Following the Money The Follow the Money workshop and Spring Term course bring W&L students together with business journalists from across the nation.

By Kelsey Goodwin
May 2, 2025

“I owe everything to W&L. The amazing thing about a liberal arts education is that you explore so many different opportunities.”

~ Vic Ernst ’25

Hillel’s multipurpose room buzzed with the energy of a whirring newsroom on the first day of the four-week Spring Term on Monday, April 28, as students arrived to take their seats for a workshop called “Follow the Money,” a program organized by Donald W. Reynolds Professor of Business Journalism Alecia Swasy to kick off her Spring Term business journalism course of the same name.

The 12 students enrolled in Swasy’s class were interspersed at round tables among visiting journalists, including recent alumni working in the field, several of whom crossed the room to shake hands and introduce themselves to one another before opening remarks began. The three-day workshop was designed to strengthen financial literacy among journalists and spotlight the investigative tools needed to uncover the hidden stories behind balance sheets, contracts and corporate reports.

Prior to the start of the program, Swasy divided students into teams and assigned each a company to research as part of their final projects for the term. At the end of the workshop’s wrap-up lunch on Tuesday, students had a final opportunity to pick the brains of the visiting journalists. The student teams then huddled to start their deep dive into their assigned company using the skills and tips discussed throughout the workshop.

The workshop, coordinated by Sarah Bartlett, administrative assistant and departmental event coordinator, kicked off Sunday evening with a welcome dinner, allowing attendees to meet informally with journalism faculty. Monday and Tuesday featured back-to-back sessions on topics such as techniques for finding sources and navigating interviews and in-depth workshops on forensic accounting and data analysis.

“These first couple of days were so inspiring,” said Josh Darrow ’26, an economics major with a journalism minor from Virginia Beach, Virginia. “Hearing from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists about their investigative reporting gave such great insight into some fascinating careers that few reporters are privileged to have. Investigative reporting is quite different from the day-to-day beat reporting most journalists do, but it’s so important and seems so rewarding to hold businesses and governments accountable in such a big way. I also loved meeting other younger journalists from newspapers like the Tampa Bay Times, Cardinal News and American City Business Journal, where I’ll be interning this summer. I learned a lot more about what to expect from my internship in Milwaukee and how to settle into an entry-level career in business reporting.”

“This felt less like a class and more like a conference or professional workshop,” said Austin Evans ’27, a journalism and politics double major from Birmingham, Alabama, who added that, in addition to his lifelong dream of being an investigative journalist, he was inspired to sign up for the course due to its title because his grandmother’s favorite movie is “All the President’s Men” (the line “Follow the money” is a pivotal moment in the film).

The list of attendees represented employees of major business journals, public radio and local and regional news outlets. Evans said the beginning of the course was an extraordinary opportunity to be in the room with professionals working in the field and listen to guidance from the program’s speakers, whom he referred to as “masters of their craft.”

Those masters included four nationally recognized journalists who spoke throughout the programming. Walt Bogdanich is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times known for his reporting on the pharmaceutical industry, railroad safety and business ethics. Michael Forsythe, fellow New York Times reporter, brought deep expertise on global finance and corporate influence, shaped by years in Hong Kong, Beijing and Washington, D.C., as a correspondent and as a U.S. Navy veteran. Swasy’s class was required to read “When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm” prior to the beginning of Spring Term and attended a lunch Q&A with authors Bogdanich and Forsythe on Monday.

Andy Lehren, a data journalism leader and director of investigative reporting at City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, delivered hands-on training in data analysis. His work has earned Peabody, Polk and Emmy awards. Tom Contiliano, a Bloomberg News veteran with decades of experience training reporters in forensic accounting, led a session on interpreting financial statements and finding news in financial data. Evans said Lehren and Contiliano provided valuable insight into the data-driven approach to reporting.

“One of my biggest takeaways from the past two days is how important data is in investigative journalism,” Evans said. “To be an effective journalist, you have to master data. You have to know where to find things, and you also have to be extremely persistent and relentless in your pursuit of data.”

Swasy emphasized to students that the course would kick off with an intense amount of work and that her hope in designing the program was to show students the importance of understanding the bigger picture of business news, politics and culture.

