Perhaps the most important role of a metropolitan newspaper is to cover the affairs of local and state government, warts and all.

Award-winning Richmond Times-Dispatch investigative reporter, Samuel Parker, is responsible for numerous well-researched, block-buster articles exposing malfeasance and inefficiency at Richmond City Hall. While most of these occurred under the previous administration, he continues to closely monitor activities of the new administration under Mayor Danny Avula.

A relatively new reporter (his first newspaper job), Parker has already garnered the Virginia Press Association Award for Government and Data Journalism, as well as the Open Government Award from the Virginia Coalition for Open Government.

His talk will review his groundbreaking stories as well as tools of the investigative reporter, including the oft-abused Freedom of Information law.