Are you willing to dig relentlessly to find the truth? Are you driven to produce watchdog journalism that changes lives? Do you want to make a difference — starting now?

The Newmark J-School offers a suite of intensive investigative courses that train our reporters to generate and publish high-impact stories driven by people, rooted in data and deep research — and primed to impact policies, empower communities and improve lives.

The courses cut across our subject areas and specializations, giving students the opportunity to carve their own path, and turn out award-winning work that serves a wide swath of the public — including historically marginalized, underrepresented and vulnerable communities.

Dedicated, top-notch professional investigative reporters and researchers lead the courses. They have distinguished themselves at The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Reuters, NBC, CBS, Connecticut Public Radio, Documented, Vulture and The Markup, among other news outlets.

Our faculty teach you how to delve into documents, mine data, identify sources, cultivate whistleblowers, conduct difficult interviews, and uncover human drama.

Our courses generate innovative solo and collaborative work that’s been published over the years by NBC News, Reveal, WNYC, Stat, Inside Climate News, The Markup, THE CITY, The Daily Beast, Chalkbeat, the New York Daily News, The National Post and more.

Our investigative work has earned numerous national awards, including from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Editor and Publisher.

Alumni of our investigative courses — among them Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists —  have gone onto investigative reporting careers at NBC, CBS, ABC, ProPublica, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times and other news organizations.

Our Courses:

• Introduction to Investigative Reporting

• Investigative Research Techniques

• Investigative Reporting

• Investigative Health Reporting

• Investigative Reporting in Arts and Culture

• Criminal Justice Reporting Lab

• Investigating Billionaires

• Visual Investigations

• Python for Investigations

• Investigating AI

• Tapping Secure AI for Investigations

A Selection of Student-led Investigative Stories:

• The J-School’s Criminal Justice Reporting Lab class produced “The Catch-22 Keeping New Yorkers in Prison,” an investigation, co-published in 2026 with New York Focus, that revealed how incarcerated people were denied early release after not completing programming they didn’t have access to due to a strike by guards.

• The J-School’s Investigative Reporting class and Equity Through Data Project produced “Are You Traveling Over Troubled Bridges?,” an investigation co-published in 2025 by THE CITY, that revealed widespread safety issues with New York City spans.

• The Investigative Reporting class produced Day Care Danger, an investigation that revealed holes in the childcare safety net in New York and beyond. The project earned national honors from the Society of Professional Journalist and Investigative Reporters and Editors in 2025.

• The Investigative Health Reporting class, working in conjunction with Prof. Katherine Eban, produced Brain Biopsies in ‘Vulnerable’ Patients at Mt. Sinai Set Off Alarms Bells at FDA, which revealed a federal finding that doctors used a “false justification” to obtain patient consent for a potentially dangerous procedure. Stat published the story in 2024.

• The Python for Investigations class, working in conjunction with Prof. Lam Thuy Vo, contributed to Neighborhood Watch, Vo’s 2023-2024 series for The Markup examining policing and Ring cameras.

• The Investigative Reporting class produced When Home is School, a deep dive into homeschooling that was co-published, in part, by Chalkbeat. This 2022 project earned numerous awards, including national Society of Professional Journalists best-in-show honors.

Additional Opportunities — at the J-School and After Graduation:

• The J-School is home to one of the nation’s first student chapters of the Investigative Report and Editors organization (IRE), drawing top-notch guest speakers — including Pulitzer Prize winners — and running reporting skills sessions. The J-School is also home to IRE’s annual New York Watchdog Workshop.

• Our Tom Robbins Investigative Reporting Fund, started in honor of the J-School’s late Investigative Reporter in Residence, supports competitive internships at top local news outlets.

• Our Equity Through Data Project offers competitive internships and post-graduate fellowships at top outlets.

• Alumni work is saluted — and rewarded — by the Stephen B. Shepard Prize for Investigative Reporting, named in honor of our founding dean. Stories recognized include Karen Shakerdge’s (‘15) WNYC series “Imminent Danger: One Doctor and a Trail of Injured Women,” which delves into the track record of one OB-GYN, and Joseph Jaafari’s (’16) year-long investigation for The Arizona Republic into an Arizona constable involved in multiple violations — including a deadly shooting.

• Our alumni have also earned the Ronan Farrow Investigative Research Fellowship, which offers a graduate from the Newmark J-School the opportunity to build their research skills and work directly with the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter.