Charles Piller’s 2015 STAT investigation “Failure to Report,” and the accompanying interactive graphic by Natalia Bronshtein, offered shocking details about institutions’ widespread failure to deposit clinical trial results into the public database ClinicalTrials.gov—and how that failure puts human lives at risk. Looking closely at Piller’s article, one sees the careful way he unpacks the unexpected revelations for readers. In the Q&A that follows, Piller shares how he methodically structured the piece and what it takes to dive headfirst into this sort of investigation.