Chapter 1, Class Assignment 1

I chose an investigative story written by a CBS reporter. It's about how representatives from the House and Senate, along with their family members, a doctor and a photographer traveled to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in Denmark. They totaled up a bill that cost in the millions in hotel room prices, food and luxury jets. The bad part of it is, tax payers are paying for all that. At the same time, too, no global deal was reached.

My story is investigative because it reveals information that people would not have known unless they read the congressional expense reports and did their own digging. The story also provided information that people were trying to keep hidden, as seen by the sources being difficult about giving information about it. The story also exposes a waste of tax money.

The reporter gives the target of the investigation a chance to state what happened when Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is interviewed. He went to the summit last year, too, so he is a pretty knowledgeable source from the other side. He is quoted in paragraph five. Also, house speaker Nancy Pelosi was given a chance to defend herself but refused. Her office gave a statement, though, which was written in paragraph seven.

The reporter uses the congressional expense reports recently filed for a key document.

A graphic of the report of expenditures for official foreign travel,two videos and a list of all attendees, accompany the article. They aid the reader by letting them see just how many people went to the summit and used tax payers' money to do that.

The representatives used tax payer money to go to the summit so any tax payer of the U.S. would be interested to read this story.

The article and the headlines are very concise. They are not shrill or frantic. One headline is, Congress went to Denmark, you got the bill.

The reporter probably got the idea from the recent summit event or just a planned project idea to check up on congressional spending.

link to the story is:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/25/cbsnews_investigates/main6140406.shtml?tag=latest