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David Raziq, BJ '86

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What did you want to be when you were young?
Well when I was four, I wanted to be Superman. (Laughs) But seriously, I think that's ironic because what I ended up becoming was his alter ego, Clark Kent, a journalist and, as it turns out, I'm pretty happy with that. I think that's because as I became older it looked like I might become a scientist or an artist. At least that's what my peers thought. And in a way both sets of friends were right, because to me journalism at its best is a mixture of science and art: It is a combination of reasoned, disspassionate thought and investigation and the art of presenting what you've found to your audience or readers.

Who are your heroes?
In general I have enormous admiration for men like Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi, the writings of Thoreau, and their accomplishments with regard to social justice. In addition, the first two men demonstrate what a determined person can do. But journalistically speaking, I admire all of those journalists who risk their lives every day to just report. Reporters in parts of Latin America and the African continent who are in real and serious danger of being killed for doing their job, constantly receiving death threats, and yet they still keep reporting. That's inspiring and humbling. In this country, there are the print reporters who discovered and exposed police brutality in Philadelphia in the 70's. The reporters themselves were threatened, beaten, and even kidnapped by the police and yet they still kept going forward with their investigation and eventually published it.

What was the J-School class from which you learned the most?
There were so many great classes I still draw from today. Classes like History of American Journalism I still think back to all the time. I would have never imagined that class could have been so essential. Two of my most useful classes were Mackey Morris's broadcast class, where I learned all the basics. But it was also there that I read John Bradshaw's "The Art of Interviewing." I owe my skill as an interviewer to that class. And then there was my very first reporting class with Steve Weinberg. Steve made a huge impact on me.

Is there an investigative report you have worked on that is particularly meaningful to you?
The big KHOU stories that come to mind are the reports we did about Firestone tires and deadly rollovers and then the Houston Police DNA crime lab where we exposed major errors in their findings and operations. As a result of that last one, three wrongfully imprisoned men have been freed and that is something you never will forget seeing. But I also have a great deal of pride in our exposing how the Houston school district was pushing students they thought were academically weak into dropping out before they had to take the school's accountability test. That would make the school's test averages go up. But then, to add insult to injury, the schools would cover-up the fact that the students had dropped out by "fixing" school records, so the kids were no longer counted as dropouts. This had been going on for years and as one educator told me "it has been the ultimate betrayal of what public education is supposed to be about." Tens of thousands of kids each year were being made to feel that they were "dumb" or "losers" and that school really wasn't for them when it was really school administrators wanting their school to look better so they could get their bonuses from the district. After our report, the Houston schools eliminated these practices and I have to say that certainly makes one feel good.

Is there an investigative report you feel is begging to be told?
I have a list of large issues I would like to tackle. One area I think the news media is failing at right now is presenting the confluence of changes on the planet and explaining what these changes will mean. No one has presented a good picture of what the future will look like with a growing population, limited resources, and a changing climate. This is information people need to know. With this and other issues, it makes me nervous to think about how much the public does not know and should know.

How did the School of Journalism help you explore investigative journalism?
The J-School really allowed me to jump in and pitch and then do my first major investigative stories. I was able to just "go do it." In addition, I had the school's great resources to draw on that would help make my investigative endeavors successful. The J-School really trusts and helps its students. I owe a large debt to my mentors at the J-School for my successes in my first investigative pieces. My first big story was about the county nursing home which had a good reputation, but in fact there were awful things happening there: mysterious deaths of residents and even a nurse, abuse and neglect, and even embezzlement. No one had looked into it in depth before my reports about it on KBIA. I think those stories accurately painted a picture of a health care facility that had long been dysfunctional and even dangerous and resulted in city, county, and state investigations and the home ultimately being reformed.

What is the key to being a good investigative journalist?
First, a blazing and determined curiosity and at the same time the constant sense of self that you do not know everything and even what you do know could be incomplete or even wrong. Also, you have to relate to people as people, be empathetic with them, understand them on their own terms without neccessarily agreeing with them. Then that needs to be tempered with a ruthless investigative technique: What is logical and what doesn't make sense and where is the documentation or proof for any allegation? Finally, you just have to want and even enjoy being fair. If you're empathetic you're much more likely to be that way.

What is the most rewarding part of being an investigative journalist?
Playing a role in bringing out information that the community really wants to know or really needs to know. Bringing things into the light that have been deliberately buried because of someone's agenda, well, that is a good feeling.

What advice would you give to a student interested in becoming an investigative journalist?
Start doing investigative reporting now. You do not need a physics degree or anything like that. Investigative reporting is not anything arcane. A lot of this profession you learn simply by doing.