In November 2003, a Philadelphia Inquirer’s investigation into a nonprofit run by a local State Senator, Craig Fumo, was frustrated by his refusal to release a financial statement from the company. The financial statement, when tracked down, contained anonymous donations of over 11 million dollars. This set off a wild chain of investigation spearheaded by the Inquirer’s Craig McCoy that among many other things, revealed Fumo to be shaking down local companies for contributions to nonprofits, and then misappropriating resources. Seven years, hundreds of stories, and many journalism awards later, McCoy hasn’t finished with the human drama of Fumo yet, even after his 2009 conviction.

This interview is an abridged version of a Q and A I conducted as part of my investigative reporting class this year. For more on Fumo, and to read articles from the series, click here.

You broke the initial story, and then the FBI got involved and were breaking the news. How did that change the dynamic and goals while reporting on the story?

It helped, because the circle of knowledge widened. We’d find the same people the FBI were talking to and reach out to them. I’m proud of saying we went in a different direction mostly, though. Most of our investigations Fumo wasn’t indicted over. He wasn’t indicted over his lobbying, or over his rainmaking. So we were on different tracks. But you know, with a guy like Fumo there is enough to go around.

On issues that you reported heavily on, but no indictments resulted, the story always seemed aware of trying to place relevant linking information side-by-side without over-pushing or sensationalizing a point so people could see the point themselves.

You know, I think that just reflects the libel threat we were constantly under. Also as a reader, I don’t want to be lectured to. So, we felt that people could get it, and we wouldn’t get sued.  

When you’re covering one guy for so long like that, does it become a personal thing?

No. Never. I hate to be a wimp about it. But I actually kind of liked him. He was kind of a rogue. He was kind of fun. I didn’t have much to do with him, and I didn’t really upset him until some of the stuff came out towards the end about him and his family, some of the more upsetting facts of the case. I like this because its puzzle solving for me. I like puzzles.

During the trial you produced some very narrative driven stories that took the court documents and turned them into these very alive narratives. How do you approach a different sort of story like that?

I listened very, very carefully to the testimony. I spent hours trying to read those documents, and tease out the best quotes. The government had gotten all of these emails, and I quoted from them a lot, and they were fun, precisely because they were so unguarded. Fumo was a character, and he turned out to be more than a monster than we planned. All this astounding s**t came out. The trial was seven months long, things came out that we didn’t know about, and that the FBI didn’t know that. He’d blurt it out on the stand. It is pretty easy to get that kind of color.

How do you go about getting someone reluctant on the record?

I have no magic secret. I’m a huge believer in that all you have to do is ask. I’ll work with people closely, interview them off the record and read back quotes to them, and you’d be surprised in what they’d agree to. Or you’d talk to someone for months before they’d go on the record. But these people had a legitimate fear. A guy who talked out against Fumo in Philadelphia got stripped of all his governmental contracts. He left town. People had their reasons to be scared. Fumo had the most feared libel lawyer in Philadelphia. Fumo and his lawyer sent us many fearsome letters.

How do you follow a story like Fumo, over seven years plus now and running, and not lose context or perspective?

I don’t think any of it was gratuitous, we always knew why each article was being run. There was just so much outrageous stuff. Fumo was a doorway into the whole Philadelphia power structure. It came out in the trial, that after he got the 17 million from Peco, that he tried to get 50 million from Verizon. Verizon went to two of the best lawyers in town, the head of the Chamber of Commerce and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, and they told this guy to just work it out.

Did they tell them to tell Fumo to f**k off? Did they tell them to go to the FBI? No they told him to pay him. People were embarrassed, because they knew the story had merit.

Working on a story of this magnitude, what steps did you take to libel proof yourself?

I’ve been doing this for a long time. We were careful. Unfortunately with Fumo, almost all of my questions to him had to be put in writing. Fumo never talked to us. But I would request an interview before every story.

We’re pretty shy, so we’re pretty careful. We didn’t make any serious mistakes – we did f**k up once. We made a math error and screwed up how much he was getting from the bank in a story.

Does making a mistake like that eat at you?

We were really upset about it, and they pounced on it. It was calculating the value of stock options, which is a tricky area, and we got it right in the project, and months went by, and the reporter who did the calculation forgot how to do it, and screwed it up. We were embarrassed by it. For a long time most of our stories were done without any legal review, and after that every story we did was vetted by lawyers.

In the story there are a lot of figures, and facts. How do you follow a story down all these complicated avenues, and not get jumbled?

You just have to learn all those places where the powerful have to put it all down in writing. I’m more of a documents guy than a sources guy. I’m not that charming. Other people are. You just learn. In all, it was really fun. But you know what was really fun? Over the years, so many different reporters jumped into the story. A lot of other reporters helped out when their different expertise called for it.

In our class we work in groups over our stories. When you’re working in tandem with another reporter, what is your approach?

You know, hopefully in the best scenario everybody recognizes their strengths. Somebody is a great interviewer… Somebody knows documents. For better or worse people turn to me for help with 990s, because I’ve had a heap of experience. Division of labor, we’re quite anal about it. In a long running project we’ll make lists of who is doing what, what are the common cues and common files, so that we can see, and so we don’t step on each other.

Some people are very gifted writers. Some are not. I’ve worked on teams where people are beautiful writers but very bad investigators.  So you split it like that. Or we outline a story, write it in sections, mold it together, and smooth it out. Usually my experience has been very harmonious.

But I insist, if you do this work, it is really great to be in teams. Most of my work has been done in teams. I highly recommend it. It is funny, if you’re hitting a brick wall and not getting anywhere, usually someone else will. And for morale, that is so encouraging. It is also lonely work, a lot of the projects go on for months, you have to stay focused, and have a sounding board. Also, if you’re being threatened, it is nice to have a colleague to share that anxiety with. You have all this great tradition around these great solitary reporters, like Seymour Hersh. But there’s quite a few teams out there doing great work.