About Covering Child Sex Abuse: Lessons from the Sandusky Story

Sara Ganim was just following up on a tip from a source. Months later, she broke the first story about the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the former Penn State University assistant football coach convicted of sexually abusing children. Ganim, a reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., explains in this Seminar Snapshot how previous crime stories helped her piece together the complex Sandusky investigation. Learn how she went beyond court documents, legal jargon and news releases to uncover and verify information. Understand the importance of consulting with your news organization's lawyers, conducting in-person interviews with your sources and hunting down documents. This Seminar Snapshot contains edited video highlights from a presentation at The Poynter Institute during "Covering Child Sex Abuse," a Specialized Reporting Institute workshop on July 9-10, 2012. Stephen Buckley, Poynter's dean of faculty, interviews Sara Ganim for this presentation.