Laurie Stein, WFOR/CBS4’s Emmy Award-winning Investigative Reporter and Scott Zamost, NBC6/WTVJ’s Emmy Award-winning Investigative Producer went behind-the-scenes on some of the biggest local television news series. Laurie screened some of her recent investigative series School Insecurity that dealt with how easy it is for child molesters to get into Miami Dade public schools. She talked about how the idea started and how she decided to develop it. How she got management approval. How she kept within the legal restraints. How she decided to tell the story. She told of the resistance that she got from school officials and how she handled it.

Scott screened short clips from eight of his recent investigative reports to make the point that “if you donÕt have interesting characters, you don’t have a story.” He then screened part 3 of a 4 part series, Puppy Heartbreak about a Miami pet shop that was selling sick and mistreated puppies from mid-western “puppy mills”.

Both Laurie and Scott emphasized the long hours of work, the research, the writing and re-writing and the sometimes huge amount of material that is collected to tell a detailed story. Scott said that Puppy Heartbreak consumed 65 30-minute video tapes. Laurie concluded her remarks by saying, “We’re the good guys. We’re trying to shed the light of truth with our reports.”