In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, while state authorities in Rio de Janeiro rushed to purchase equipment and build field hospitals, there was also intense journalistic coverage on the expenditure of public resources. Dozens of reports from different media outlets exposed indications of overpricing in purchases, inconsistencies in contracts, and even fraud in hiring processes. Following these reports, criminal investigations were initiated into corruption in the government of Wilson Witzel during the pandemic, and an unprecedented impeachment process was launched in the Legislative Assembly, which ended with the governor s removal from office. For the purpose of this study, the initial reports of this journalistic coverage from four sources - Blog do Berta, Folha de São Paulo, RJ2 (TV Globo) and O Globo - were analyzed, and interviews were conducted with reporters involved in the coverage in order to identify the sources of information used and discuss practices, productive routines and the final outcome in the process of constructing investigative reports. Content analysis and in-depth interviews were employed as the research methods. The findings reveal that transparency tools and access to information from public agencies played a crucial role in enhancing the credibility of the news reports, accounting for 46 per cent of the identified sources of information in the analyzed articles, a result which was corroborated by the perception of the interviewed journalists