Nigel Jaquiss and Investigative Reporting

Nigel Jaquiss, Investigative Reporter for Willamette Week

Earlier today my Data Journalism class at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication had the pleasure of hosting Willamette Week's Nigel Jaquiss. Mr. Jaquiss won a 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, which he earned for his work on a story that exposed former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt's involvement in the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl while he was the mayor of Portland.

Jaquiss did not take the traditional route to his career in journalism. He worked as a commodity trader for the first 11 years of his professional life and transitioned to journalism at the age of 34. "Journalism is the most fun you can have with your clothes on," Jaquiss quipped to the class about his then new-found profession. Even though he spent a decent amount of the lecture sliding in jokes where he could it was easy to get a sense that this was a man who took his job very seriously.

"Journalism is a craft, just like carpentry or masonry," said Jaquiss. This quote really stuck with me and I was eager to find out what he meant by it. Shortly after Jaquiss elaborated on that note saying that information should be treated as "currency." What he meant by that was that in order to gain information you must also give information. Journalists--good journalists anyways--by nature are essentially information banks. Most journalists know a little bit of something about anything and as a journalist if you want to learn something new don't be afraid to create a give and take in order to build a relationship with a potential source.

This was something that I hadn't heard before during my studies at the University of Oregon. Such a simple notion that I would not have thought of on my own as a means to build a relationship with a source that may be giving you a hard time opening up. In journalism as in life, it's often the little things that count the most. I'd like to thank Mr. Jaquiss for the time he spent with us students earlier today and hope to run into him again soon.