Investigative journalism

Introduction

News is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising

Lord Northcliffe

Special terms

This chapter provides you with the essential terms that you will definitely face while working as an investigative journalist.

Investigative journalism

- a ​type of ​journalism that ​tries to ​discover ​information of ​public ​interest that someone is ​trying to ​hide (Cambridge Dictionary).

Story-Based Inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists, an investigative journalism handbook written by Mark Lee Hunter defines it thus: ?Investigative journalism involves exposing to the public matters that are concealed?either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure understanding. It requires using both secret and open sources and documents.?

Investigative journalism can also be called enterprise, in-depth, orproject. Sometimes it is also named watchdog journalism - the practice of the regulatory function of the media. It is a style of writing or broadcast aimed at identifying a current societal problem, either hidden or overt, and offering opinion on necessary action. This style is intended to incite the readers into taking direct steps to change the agents or factors controlling the situation or issue. Yet, sometimes overlooked in application of watchdog journalism is the ?institution? of the media itself. Explicitly stated, watchdog journalism has had in the past, and continues in modern times to have a positive influence on the lives of civilians throughout the world. Inevitably, however, the regulator needs to be regulated (according to Shane Eisenman?s work Watchdog Journalism: Function and Future).

Source: http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~shane/words/watchdog.htm

One of the researchers, Murrey Marder, in the article ?1998: This Is Watchdog Journalism? talks about watchdog journalism as a subtype of investigative one:

? watchdog journalism is by no means just occasional selective, hard-hitting investigative reporting. It starts with a state of mind, accepting responsibility as a surrogate for the public, asking penetrating questions at every level, from the town council to the state house to the White House, in corporate offices, in union halls and in professional offices and all points in between.

Operating as an instrument of democracy, watchdog journalism need not search for a new role as public journalism or civic journalism. When it functions as it is already fully qualified to do, it is public journalism. It is civic journalism, in the best meaning of those terms.

Question: Could you define ?watchdog??

Answer: If you ask the American publishers: ?Do you engage in watchdog reporting?? Everyone?s going to say, ?Yes, of course we do.? And I would think the answer is that, like everything else in journalism, you cannot set down absolute rules, saying this is watchdog journalism and nothing else is watchdog journalism. So I would think that one tries to concentrate on the concept.

Source: http://niemanreports.org/articles/1998-this-is-watchdog-journalism/

On the contrary, we have conventional (or traditional) journalism that deals with current and breaking news but doesn?t involve any investigation. It focuses on news unusual occurrences which mainly entertains and informs the public. It is merely descriptive and tells the story of an event.

Date: 2016-06-13; view: 6