Every story that you write has some element of investigation, said Rajshekhar M, Climate and Energy reporter at Carbon Copy. “Journalists dictate the flow of the story through their findings from the investigation they carry out.” Rajshekhar delivered a lecture on investigative journalism for the ACJ-Bloomberg class.

He recounted one of his biggest news breaks on the Vantara private zoo that was published in Himal magazine. The ‘Vantara’ story involved the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s son, Anant Ambani and his fascination towards bringing exotic animals in enormous numbers in India in the name of providing them with shelter. The story raised questions over their sourcing.

Rajshekhar also explained the issues that arise from source-based journalism such as uneven distribution of information. He gave some valuable inputs about breaking stories involving government companies.

He particularly emphasised the importance of looking at the buyer and the value of the assets after the sale of a government company. “Such intricate details help you generate good story ideas because at times numbers and names related to the sale don’t match,” said Rajshekhar. “At times, small companies will win the bidding for the sale of a big company that is not even related to the buyer’s sector,” he said. You dive deeper into that small bit of information and chase that “absurd” connection which might lead you to something big, he further added.