There is a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in government today, Katie Pavlich told online viewers Wednesday morning. Pavlich was a guest speaker for the Franklin Center for Government and Integrity on their first ever webinar. She talked about her New York Times Bestseller ‘Fast and Furious’ and gave tips to aspiring citizen journalists.

You have to hold the media accountable, she said. “Don’t let the ‘news of the day’ dictate what you write about, run your own race. Do what you think is important.”

Pavlich told viewers write what they are passionate about. She said she started writing about the fast and furious case because it was her way to make an impact. Something about the Holder case just didn’t make sense. She followed her instincts, covering the issue for over a year and eventually turning her stories into a book.

“Get on twitter,” Pavlich said. “It’s not that hard.” She uses different types of media to get her stories out, including facebook and twitter. Using social media is a great way to interact with the media and hold them accountable for the stories they write, she said. She said it’s also important to make sure you back up your stories with facts and documents. With new media, it’s easy to show readers documents and evidence. It’s not like in old media, when evidence was described to readers. With documents, she said, you can keep government officials accountable, by just pointing to the evidence. Pavlich also urged viewers to know their state’s public records laws.

The Franklin webinar series are monthly online webinars which cover issues that impact voters.

To watch a recording of the webinar, click HERE.

Moriah Costa

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