As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Iain Overton gives his tips on some of the personal qualities to develop as an investigator
For 35 years Paul Dale reported on Birmingham City Council for the local press. As this first interview for Help Me Investigate, he gives his tips on starting to investigate local government, and the importance of human contacts.
Following the previous video of Heather Brooke on the Help Me Investigate blog, Heather provides further tips on using the Data Protection Act on Help Me Investigate: Health and Help Me Investigate: Welfare.
Her advice on investigating health, welfare and crime:
And on using the Data Protection Act:
Over on Help Me Investigate Education there's a video interview with?experienced journalist and campaigner?Fiona Millar,?who publishes?The Truth About Our Schools: a website and blog covering the education sector.?
As part of a series of interviews for Help Me Investigate, Freedom of information (FOI) campaigner and investigative journalist Heather Brooke gives her tips on investigating public bodies, including testing official statements and identifying the information you need.
Although the website for the Danish investigative journalism conference is, understandably, in Danish, many of the videos from its recent conference are in English.
Highlights include the MI5 spy turned whistleblower Annie Machon and Finnish journalist Paula Sallinen, who created a fake online identity to investigate paedophiles, but there are plenty more to explore.
If you use the Chrome browser you can also turn on automatic translation for the text surrounding the videos.
Martin Rosenbaum is the BBC's Freedom of Information expert. As well as using FOI to find stories himself, he helps journalists across the organisation use the FOI Act to access information on public bodies. You can see examples of his work on his BBC page, and find him on Twitter @rosenbaum6. In this video he gives some tips on writing FOI requests, including being specific about dates and knowing which organisation holds the information you're looking for.
Here Mark Lee Hunter gives his advice if you're starting out on an investigation. Among others things: don't ask for people's secrets, come to them with something to explain:?