Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, 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, due to it being very time-consuming and expensive. Journalistic investigations are increasingly carried out by news organizations working together, even internationally (as in the case of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers), or by nonprofit outlets such as ProPublica, which rely on the support of the public and benefactors to fund their work.
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." [1] 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. [2]
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]
Early newspapers in British colonial America were often suppressed by the authorities for their investigative journalism. Examples include Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick and Benjamin Franklin's New England Courant . Journalists who reported on the doings of the British authorities would later contribute to revolutionary sentiment in the run-up to the American Revolution; one prominent example was the Boston Gazette , contributed to by Samuel Adams among others. [4]
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." [5] Furthermore, the successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists. [6] [7]
The outlook for investigative journalism in the United States was improved by the 1960s with the Freedom of Information Act and New York Times Co. v. Sullivan . The invention of the photocopier also offered an assistive tool to whistleblowers. [4]
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." [8] Non-commercial journalism has increasingly stepped-up to work on this growing need for in-depth investigations and reporting. 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 [9] which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries [10] working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level, [10] under Gerard Ryle as Director. [11] 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 [10] and Paradise Papers. [12] [13] [14] The investigative Commons center opened in Berlin, Germany in 2021 and houses the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Forensic Architecture, and Bellingcat. [15]
An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story:
Organizations, Publications and People
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications. The modern term generally references investigative journalism or watchdog journalism; investigative journalists in the US are occasionally called "muckrakers" informally.
Computer-assisted reporting describes the use of computers to gather and analyze the data necessary to write news stories.
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to counter the corrosive effects of inequality by holding powerful interests accountable and equipping the public with knowledge to drive change." It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, and in 2023, the Edward R. Murrow Award for General Excellence.
Brian Laurence Deer is a British investigative journalist, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine and social issues for The Sunday Times. Deer's investigative nonfiction book The Doctor Who Fooled the World, an exposé on disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield and the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, was published in September 2020 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Charles Lewis is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. He founded The Center for Public Integrity and several other nonprofit organizations and is currently the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication in D.C.
John M. Crewdson is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for The New York Times, where he worked for 12 years. He subsequently spent 26 years in a variety of positions at the Chicago Tribune.
Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative reporter and co-author of the biography of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, which was number one on The New York Times bestseller list.
Journalism in the United States began humbly and became a political force in the campaign for American independence. Following independence, the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The American press grew rapidly following the American Revolution. The press became a key support element to the country's political parties, but also for organized religious institutions.
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) was a nonprofit news organization based in San Francisco, California. In February 2024, it merged with Mother Jones.
The New York Press Club, sometimes NYPC, is a private nonprofit membership organization which promotes journalism in the New York City metropolitan area. It is unaffiliated with any government organization and abstains from politics. While the club is headquarters in New York City, it serves as an association for journalists based in the United States.
Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, characterised as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper, authored by discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet, falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists.
Joachim Dyfvermark is a Swedish investigative reporter/producer working for the current affairs program Uppdrag granskning broadcast on Sveriges Television.
Susanne Rust is an American investigative journalist.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C., with personnel in Australia, France, Spain, Hungary, Serbia, Belgium and Ireland.
Gary Cohn is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Offshore Leaks is a report disclosing details of 130,000 offshore accounts that came out in April 2013. Some observers have called it the biggest hit against international tax fraud of all times, although it has been pointed out that normal businesses may use the offshore legislation to ease formalities in international trade.
Deborah Nelson is a Pulitzer prize-winning freelance journalist at Reuters and the Associate Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Brian Martin Rosenthal is an American journalist. He is currently an investigative reporter at The New York Times and the President of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the largest network of investigative journalists in the world.
A stunt girl was a woman investigative journalist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. The term was often used derogatorily.
Zimbabwean authorities must stop misusing the criminal justice system to persecute journalists and activists who are simply exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The authorities must stop using the police and courts to silence dissent.
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: Add some more recent sources than 2010.(March 2024) |