There aren’t many investigative reporting guides particularly for tech and business journalists, so I made my own. I am making this document publicly available because I don’t think journalists use documents to cover businesses as well as we use them to cover politicians. With more resources and knowledge about what tools are available to us, that could change! That being said, it’s taken me about six years to build this guide. So if you find something useful in it, feel free to buy me a coffee or send me a tip on Venmo. If you want to submit an addition, ask a question, or read my work, check out my website. Happy hunting! —Jessica Mathews
Lobbyists are required to register in the states they are lobbying, disclose who is paying them to lobby and how much, and the purpose of their lobbying. This is particularly useful for covering startups in highly-regulated industries or companies that are seeking government clients or contracts. Buy now, pay later startups like Affirm, for example, are highly regulated and are engaged in lobbying activities. So is Elon Musk’s Boring Company, as it is building an underground transportation system in Las Vegas. You can search lobbying records state-by-state and follow specific companies and their lobbying activities.
<aside> 💡 Under California state law, all venture capital and private equity firms are required to register as lobbyists if individuals on their staff will seek investments from state pension funds. This means disclosing the public entities they are lobbying as well as annual reports for how much they spent on lobbying. It can be useful to find who is fundraising and from whom, and give pointers on where and who you can request emails from. (i.e. file a FOIA request for emails between VC employees registered as lobbyists and state pensions)
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**Examples of relevant stories from lobbyist documents:
**Helpful Questions Which companies are using lobbyists the most? In which sectors? Which legislators are they lobbying? Who are the predominant lobbying firms in specific sectors?
Once you identify specific companies that are lobbying officials, you can then FOIA request communications between the lobbyists they have hired and elected government officials to pull more information on what they are trying to leverage in the cities where they operate
In all states, people and businesses are required to file certain documentation with an Assessor, just like how you have to get your home or car assessed. These can be bills of sale, mortgage documents, leases, or other records. It can be really useful to search names of investment firms, people, or companies—and you never really know what’s going to come up. This can make for fun details in a broader story, if nothing else.
**Examples of relevant stories from property documents:
**Helpful Questions Are there any newly-filed leases? Sometimes you can find a company is moving headquarters before they’ve announced it.
For property sale or deed info, look closely at the names. Maybe investors are selling property to one another—it may hint of relationships you didn’t know existed.
All public companies are required to make frequent disclosures to their investors through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Two lesser-known useful SEC databases are “AdviserInfo” and FINRA BrokerCheck, which hold disclosure materials and conflict of interest disclosures for people who manage other people’s money. Think financial advisers or venture capital firms.