This past week readers of Unbossed have been with us for a great ride, and we have gained many new friends. On Monday we began a series of stories, starting with The Hidden Costs of Toll Roads that revealed details of an investigation into overreaching. By Thursday, our work was in a Reuters story. That same day, the issues we were raising played were posed as questions in a legislative hearing.

Not bad for three days’ work. That left a few days in the workweek to set more things to rights. Well, not quite. There was more to the story than this.

Before the series appeared, there was a lot of work and planning. Some of what we learned in putting this series together may be useful to other bloggers.

1. Paying attention

The first thing that happened was that one of our bloggers, Bob in Loveland (BiL), notice that something odd was happening and decided to follow up. He had read in another post that privatized roads have used covenants not to compete to impede traffic on “competing” roads. That made him wonder whether the lowered speed limits and installation of new traffic lights on a road near a new toll road might be the result of a noncompetition agreement. So he decided to find out.

This was an issue that virtually no one was paying any attention to. That was both to our advantage and not. Because no one was paying attention to it, we had to find a way to explain the issue that would be clear and find a way to educate people about it.

The advantage was that we had the issue all to ourselves. The liberal blogosphere is huge, but most of it is focused on only a few issues at a time. If you write on an issue that is grabbing headlines, it is difficult to say anything special or better than the established pundits. So train your attention where no one else is looking.

2. Taking action

BiL sent an email to the E-470 Toll Road Authority to ask whether there was a noncompetition agreement. Two weeks later, he received an email saying that there was and telling him what the terms were. He then emailed a request for copies of the agreements, and they were mailed to him. Then it was just a matter of reading 50 pages of legalese. Writing blogs and doing a little html coding. Well, not quite.

3. Know what tools you have for learning information

You can’t always have cooperative agencies, and you can’t always tell whether an agency is being uncooperative. For example, when BiL tried to learn whether another toll road in Colorado had noncompete agreements, the agency said it had none. It said they had several intergovernmental agreements that totaled 500 pages they could send for him to read at a charge of $1 per page. They also said that if he could be more specific, they could send just the documents he wanted. Or he could come in to the office and look at them.

It was impossible to know whether they were telling the truth or stonewalling. BiL decided to go ahead with the information he already had and leave the other toll road to another day.

But if he had decided that he needed that information, he could have taken action. One of the advantages of doing research that involves public agencies is that they are likely to be covered by laws such as federal or start freedom of information acts or open meetings acts. For federal FOIA, state with the U.S. Department of Justice. Each agency will have its own FOIA officer and regulations.

For information and more foia resources, try the Freedom of Information Center and here for links to state laws. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has a comprehensive guide to open records and meetings. laws

You may also find resources and help from research librarians at public law schools and some public libraries.

Private entities are not covered by those laws and, thus, have no obligation to provide information. (This means that, as more public services are privatized, less information is available to the public.) However, many private entities must file reports, for example, articles of incorporation and annual reports, and those documents are public. It can also be useful to look for government reports. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the investigative arm of Congress and has a searchable on-line archive of reports on a wide range of subjects. Depending on the issue, look for reports on the websites of relevant government agencies, academic articles, and think tank websites. We used many of these types of sources to give meaning to the story.

And just do a search to help you find other links. Be careful and judicious. Not everything on the web, except at unbossed, is true .

4. Decide how to tell the story.

We gave the series a catchy title - Roads Scholarship - because our story was about corruption in road building. It gave a feeling of coherence. People followed along with other plays on words.

We also decided that we could not tell the story properly give it proper exposure and attention as a one shot posting. We had to play it up, and we had to have a story arc that progressed from the easy to understand issues through progressively more complex issues. We thought that a week would give us the time we needed to tell the story. As the week progressed, we would attract more readers and could bring them along. We kept readers informed that there were future posts and often referred back to earlier ones.

We also had an advantage, because Unbossed is an easy site to move around on and see past posts. In addition, fellow bloggers at Unbossed agreed to hold off writing stories that were on other subjects.

To tell the story properly, we first laid the groundwork. So on the first day we started with a brief introduction to what we were doing and then a story that people could understand and that would make them angry. Our second day built on that story by expanding it into more complicated areas, taking care first to explain our points and at the end of the story to post the documents we relied on. After that we moved into policy issues as well as showing how the story applied more widely.

The planned arc was broken up Thursday when we ended up posting information about the hearing (including live blogging) and the Reuters story. We still had a story for that day and one for Friday.

We also provided extra reading and, in a side panel, links to prior stories as background information.

In telling the story, provide both the news hook and background reading that makes it easier for journalists to pick up on the story.

Finally, comments progressively added more to the story and gave a sense that it was national in scope.

5. Timing

We were incredibly lucky. This story came out the week that the President signed a highway bill giving lots of money to public-private roads. And we had a story that showed problems with public-private partnershps. This gave Reuters a natural hook and made the story more attractive to them.

Timing cannot always be controlled. The death of a national figure or Supreme Court nomination can make it hard to get attention. But do the best you can and consider: Is there a time that is particularly good or bad for getting attention?

6. Identify your allies

We were also lucky or prepared in this. Our bloggers included people with good connections and respect in the blogging community and with politicians and journalists. Before the series started the blogging community was notified, and many helped by giving the story play on their own blogs and participating on ours.

We also built alliances by inviting guest bloggers and promoting their work and blogs in the process.

We had bloggers with a wide range of policy and analysis skills and some with connections. Em Dash, in particular, was able to push the story and elicit help and cooperation. Everyone needs an Em Dash. More of us need to be an Em Dash. In addition, we had friends who tipped reporters, and this eventually led to the Reuters story.

One of your best allies can be a naysayer, someone who will make you slow down and be careful - and save you from yourself. At times, we each acted as a naysayer. Our work was better for it. We cooperated, commented, read each other's drafts.

7. Pay attention to the politics

We figured that Democratic politicians and the local Democratic party would want to push this issue. It was in their interest to use the information as part of a political fight against the policies of the governor. It is too early to say whether anything will come of this, but certainly information we had provided became part of the legislative oversight hearing that was held the week the unbossed series ran. In this case, it might have been better had the hearing taken place at least a week later, to give more time for the story to make its way into the public.

8. Finally

This whole project was exciting. Had we not uncovered these deals, they might never have been made public. We got a sense of being part of making a change for the better in politics and of educating the public about and important issue. We also got a huge support and respect from the liberal blogosphere, even a sense of being part of a team.

There are so many unexamined dark corners that need looking into.. We urge you to cast a little light into a few of them.

9. Really, finally

I don’t know all the pieces of how this story unfolded, nor do I know all the investigative, networking, or other tools that would be useful. That’s why we have comments. Your turn.

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