Investigative journalism explained

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.

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."^[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]

History

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.

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]}

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.

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."^[7] 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^[8] which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries^[9] working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level, under Gerard Ryle as Director.^[10] 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 and Paradise Papers.^{[11] [12] [13]} The investigative Commons center opened in Berlin, Germany in 2021 and houses the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Forensic Architecture, and Bellingcat.^[14]

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.^[15]
• Databases of public records.^{[16] [17]}
• 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.^[18]
• 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.
• OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) databases and tools that contain free and open resources that anybody can use.

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;^[19] this later led to the publication of the book A Mad World and Its Inhabitants (1876).
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett's 1892 Southern Horrors documented lynching in the United States, exposing in the pages of black-owned newspapers as a campaign of oppression and intimidation against African Americans. A white mob destroyed her newspaper press and office in retaliation for her reporting.^[20]
• Ida Tarbell's 1904 book, The History of the Standard Oil Company, exposed the nefarious practices and methods of the monopoly of the company, and led to its dismantling.^[21]
• Upton Sinclair's 1905 book The Jungle exposed unsanitary conditions in American meatpacking plants, and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.
• 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.^[22]
• Between 1972–1974 Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered and exposed a variety of incriminating information regarding President Richard Nixon's 1968–1972 presidential campaign. The information exposed, prompted Nixon's resignation in 1974 and was then on recognized as the Watergate scandal.^[23]
• Bill Dedman's 1988 investigation, The Color of Money,^[24] 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.^[25]
• 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.^{[26] [27] [28]}
• 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.^[29]
• John M. Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune wrote a 1996 article^[30] 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.^[31]
• Project Censored regularly investigates stories which have gone undercovered by other outlets.
• Hopewell Chin'ono, the award-winning Zimbabwean journalist who investigated and exposed the Covid-gate scandal in Zimbabwe in June 2020. US$60 million was siphoned to a shadowy company called Drax that is linked to President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The exposure resulted in the dismissal and arrest of Health Minister Obbidiah Moyo. Hopewell Chin'ono was arrested on flimsy charges in an apparent attempt to silence him.^[32]

Awards

• George Polk Awards
• Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting
• Investigative Reporters and Editors Award
• Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting
• Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting

See also

• Glossary of journalism
• Preventive journalism

Organizations, Publications and People

• Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism
• Bureau of Investigative Journalism
• Center for Investigative Reporting
• Center for Public Integrity
• Centre for Investigative Journalism
• Global Investigative Journalism Network
• Global South Development Magazine
• Institute for Nonprofit News
• Investigative Reporters and Editors
• Investigative Reporting Workshop
• Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
• Rodolfo Walsh
• The Hidden is More Immense

Further reading

• News: How to expose corruption, vice and incompetence – by those who have . . The Guardian . 14 October 2021 . An article by six investigative journalists on the situation of investigative journalism in the UK.
• Book: Harber. Anton. Renn. Margaret. Troublemakers: The Best of South Africa's Investigative Journalism. 2010. Jacana Media. Auckland Park, South Africa. 9781770098930. 794905854.
• Video of the 2010 Logan Symposium at University of California Berkeley's "Consequences of Investigative Reporting" panel, in which reporters from the Sahara Reporters, the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern, The Washington Post, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, and The El Paso Times talk about the dangers investigative reporters face; their experiences range from threat to life and limb for reporting on corruption in Africa, to subpoenas aimed at a journalism professor and his students for attempting to bring to light a miscarriage of justice; a Pulitzer Prize winner describes reporting on national security as her sources face internal inquisitions; a veteran reporter in Las Vegas talks about taking on casino moguls and organized crime; while a reporter covering the Mexican border explains how she has survived the violent reality of the undeclared war on our border, April 2010
• "Current State of Investigative Reporting", talk by Seymour Hersh at Boston University, 19 May 2009
• Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism That Changed the World, John Pilger, ed. (paperback) 2005.

