Investigative Reporting Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint: How Columbia Journalism Grads Investigated the Perils of Online Dating

2 - How long did the story take to report and how did you divide the work as a group?

The core of the reporting took place over 16 months. Throughout the process, our team of CJI fellows worked closely with our editor, Kristen Lombardi, to split up the workload. We collaborated as a team and had crossover throughout, but each of us tended to have targeted reporting responsibilities. For example, Keith took the lead on the regulatory landscape and True.com. Hillary found lawsuits and developed the questionnaire. Elizabeth helped with the database and legal experts. We all worked on different aspects of victim outreach, narrative, and requesting interviews with current and former Match Group employees.

3 - What were the biggest challenges you encountered while conducting this investigation and how did you overcome them?

One of the largest challenges associated with the investigation is that this is an extremely underreported issue. There is no government agency collecting data on the scale of online dating sexual violence and, to our knowledge, no one has attempted to examine it at the national level. This meant we had to document the issue in unique ways, such as our database of more than 150 cases and a questionnaire conducted using Amazon’s MTurk platform. 

For our main narrative case, sex crime laws in Massachusetts made it difficult to obtain documentation for police reports and sex offender information. However, with due diligence we were able to obtain all the necessary records and information we required.

It was also difficult to find victims of sexual assault to speak with from dating apps since names are redacted from police reports, news reports, and court documents. We were able to find them through various resources such as social media, law enforcement agreeing to pass on letters to victims, etc. We are extremely grateful to their bravery in sharing.

Lastly, it was difficult to obtain information from Match Group. They asked us to stop contacting current employees and refused interview requests with executives. Ultimately, we spoke with some members of their communications team and some of their former employees.

5 - If you could share one big lesson that you learned during this process about being an investigative reporter, what would it be?

Keith: “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” was my mantra throughout this process because it was really ingrained in me that, just like a marathon runner, getting to the finish line with an investigative piece involves juggling short term goals and benchmarks while always keeping in mind what is needed to finish strong. 

Elizabeth: A lot of the characteristics needed to cultivate sources (and consequently information) merely mirror those virtues of our human relationships--honesty, listening, patience, kindness, understanding, etc. Furthermore, working on an investigative team is like being on a sports team: The coach is your editor and the athletes might bring different skill sets, but you have to work together for the best story. On a practical level, I learned the value of diligent organization--especially on a long term project--where scrupulous notes will pay off months and months later.