In the two years that Madison Carter has been an investigative journalist for WKBW, the ABC affiliate in Buffalo, New York, sheâs never quite seen a moment like this past summer.
On May 30, she was part of her newsroomâs team covering a protest at City Hall, during the height of the Black Lives Matter rallies following the death of George Floyd. It was during one of these protests a few days later that Buffalo found a moment of notoriety after Buffalo Police Department officers were taped pushing an older man, later identified as Martin Gugino. He was seen lying on his back with what appeared to be blood coming from his ear.

âThat was a major event that people were mesmerized by,â Carter says. âPeople in our community were frustrated because they were like, wait a minute, violence against an older white gentleman is getting this crazy reaction but not when it happens to a person of color? It put Buffalo in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. I think it made things a lot more tense.â
In her investigative reporting during the protests, and as a general personal rule, Cater says she likes to focus on not just whatâs happening, but the context around it.
She also credits her approach to covering protests, and providing that context, from time spent in Charlottesville, Virginia following the Unite the Right rally in 2018.
âCharlottesville was my training grounds,â she says. “People who have been around protests typically have been very local, everyone knows whoâs leading it, everyone knows what the issues are. Charlottesville was the genesis of outside agitators. Now people think, âWe can go to someone elseâs city and mess things up.â I donât want to give people the attention they donât deserve. Letâs talk about whatâs happening.â
When people are being interviewed to discuss whatâs happening, however, they often like to deflect and try to point blame in other directions. Take, for example, Carter’s investigative reporting into the actions of the chief of police for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, charged with providing security on Buffaloâs mass transit system and at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
There were stories going around the community that the chief of that force, George Gast, had been seen on security cameras âdoing things that didnât represent police, either an extreme use of force or an abuse of his position,â Carter says. She later learned that rumors of his actions being caught on tape had been circulating for a number of years and that members of local news organizations had been trying to obtain those tapes without luck.
Someone within the organization leaked the footage to Carter. One video showed him âtake a plastic bag and swinging it toward this guy whoâs drunk and handcuffed already,â she says. Another shows Gast âwalking into a room and thereâs a handcuffed guy talking to an officer. (Gast) tells the rookie to take the handcuffs off the guy … and told him to put his hands on (Gast). People said this was inappropriate and not OK.â
The NFTA tried to convince Carter not to pursue the story, eventually allowing her to come to the agencyâs offices and review the tape herself. She wanted to use the footage to allow viewers to decide whether the conduct of this particular officer was acceptable, especially after learning complaints had been filed and an internal investigation of Gastâs actions ended without any action taken against him.
âI wanted to lay out all the details,â she says. âMy reporting is showing people â to me, itâs shocking, but showing how much is legal, how much is allowed in a government agency or police agency. I just wanted to present it to the viewer to let them decide.â
It’s All Journalism host Michael O’Connell talks with Madison Carter, an investigative journalist for the ABC affiliate in Buffalo, WKBW. They discuss her coverage of Black Lives Matter protests in the city this summer and how she tries to incorporate context in all her reporting.