Investigations: Mouldy Homes for Haiti

Check out the Canadian Centre of Investigative Reporting's newly revamped website. The redesign coincides with the release of an interesting new CCIR-backed story investigating the troubled international efforts to help Haiti rebuild after 2010 devastating earthquake.

One rebuilding project, supported by Bill Clinton's humanitarian foundation, saddled Haitians with shoddily constructed, mould-ridden shelters, the story found. Air samples taken inside them contained carcinogens. The story was done in collaboration with The Nation magazine. (Disclosure: I'm the president of the CCIR's board.)

Awards: Congrats to Me!

Congratulations to me! I just won a Canadian Association of Journalists award for best investigative reporting in a Canadian magazine. Thanks, CAJ! The winningest story was this piece in Vancouver's Georgia Straight weekly on how Canada's food inspection system is failing to ensure the safety of meat, even after a tainted meat outbreak that killed 23 people.

I was also nominated for two National Magazine Awards for this investigation of the coming health impacts from climate change and how Canadian medical authorities and governments are doing little to prepare. The story reported that rising summer temperatures are expected to kill 15,330 to 27,150 Montrealers and cost up to $124 nationally in added health expenditures and lost productivity between 2010 and 2100, according to a federally funded study done last year.

Update: My climate change story shared in a gold prize for editorial packages from the NMAs.

Tools: Interviewing Tips from Q&A Guru Sawatsky

When you do interviews, do you typically ask closed- or open-ended questions? If you don't know what I'm talking about, trot on over to this great story about interviewing guru John Sawatsky. The story talks about how conventional interviewing techniques often don't work.

It includes some interesting anecdotes about well-known TV journalists falling flat in their interviews, generally because of closed-ended questions (ones that can be answered with a "yes" or "no"), rather than "what," "how" and "why." Seeing Sawatsky speak at a workshop a few years ago had a big influence on me. If you don't have a chance to see him yourself, check out one of his books.