Case studies No. 9 and No. 10

The first case study deals with a reporter chasing a story about a scheme being run through a classified ad. The ad used negative advertising to trick people into spending money on any of a number of services (correspondence courses, land sales, etc.). The reporter goes to a meeting for the group from the ad and learns that it is in fact a scheme and how it works.
The reporter then finds an elderly couple that had been on the bad end of one of the land deals. The reporter uses some questionable tactics to ensure the cooperation of the couple, brining a photographer and basically giving them a sales pitch to get them to go along. The story results in many more people coming forward with their own tales of being burned.

The second case study is about a reporter chasing a story about a clinic with some unusual methods of practicing medicine. The reporter suspects it could be a case of fraud and wants to check things out.
The reporter goes through the motions, tracks down the doctors and does her homework on the place. The doctors point the reporter to a list of patients that will vouch for the authenticity of their methods. She contacts some of the people on the list and gets glowing endorsements about the clinic. The reporter knows however that the machine used to diagnose the patients at the clinic is a soil tester.

The reporter and a colleague had been chasing the story around the clock to make sure they beat another media outlet. When both stories came out, the opposition ran a fluff piece full of the smoke the people at the clinic had been blowing up rear ends (metaphorically speaking, that was not one of the clinic’s techniques). The reporter and her colleague had a strong story that held up much better.