A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor also makes appearance at J-School. Read sidebar.

Reporters who exposed asbestos visit J-School

photo by Kathryn Stevens

Investigative journalists Andrew Schneider (left) and Paul Brodeur have a lively discussion with photo student Thais Boise after speaking at the Journalism School on April 30. The two have worked on the Libby asbestos story as well as other environmental stories. Professor Dennis Swibold (back) helped bring the two to UM.

By Josi Carlson
J-School Web Reporter

Successful investigative journalism requires finding reliable informants, presenting both sides of an issue and reporting with authority, say two of the nation’s foremost environmental investigative journalists.

Andrew Schneider and Paul Brodeur spoke to journalism students and faculty on April 30 about their investigative work on the hazardous effects of asbestos and the tools they use in collecting their information. The journalists were at the University of Montana as featured speakers for “Libby and Beyond: A Public Symposium on Asbestos,” that weekend.

Schneider is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who brought national attention to the asbestos exposure problem in Libby. His 1999 articles for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer led to his recent book with David McCumber, “An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal.”

photo by Kathryn Stevens

Some of the asbestos-related books written by Schneider and Brodeur.

Brodeur, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine for many years, has been a pioneer in writing about the hazards of asbestos. He wrote a series of articles and four books on the effects of asbestos, including “Expendable Americans” and “Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry on Trial.” He won the National Magazine Award in 1973, as well as the AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for magazine writing in 1975.

Both Schneider and Brodeur see the topic of asbestos contamination as politically sensitive. Covering it can be difficult.

“Newspapers don’t usually like environmental stories because it conflicts with advertisers,” Brodeur said.

Sometimes it’s just finding a media outlet with enough guts to stand up to the big businesses, Schneider said. Both journalists emphasized the importance of reliable inside sources in their findings.

"I rely heavily on inside informants,” Brodeur said.

Corporations hire the best damage control firms to prevent negative publicity, and often it is people inside the company who have a conscience and go to the press, Schneider said.

“There are many good people who are proud of the job they do,” Schneider said. “One place they might be able to go is their local reporter.”

Schneider also believes an important part of investigating cases, such as the asbestos problem in Libby, is the Freedom of Information Act. The act requires most public agencies to give many documents to anyone who requests them.

Schneider had a policy of not having any unnamed sources in his investigative stories, he said, and the FOIA was a useful tool in retrieving documents.

Some of the most incriminating documents he found during his research were those he acquired using the FOIA. It also helped him gain access to Justice Department files in Denver where he found numerous helpful documents.

“It was like Christmas for an investigative reporter,” Schneider said.

Schneider and Brodeur also discussed the importance of knowing your audience. When working on his Libby investigations, Schneider had to remind himself that his job was solely to relay information and then allow the public to make its own decisions.

Brodeur believes in objective journalism, but he also warned students it’s very important to report findings with authority and show readers how they could be affected.

“Just because you’re a reporter, you don’t have to leave your humanity at the breakfast table every morning,” Brodeur said.

Schneider and Brodeur also talked about their investigations at the asbestos symposium on May 1 at the University Center Theater. About 50 people listened as the two men shared their experiences working with asbestos problems in Libby and around the country.

Also featured at the symposium were Gayla Benefield, a Libby resident and president of the Lincoln County Asbestos Victims’ Relief Organization; Jim Fite, executive director of the White Lung Association; Colleen Lux, a former UM graduate student who wrote her thesis on the Libby Community Advisory Group and has worked with asbestos victims in Australia; and Bill Ravanesi, an artist and activist.

The symposium is part of a series of events called “Landscape of Asbestos: Libby and Beyond.” Events in Missoula and Libby over the next three months will include an asbestos-themed exhibit by Ravanesi at the Missoula Art Museum, documentaries on asbestos and art exhibits in Libby.

Back to J-School main page