Carrie Teegardin
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Carrie Teegardin's first articles about Catholic Social Services' treatment of refugees had such impact that two resignations occurred before she could get her main "Sunday Reader" feature into the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"My editors and I came up with a new plan to take a more incremental approach to publishing stories, instead of our original plan for a consecutive-days series," she said.

Refugees from around the world assigned to the charitable organization were resettled in dilapidated apartments in a dangerous neighborhood.

In "Coming to America," Teegardin described how the refugees subsisted in units with broken appliances and windows, meager furnishings, and rampant insect infestation.

The Journal-Constitution veteran is one of the South's top investigative reporters. Did her rural background help prepare her for this demanding work?

"I grew up in Circleville, Ohio, the pumpkin capital of the world," she said. "I was a 4-H president and expert horse stall cleaner. But I'm not sure that that played a big role in my becoming an investigative reporter.

"I think I learned strong research and thinking skills at Duke University. But I also wouldn't place my education at the top of what prepared me for this type of work. I think a lot of it comes down to my discovery of the power of investigative reporting.

"It takes a lot of deadline writing experience and know-how when it comes to digging for documents, analyzing databases and working sources. But I think most of all, it takes patience and passion."

She graduated from Duke with a degree in English and Public Policy Studies and reported for the Tallahassee Democrat before joining the Journal-Constitution in 1987.