My favorite Trib story compared Marquette's administration size to other Jesuit universities. It involved me pulling more than 700 data points from a database as well as sifting through Marquette's past staff directories to illustrate Marquette's issue of bloated bureacracy not just in reference to other universities but how it has grown over time.
This was my first experience in dealing with sources who were unwilling to talk to me for a story. Adjunct professors were too scared to speak on the record out of fear for losing their jobs, which only encouraged me even more to present an accurate portrait of their lives.