After one pivotal interview, Daily Free Press editors Brendan Galvin and Mara Mellits knew they had a story.
Their reporting process began in the spring of 2024 when Mellits, who served as editor-in-chief during the fall 2024 semester, saw Reddit posts alleging student athlete abuse from Gabe Sanders, Boston University’s former director of track and field and cross country.
Over the course of about a month, Mellits and Galvin, the spring 2025 editor-in-chief, contacted former and current student athletes to discuss their experiences with Sanders. Initially, none of the athletes on the team responded.
A week and a half into their investigation, a current athlete reached out to Galvin. Though they were hesitant, they agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity.
Galvin and Mellits both said the interview was one of many emotional conversations they had with sources during their reporting process.
“That [interview] will probably end up being the most influential, impactful interview I will ever have as a college journalist,” Galvin said.
The article, published in April 2024, won a runner-up award for student investigative reporting in intercollegiate athletics from The Drake Group Education Fund, an advocacy organization focused on expanding educational programs. Mellits said she received messages from parents of former athletes thanking her for her reporting, and Galvin said he received emails from a few alumni.
“You don’t know after a story is published how people are going to perceive it,” Mellits said. “Just seeing that support and getting those messages definitely makes it feel more real.”
Many investigative stories originate from a tip, word-of-mouth, a complaint or observations of the community. They are the product of conversations and building relationships, and they provide platforms for discourse on important and underreported topics.
For the past three semesters, The Daily Free Press investigative team has produced stories that directly impact the BU community, from University finances to faculty, staff and institutional misconduct.
Writers Cameron Morsberger and Colbi Edmonds broke the paper’s first investigation in October 2021, several semesters before the official team was established. Their story covered Shiney James, a former BU orientation director, who was accused of abusing student employees and creating a “toxic” work environment for more than a decade.
The University independently investigated James after the article was published — she resigned the following spring.
“It’s incredible how those stories can come to light in that way and that people trust us enough to come to the student paper,” said Fall 2023 Managing Co-Editor Emilia Wisniewski.
Wisniewski and fellow Managing Co-Editor Stella Tannenbaum spearheaded the effort to create an investigative team, which became official in the spring 2024 semester under the guidance of Mellits as the DFP’s inaugural investigative editor.
The two edited a series examining the alleged mismanaged funds of BU’s former Center for Antiracist Research in the fall of 2023, which included a Q&A with the Center’s director, Ibram X. Kendi.
This investigation, which was conducted before the investigative section was officially established, drew hundreds of reactions from DFP readers. Six weeks later, the University completed an internal audit of the Center’s finances that found no misappropriated financial expenses.
The section’s following stories revealed the University’s resistance to negotiate with part-time faculty, teachers at the BU Children’s Center and resident assistants.
“Those stories would go untold without an investigative section,” Galvin said. There’s no other group on campus who’s gonna take the responsibility to write about that.”
During the spring and fall of 2024, the team obtained documentation concerning former College of Communication writing professor Tinker Ready. The reports alleged that she made discriminatory remarks against international students and verbally attacked a student. Ready, who was on paid administrative leave when the story was published, no longer works at BU.
Over the following two semesters, the investigative section continued coverage of issues close to students, including a report covering on-campus accessibility and disruptions for Warren Towers residents because of ongoing renovations. Other stories extended beyond BU’s campus to examine the city of Boston’s bike infrastructure or uncovered donations made by the Musk Foundation to a BU rocketry group.
Investigative stories often require dozens of interviews, months of research and hours of data collection.
The most recent investigative stories, published by a team of seven DFP writers May 2, informed the BU community of the University’s “unsustainable” budget practices and Office of Diversity and Inclusion program cuts. The team established relationships with sources, analyzed the University’s financial statements and obtained documents inaccessible to the general public to report both issues.
As the only news outlet on BU’s campus without affiliations to the University, the DFP investigative section holds a unique position — it is able to report on topics other on-campus news outlets cannot cover. The team works collaboratively to make a story happen.
“You’re not going to get any of these experiences [from] any other outlet on campus,” Galvin said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to write for this section.”
Investigative journalism is a vital part of any newsroom, especially a student paper, Wisniewski said.
“It’s so important for student papers to have that reputation for being accurate, especially in the last decade when news has been under attack,” she said. “Truth is everything. Factual things are everything, and it’s really what drives The Daily Free Press.”
Brendan Galvin, Mara Mellits and Emilia Wisniewski held positions on The Daily Free Press Editorial Board in recent semesters. They were not involved in the reporting, writing or editing of this article.