“The intersection of Wall Street, Main Street and Washington is where everything happens,” Swasy said.

That message made an impression on Tyler Rothwell ’27, a journalism major from San Francisco. He said the program’s events sparked his interest in investigative journalism.

“I didn’t come into this class particularly focused on investigative journalism,” Rothwell said, “but after spending the past two days in this workshop, I’ve realized it offers a kind of freedom you don’t always get in daily reporting. You have the flexibility to really dig into a story, sometimes over weeks, months or even a year. I’m much more intrigued by investigative journalism now.”

Swasy also wanted to provide a substantive learning experience for early-career professionals from various media organizations.

“Newsrooms don’t have a lot of money for professional development anymore,” Swasy said, “so I saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the profession. It’s a way for us as an institution to give back to journalism, specifically business journalism, and a way for my students to get a chance to mingle with those out there on the front lines. It’s a great way to immerse them in business news, and to show them how interesting it can be and the range of possibilities in terms of places to work and stories to do.”

Shauna Muckle ’24, a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, said the workshop gave her new insights.

“I work at more of a legacy paper with a consumer news focus, so I’m not typically writing earnings stories, but it’s been really interesting to hear from other journalists in the room who do,” Muckle said. “It’s made me realize that those tools and insights can still inform my reporting, even when it’s more people-centered or geared toward a lay audience.”

The Follow the Money program was funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and builds on the foundation’s long-standing support for business journalism. In addition to endowing four chairs at institutions nationwide, including Swasy’s professorship at W&L, the foundation funds paid internships that have launched student careers at CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and beyond.

“The biggest challenge for young reporters is finding a place to publish,” Bogdanich noted. “Fortunately, W&L has a robust program placing students in internships.”

Bri Hatch ’23, who majored in journalism and American politics with a minor in poverty and human capability studies, works as the education reporter for WYPR, Baltimore’s local NPR station, and said the program was invaluable and inspiring in many ways.

“I’m not a business reporter, so I didn’t know what to expect going in,” Hatch said, “but I learned so many valuable investigative skills, like where to find relevant documents and data and how to narrow Google searches to find the results you need. I also loved chatting with W&L journalism students and professors as an alum. And it’s always great to connect with journalists across the country to hear about their work environment and what drives them to keep reporting. Walt and Mike and Andy are such talented journalists that just being in the room with them, and hearing their stories, is inspiring and motivational.”

Hatch said it was also rewarding to connect with current students.

“It’s so refreshing and hopeful to see the program continuing to thrive and foster these stellar young reporters,” Hatch said.

Even students in the class who do not plan on entering the field of investigative reporting are excited about the course material. Vic Ernst ’25, a strategic communication and German double major with an entrepreneurship minor from Garden City, New York, will join an information services firm called Alpha Sites in New York after graduation as a client service associate, helping investment banks, hedge funds and Fortune 500 companies access protected information such as industry research and financial information. Ernst said she chose Swasy’s Spring Term class to learn more about using public databases and to sharpen her research skills.

“I know that this role will require me to quickly understand our clients’ issues at different levels of the value chain and target where I think I could find information to help them,” Ernst said, adding that the diverse array of classes and internship opportunities she has experienced at W&L made her a competitive candidate on the job market.

“I owe everything to W&L,” Ernst said. “The amazing thing about a liberal arts education is that you explore so many different opportunities.”

Grace Mamon ’22, a journalist at Cardinal News who attended Follow the Money, can attest to the career preparation she received in W&L’s journalism program.

Mamon found her calling in journalism as an undergraduate and said one of the most helpful aspects of her major was the opportunity to pitch stories and do real reporting work in a variety of classes. Mamon joined Cardinal News after graduation and was honored as the Virginia Press Association’s Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year for 2023.

“It’s been awesome to talk to the students who are in this Spring Term class,” Mamon said, “because, for a lot of them, it’s their first foray into journalism, or specifically into business journalism. They have a lot of questions and are just soaking up everything they can about the industry — it reminds me a lot of me as a student, and it’s been wonderful to see the start of their journalism journey.”