Supplement to the handbook

Since last November 500 copies of the Handboek voor onderzoeksjournalisten, Van vermoeden tot verhaal have been sold. It has been praised as “a bible for investigative journalists” (Vincent Dekker) and as “one of the most comprehensive books on investigative journalism worldwide” (Nils Hanson). The last compliment may well be over the top, but Nils defends his statement with: "I can say that, as I have them all - well, almost".?(And let's not forget that he himself is the author of the Swedish standard work Gr?vande Journalistik!) Several buyers gave us as feedback that the "Handboek" reads surprisingly pleasantly for a manual packed with tools. So we, the thirty authors, seem to have succeeded in our mission to produce a practical, comprehensive and enjoyable handbook.

But no handbook can ever be complete. Certainly not in a profession that deals with change (in the form of news). That is why I decided to start a newsletter. Expect us to share new insights, experiences, tools and methods with you -- things that surfaced too late for this book, but might end up in the next. Although we might also entertain you now and then with quotes from the existing book when current events call for it.

As long as you allow this newsletter to reach your mailbox.

Friends outside The Netherlands and Belgium, who can not read Dutch, may find good alternatives in the other handbooks that Mark Lee Hunter and I have produced since 2009. They are all available in English and some also in other languages. You can find them here: www.storybasedinquiry.com/manuals

Future contributions to this newsletter will all be in English.