Ryan Dube

This month, it hit home more than ever before that bloggers that practice investigative journalism really are a special breed of folks. True, quality investigating requires an unbiased viewpoint, and it demands a dedication and perseverance that is very rare today.

And, while “professional” investigative news staff make a living from simply investigating, most online investigative journalist bloggers actually have an extensive background in specific field – which is also their primary day job.

The Cons of Investigative Blogging

There are pros and cons to this. When you’re working all day as an electrical engineer, and you spend all evening researching technology scams – obviously you bring more to the table than an investigative journalist whose background is in writing or communications. And these days, it’s almost required that investigative researchers have some kind of extensive background training in the field that they are investigating, otherwise they get steamrolled by anyone out there who has more knowledge than the journalist, and would like to pull the wool over their eyes.

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I have to admit, I very much enjoy the sort of investigations that I do with Steve over at RealityUncovered. Most of the hard-hitting interviews that I land end up published there, because they usually fill some hole in our research into the various online and offline scams that we investigate.

One of the latest updates that I’ve published to the RU blog lists the stream of interview questions we asked Gordon Novel – of JFK fame (okay, not really fame) and these days attempting to tout a private “gravionics” technology as viable and worth of capital investment. It’s a strange tale.

I decided to publish the questions when, after I’d delivered them to Gordon via email, things got very quiet. I’ve learned through the years that when things get quiet, there are ongoing conversations and discussions that you just aren’t aware of. Most likely, those who back and support Gordon are talking him out of moving forward with the interview.

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