Investigative journalism

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting".

Most investigative journalism has traditionally been conducted by newspapers, wire services, and freelance journalists. With the decline in income through advertising, many traditional news services have struggled to fund investigative journalism, which is time-consuming and therefore expensive. Journalistic investigations are increasingly carried out by news organisations working together, even internationally (as in the case of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers), or by organisations such as ProPublica, which have not operated previously as news publishers and which rely on the support of the public and benefactors to fund their work.

The growth of media conglomerates in the U.S. since the 1980s has been accompanied by massive cuts in the budgets for investigative journalism. A 2002 study concluded "that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation's commercial airwaves".[1] The empirical evidence for this is consistent with the conflicts of interest between the revenue sources for the media conglomerates and the mythology of an unbiased, dispassionate media: advertisers have reduced their spending with media that reported too many unfavorable details. The major media conglomerates have found ways to retain their audience without the risks of offending advertisers inherent in investigative journalism.

Professional definitions

University of Missouri journalism professor Steve Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers, or listeners."[2] In many cases, the subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism. Conferences are conducted presenting peer reviewed research into investigative journalism.

British media theorist Hugo de Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors, and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity."[3]

Terminology

American journalism textbooks point out that muckraking standards promoted by McClure's Magazine around 1902, "Have become integral to the character of modern investigative journalism."[4] Furthermore, the successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists.[5][6]

Tools

An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story:

  • Analysis of documents, such as lawsuits and other legal documents, tax records, government reports, regulatory reports, and corporate financial filings
  • Databases of public records
  • Investigation of technical issues, including scrutiny of government and business practices and their effects
  • Research into social and legal issues
  • Subscription research sources such as LexisNexis
  • Numerous interviews with on-the-record sources as well as, in some instances, interviews with anonymous sources (for example whistleblowers)
  • Federal or state Freedom of Information Acts to obtain documents and data from government agencies

Examples

  • Julius Chambers of the New-York Tribune had himself committed to the Bloomingdale Asylum in 1872, and his account led to the release of twelve patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff and administration, and eventually to a change in the lunacy laws;[7]this later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its Inhabitants (1876).
  • Nellie Bly, a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman in the late 19th century, famously feigned insanity as part of her 1887 undercover investigation into and subsequent exposé regarding the inner-workings of the Women's Lunatic Asylum in New York City. Published to wide acclaim as a series of articles in the New York World which were later compiled and further detailed in her book Ten Days in a Mad-House, Bly's revelations led to both a grand jury investigation of the asylum and increased funding for the Department of Public Charities and Corrections.
  • Bill Dedman's 1988 investigation, The Color of Money,[8] for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on racial discrimination by mortgage lenders in middle-income neighborhoods, received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and was an influential early example of computer-assisted reporting or database journalism.
  • Brian Deer's British press award-winning investigation for The Sunday Times of London into the worldwide MMR vaccine controversy which revealed that research, published by The Lancet, associating the children's vaccine with autism was fraudulent.[9][10][11]
  • The Daily Telegraph investigated claims that various British Members of Parliament had been filing dubious and frivolous expenses claims, and had done for many years in secret. The House of Commons Authority initially tried to block the release of the information, but the expenses were leaked to the Telegraph. The newspaper then released pieces of information which dominated the news for weeks and caused considerable anger in the UK.
  • John M. Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune wrote a 1996 article[12] proposing the installment of defibrillators on American airliners. Crewdson argued that based on his research and analysis, "Medical kits and defibrillators would be economically justified if they saved just 3 lives each year." Soon after the article's publication, airlines began installing defibrillators on planes, and the devices began to show up in airports and other public spaces. Ten years after installing defibrillators, American Airlines reported that 80 lives had been saved by the machines.[13]
  • One of the largest teams of investigative journalists is the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) launched in 1997 by the Center for Public Integrity[14] which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries[15] working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level,[16][17] under Gerard Ryle as Director.[18] Working with major media outlets globally, they have exposed organised crime, international tobacco companies, private military cartels, asbestos companies, climate change lobbyists, details of Iraq and Afghanistan war contracts, and most recently the Panama Papers[16][17] and Paradise Papers.[19][20][21]

Notable investigative reporters

Awards

Bureaus, centers, and institutes for investigations

See also

References

  1. ↑ McChesney, Robert W. (2004). The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st century. Monthly Review Press. p. 81. ISBN 1-58367-105-6. , citing Just, Marion; Levine, Rosalind; Regan, Kathleen (Nov–Dec 2002), "Investigative Journalism Despite the Odds", Columbia Journalism Review: 103ff
  2. ↑ Steve Weinberg, The Reporter's Handbook: An Investigator's Guide to Documents and Techniques, St. Martin's Press, 1996
  3. ↑ Investigative Journalism: Context and Practice, Hugo de Burgh (ed), Routledge, London and New York, 2000
  4. ↑ W. David Sloan; Lisa Mullikin Parcell (2002). American Journalism: History, Principles, Practices. McFarland. pp. 211–213. .
  5. ↑ Cecelia Tichi. Exposés and Excess: Muckraking in America, 1900/2000 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).
  6. ↑ Stephen Hess (2012). Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012.
  7. ↑ "A New Hospital for the Insane" (Dec., 1876). Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
  8. ↑ "The Color of Money". Powerreporting.com. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  9. ↑ Godlee F, Smith J, Marcovitch H (2011). "Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent". BMJ. 342: c7452. doi:10.1136/bmj.c7452. PMID 21209060.
  10. ↑ Ziv, Stav (10 February 2015). "Andrew Wakefield, Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement, Responds to the Current Measles Outbreak for the First Time". Newsweek. New York. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  11. ↑ Boseley, Sarah (2 February 2010). "Lancet retracts 'utterly false' MMR paper". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Crewdson, John (1996-06-30). "Cardiac Arrest at 37,000 Feet". chicagotribune.com.
  13. ↑ Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2010. p. 58-60. Print.
  14. ↑ Vasilyeva, Natalya; Anderson, Mae (3 April 2016). "News Group Claims Huge Trove of Data on Offshore Accounts". The New York Times. Associated Press. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  15. ↑ "About the ICIJ". The Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  16. 1 2 "About". ICIJ. 6 April 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  17. 1 2 ICIJ, About the ICIJ
  18. ↑ "Gerard Ryle". Center for Public Integrity.
  19. ↑ Fitzgibbon, Will; et al. (5 November 2017). "The 1 Percent- Offshore Trove Exposes Trump-Russia Links And Piggy Banks Of The Wealthiest 1 Percent - A new leak of confidential records reveals the financial hideaways of iconic brands and power brokers across the political spectrum". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
  20. ↑ Grandoni, Dino (2017-11-06). "Analysis | The Energy 202: What you need to know about Wilbur Ross and the Paradise Papers". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  21. ↑ Disis, Jackie Wattles and Jill. "Paradise Papers: What you need to know". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2017-11-06.

Further reading

Web
Books
  • Typewriter Guerillas: Closeups of 20 Top Investigative Reporters, by J.C. Behrens (paperback) 1977.
  • Raising Hell: Straight Talk with Investigative Journalists, by Ron Chepesiuk, Haney Howell, and Edward Lee (paperback) 1997
  • Investigative Reporting: A Study in Technique (Journalism Media Manual), by David Spark, (paperback) 1999.
  • Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World, John Pilger, ed. (paperback) 2005.
  • Harber, Anton; Renn, Margaret, eds. (2010). Troublemakers: The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism. Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media. ISBN 9781770098930. OCLC 794905854.
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