I was at a journalism conference in Nashville last year when I heard about a public record I had never thought to request.

Tawnell Hobbs, a reporter at The Dallas Morning News, was giving a presentation on school finance reporting when she mentioned an investigative story she had done using check registers.

“I get them every month. That’s somebody sitting there with a checkbook writing checks,” she said. “On its face it’s not that sexy, but it can be.”