USA Today did a report on how lead factories that have been gone for years have left a dangerous poison in cities nationwide.
In order to do the story, the reporter had to go into public records to determine when the EPA and government had tested the soil from the old factory and found out that it was contaminated. However, the government failed to tell citizens about the danger.
USA Today did a 14-month investigation that found the EPA had put thousands of families and children in harm's way.
The investigative report showed widespread evidence of government failures when it came to lead factories.
USA Today looked at old insurance maps, city directories, and telephone books to discover that certain smelters did exist even though governments in Minnesota, Indiana and Washington denied they ever did.
This is just a small example of the large record digging and analysis that the USA Today reporter did.
The report also need some computer skills because there are a couple of graphics next to the story that shows how lead can pollute soil, and a graphic about lead in soil.
The reporter needed to know how to make that graphic on a computer in order to better tell his story.
The graphic on how lead gets into the soil is a step by step process where the reporter uses pictures to help demonstrate how it happens.
Without knowing how to create such a visual graphic, the reporter probably would have had a hard time describing how it happens, and it would also take up a large amount of space and confuse the reader.
The graphic helps a lot by visually showing how the process works.
The reporter did a lot of work for this story that included a lot of digging through old documents, and determining what those documents mean for the safety of citizens near old lead factories.