Notes and References

1. Book: Weinberg, Steve. The Reporter's Handbook: An Investigator's Guide To Documents and Techniques. 1996. St. Martin's Press. 978-0-312-13596-6. registration.
2. Web site: 29 September 2023 . The Global Media Defence Fund Backs the Largest-Ever Investigative Journalism Conference . Unesco.
3. Book: de Burgh. Hugo. Investigative Journalism: Context and Practice. 2000. Routledge. London and New York. 978-0-415-19054-1.
4. Book: Sloan. W. David. Parcell. Lisa Mullikin. American Journalism: History, Principles, Practices. 2002. McFarland. 978-0-7864-1371-3. 211–213.
5. Book: Tichi, Cecelia. Exposés and Excess: Muckraking in America, 1900 / 2000. 2013. University of Pennsylvania Press. 978-0-8122-0375-2.
6. Book: Hess, Stephen. Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978–2012. 2013. Brookings Institution Press. 978-0-8157-2540-4.
7. Book: McChesney, Robert W.. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st century. registration. Monthly Review Press. 2004. 978-1-58367-105-4. 81. Robert W. McChesney., citing
8. News: Vasilyeva . Natalya . Anderson . Mae . 3 April 2016 . News Group Claims Huge Trove of Data on Offshore Accounts . . . 4 April 2016.
9. Web site: About the ICIJ . 10 February 2015 . The Center for Public Integrity.
10. News: Gerard Ryle . Center for Public Integrity .
11. News: Fitzgibbon, Will . etal . 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. . . 6 November 2017.
12. News: Grandoni . Dino . 2017-11-06 . Analysis The Energy 202: What you need to know about Wilbur Ross and the Paradise Papers . The Washington Post . 2017-11-06 . 0190-8286.
13. News: Disis . Jackie Wattles and Jill . 2017-11-06 . Paradise Papers: What you need to know . CNNMoney .
14. News: Oltermann . Philip . 27 June 2021 . Berlin's no 1 digital detective agency is on the trail of human rights abusers . The Guardian . London, United Kingdom . 2021-06-28 . 0261-3077.
15. Book: Hahn, Oliver . Digital Investigative Journalism . Springer International Publishing . 2018 . 145–146.
16. Web site: 10 tools for investigative journalists . 2023-06-26 . International Journalists' Network . en.
17. Book: Encyclopedia of Journalism . SAGE Publications . 2009 . Sterling . Christopher H. . Christopher H. Sterling . 2 . 788–794 . Investigative Journalism. 978-0-7619-2957-4 .
18. Web site: eInvestigator.com . Michael Kissiah . 2022-06-22 . LexisNexis Solutions for Law Enforcement and Investigators . 2023-06-26 . Private Investigator and Investigation Resources . en-US.
19. News: A New Hospital for the Insane . December 1876 . Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
20. Web site: Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Anti-lynching and the White House . 2024-04-15 . WHHA (en-US) . en.
21. Web site: 2022-01-06 . Ida Tarbell: The Woman Who Took On Standard Oil - Connecticut History a CTHumanities Project . 2024-04-15 . Connecticut History a CTHumanities Project - Stories about the people, traditions, innovations, and events that make up Connecticut's rich history. . en.
22. Web site: Paranick . Amber . 2022-11-08 . "Behind Asylum Bars:" Nellie Bly Reporting from Blackwell's Island. Headlines & Heroes . 2024-04-15 . The Library of Congress.
23. Web site: Elving . Ron . June 16, 2022 . In new edition of classic Watergate expose, Woodward and Bernstein link Nixon, Trump . NPR.
24. Web site: The Color of Money. Dedman. Bill . Power Reporting . 1989.
25. Web site: Bill Dedman of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution . www.pulitzer.org . en.
26. Godlee . F. . Fiona Godlee . Smith . J. . Marcovitch . H. . Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent . . 342 . 2011-01-05 . 0959-8138 . 10.1136/bmj.c7452 . c7452. 21209060. 43640126 .
27. News: Andrew Wakefield, Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement, Responds to the Current Measles Outbreak for the First Time . Newsweek . 10 February 2015 . 19 February 2015 . New York . Ziv, Stav.
28. News: Lancet retracts 'utterly false' MMR paper . The Guardian . 2 February 2010 . 14 January 2015 . London . Boseley, Sarah.
29. News: 2019-05-07 . Exclusive: the real story of the MPs' expenses scandal . 2024-04-15 . The Telegraph . en-GB . 0307-1235.
30. News: Crewdson, John . Cardiac Arrest at 37,000 Feet . Chicago Tribune . 1996-06-30 .
31. Book: Kovach. Bill. Rosenstiel. Tom. Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload. registration. 2010. Bloomsbury Publishing. New York. 978-1-60819-302-8. 58–60.
32. News: Zimbabwe: Authorities continue their crackdown on dissent with arrest of investigative journalist and activist . Muchena . Deprose . 20 July 2020 . . 4 January 2021 . "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.".