Donnie Forti '06 snags Carnegie Fellowship at ABC News

As a child, Donnie Forti '06 remembers building microphones out of Tinker-Toys and digging around for shoe string to use as imaginary wire while pretending to be a news reporter. ?I also built a low-power transmitter out of a walkie-talkie and pretended to be a radio personality in my room, -- he says.

Fast forward some 15 years later, and Forti is building news stories and digging under rocks for information while on a Carnegie Fellowship at ABC News -- Brian Ross Investigative Unit.

Forti was one of six graduate students from around the country chosen for the Brian Ross Investigative Unit. Brian Ross is ABC News -- chief investigative correspondent and reports for World News with Charles Gibson, Nightline, Good Morning America, 20/20, and Primetime, as well as for ABCNews.com. The ABC News Radio series, Brian Ross Investigates, focuses on a wide range of investigative topics, including terrorism, business corruption, criminal fraud, and political scandals. Forti's internship is focused on the investigating unit, "We're responsible for any investigations the network carries out," Forti says.

As a member of the Brian Ross? team, Forti says he gets training in media ethics and hones production techniques while researching for the investigative unit. "The hands-on experience I'm getting in production, reporting, and research will help me in any future job," he says.

After graduating from Knox in 2006, Forti enrolled in the graduate program in journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An anthropology and sociology and political science major, Forti says his Knox experience had a big influence on him. "Knox gave me a great liberal arts education, which helped me become familiar with political, social, and economic issues that I'd someday cover as a reporter," he says.

"Being in Galesburg was a big influence, too. The closing of the Maytag plant and the economic difficulties the town has faced have opened my eyes to stories affecting Midwestern communities dealing with job losses," he adds.

While at the University of Illinois, Forti assisted Professor Bill Gaines, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. Their work included an online how-to guide for investigative reporters. "Listening to Professor Gaines? stories, his wisdom, and taking his class inspired me to learn more about investigative reporting. Like Knox?s professors, he is extremely dedicated and works very hard to reach out to students," he says.

Forti first became interested in broadcast journalism in high school and was the first high school intern at WHAD in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he "helped screen calls for the afternoon talk show, shadowed staff members, and did anything the staff would need done," he says. He continued working for the radio station during winter breaks throughout his Knox career.

Being a top notch investigative journalist means relentlessly ferreting out the behind-the-scenes corruption or blunders that get to the heart of the matter. Forti most recently traveled to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to research substance abuse issues facing returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Interviewing veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, their families, doctors, religious leaders and counselors, the team is working on a major story for ABC's 20/20.

Investigative reporters today face many challenges. It's no longer enough to catch the local councilman on the take or the large polluting industrial plant. "The thing that I love about investigative reporting is that you can uncover problems being ignored and make a difference through what you report," Forti says. "Getting the chance to intern at ABC is something that I am very thankful for."