulled." In order to remind the readers of the earlier report, you might be tempted to state that you earlier reported that investors were "lulled." I don’t know why these types of retrospective references seem to cause as many problems as they do. Otherwise superb and careful journalists seem to take leave of their senses when reporting on their own work.

The problem can take a lot of different forms. Perhaps the victim was quoted in the early report that he was, and he believes any investor would have been, lulled by the fact that the institution’s sign extended over the street entrance to the scam artist’s office. That’s an opinion (lulled or prone to lulling) based on fact (orientation of entrance and signage). However, when you compose your nutshell summary you convert the opinion previously reported into a statement of fact (investors (plural) were lulled).

The original report was defensible based on the reporter’s observation of the storefront and the opinion of the victim. The nutshell version, however, will be treated as a statement of fact by our courts since the factual foundation for the opinion is omitted. The nutshell version can only be defended as true by finding victims (plural) who will say they were lulled by the layout. However, you only quoted one such victim in the original story and your nutshell version says, on its face, that it is a recounting of your earlier story. If you are sued by the institution for saying "lulled," and you rush around after publication asking victims if they were, in fact, lulled by the institution, you will be risking "aggravated damages" in the lawsuit. Each time you ask a victim such a question you are relinking the concept of "lulling" with the institution. There’s an innuendo embedded in the question. And worse still, your motivation isn’t journalism, it’s self-interest. Investigation is better before and risky after publication.

A nutshell recap of a previous story requires caution. Often, it is not necessary to recap at all. This will depend on whether the "hook" of the new news is dependent upon, or bears directly upon, the earlier information or issues. Other times it may be wise to recount a few facts from your earlier report without referring specifically to the fact that you broke the story.

No matter what, you are far safer to recap discrete facts (such as, "sign extends over entrance") that will remind readers of the basis of their conclusions, than to summarize those conclusion ("lulled") no matter how obvious those conclusions may be. Some editors say that any word or concept that was "sourced" (by which these editors mean attributed") in the original piece, should be sourced in the nutshell version, whether fact or opinion. If that makes the recap longer, then so be it. If the length tempts you to drop the reference to your earlier report, so be that, too. These are the same editors that want almost everything sourced, all the time, and don’t mind insisting.

© David F. Sutherland 1999