The largest crowd ever — more than 125 attendees — heard captivating tales Jan. 27 of how some of Connecticut’s leading journalists reported the year’s most important stories at CFOG’s 4th Annual “Stories Behind the Biggest Stories” event.
“I spent the whole summer on Albany Avenue,“ Hartford Courant investigative reporter Dave Altimari told those at a packed Lyceum Conference Center in Hartford, explaining his work interviewing Hartford residents who might have seen efforts to hide evidence in the Jennifer Farber Dulos murder case.
From the Dulos disappearance to the debate on highway tolls, the freedom of information effort to disclose school immunization records to potential PFAS contamination of drinking water, reporters and editors explored not only the facts of the year’s major stories but how those facts were gathered.
NBC Connecticut’s Leslie Mayes moderated this popular exploration of newsgathering and government transparency issues. The panel included Altimari, Shannon Miller of NBC Connecticut, John Ferraro of Hearst Connecticut Media Group, Christine Stuart of CTNewsJunkie, Dan Brechlin of the Courant and Tara O’Neill of the Connecticut Post.
“It was a busy year for news in Connecticut, with more than the usual number of important stories to explore,” Kate Farrish, a Central Connecticut State University journalism professor and member of CFOG’s organizing committee, said. “We were happy with the wide array of stories and issues we could shed light on, and the obvious interest the public has in the work we do.”