Investigative Reporting: Regulators Ignore Autism Drug Side-Effects

The Toronto Star has published a troubling and well-done example of investigative reporting on autism and how regulators have mishandled oversight of drugs used on kids thought to have the ailment - some as young as 4.

The Star story, by David Bruser and Andrew Bailey, documents a pattern of serious, sometimes fatal health side-effects from the drugs, which have been largely ignored by government regulators.

The story is especially striking when read alongside a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in March that said the youngest children in a classroom are diagnosed with autism more frequently than older children, raising concerns that many schoolchildren are being misdiagnosed.

Resources: Your Journalism Reading List - Investigative and Otherwise

Good reading list here on online journalism for newbie and vet journalists alike at UK journalism prof Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism Blog.

And here also on the same site is a great list of free ebooks on journalism, including on investigative reporting.

Among them is journalism prof Mark Lee Hunter's very interesting-looking 209-page The Global Casebook: An anthology for teachers and students of investigative journalism.

A companion to the UNESCO primer on investigative journalism that I blogged about in July, also written by Hunter, The Global Casebook features a fascinating list of dozens of investigative stories from around the world accompanied by notes about how each story was done and its impacts.

Resources: Paul Lima's Freelance Writing e-Guidebook

Successful Toronto freelance writer Paul Lima has written a useful ebook on freelancing, "Everything You Wanted to Know about Freelance Writing," available for free here.

Covers everything from time management to queries, writing article leads and cold calls - questions every journalist needs to confront.