Poynter.org's [1] Leann Frola recently interviewed the Charleston (WV) Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. about his investigation into mine safety - reporting that won him the Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) Medal.

Here are some excerpts from Frola's Q&A with Ward Jr.:

What sparked the idea for your investigation?

I've covered mine safety on and off for quite a while here, and I had it in my mind that we've needed to do a broader sort of look at it. Then in January 2006, we had the Sago Mine disaster [2] and the fire at Aracoma. [3]

It seemed like the right time to give that issue a closer look. They both got a lot of national media attention and both happened in fairly close connection to each other, time wise. Then in May, another disaster -- Kentucky Darby mine [4] in eastern Kentucky -- killed five miners...

...I'd always had in my mind that we need to sit down and look at these accidents and see why they're still happening. I was able to do that last year -- to spend a lot of time examining death reports and databases -- to find out what was causing these miners still to die 40 years after the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act [5] was passed in 1969, after the Farmington disaster. [6] [The law was updated in 1977.]

How did you get access to the data you used?

Looking at fatality reports was just part of what I did, and that produced two lengthy stories: "One by One" [7] -- and the other -- " 'This is what it's like to die.' " [8]

MSHA [Mine Safety and Health Administration] [9] posts the fatality reports on every death in every mine on its Web site. I downloaded and printed them off, and sat and read them for a couple weeks...

What technical skills did you need to do that?

It's just Microsoft Access. It's not really heavy lifting computer-assisted reporting. I just used Access and Excel. I didn't do a linear regression or any fancy stuff like that...

Click here to read Frola's Q&A with Ward Jr. in its entirety on the Poynter Institute website. [10]