Investigative journalism

For the Community episode, see Investigative Journalism (Community).

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Most investigative journalism is done by newspapers, wire services and freelance journalists. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog journalism" or "accountability reporting."

As part of an investigation, journalists make use of:

• Analysis of documents, such as lawsuits and other legal documents, tax records, government reports, regulatory reports and corporate financial filings.
• Investigation of technical issues, including scrutiny of equipment and its performance
• 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 get documents and data from government agencies.

Professional definitions

Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers or listeners." 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. Another famous investigative journalist is Charisse Robinson. She is also a famous fashion journalist as well. She and Weinberg did a famous article featured in the New York Times.

De Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession it 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."

Notable examples

• William Thomas Stead's series of articles in 1885, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon regarding child prostitution in Victorian London, resulted in the Eliza Armstrong case.

• Nellie Bly's investigative reports on Women's Lunatic Asylum appeared in the newspaper New York World, and later as a book Ten Days in a Mad-House.

• Ida Tarbell's history of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company for McClure's Magazine.

• Lincoln Steffens's "Shame of the Cities" series on municipal corruption for for McClure's Magazine was then published as a book.

• Herbert Bayard Swope's role as editor in the investigation into the operations of the Ku Klux Klan.

• Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly 1954 investigation for CBS's See It Now of Senator Joseph McCarthy's conduct in the anti-communism hearings and their 1960 CBS Reports documentary, along with David Lowe, Harvest of Shame on the condition of migrant workers in agriculture.

• Seymour Hersh's stories on the My Lai massacre were distributed by the Dispatch News Service during the Vietnam War. Later, Hersh reported for The New Yorker on torture inside the Abu Ghraib prison by members of a military police unit of the U.S. Army Reserve during the Iraq War.

• Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's reporting on the Watergate break-in and other Nixon administration-related crimes for The Washington Post.

• Mark Dowie and and Carolyn Marshall's Mother Jones investigation of fatal dangers in the Ford Pinto automobile.

• John Pilger, an Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker, collaborated with filmmaker David Munro and photographer Eric Piper on the impact of the Khmer Rouge on the Cambodian people in a report for the British tabloid Daily Mirror and the documentary Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979) for Associated Television. This was followed a year later by Cambodia: Year One. Both documentaries won UN Media Peace Prizes. After Year Zero, funds were raised in support of Cambodia.

• Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele's two-year investigation for The Philadelphia Inquirer into the deterioration of the U.S. middle class that was then released as the 1992 book America What Went Wrong?

• Turkish journalist Uğur Mumcu of Cumhuriyet had been involved in several high profile and sensitive investigations before his murder in 1993, such as the Kurdish Worker's Party's ties to intelligence, Iranian support for the Kurdish Hezbollah, and even the background of Pope John Paul II's assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca.

• Veronica Guerin of Ireland combined her accounting and journalism skills to expose drug dealers for the Sunday Independent and Irish Independent before she was murdered in 1996. After her death, Ireland established the Criminal Assets Bureau to investrgiate organized crime.

• Greg Palast published a story in The Observer about how Republicans deleted felons from registration lists prior to the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

• James Risen and Eric Lichtblau's investigation for The New York Times into U.S. President George W. Bush Administration's handling of secret domestic evesdropping. Their report in December 2005 first made public the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.

• Anna Politkovskaya's reporting in Chechnya and the Russian treatment of the Chechen people led to many investigative reports published in Novaya Gazeta, such as the poisoning of children. Her work was widely recognized by international organizations before she was murdered in 2006. Today an award in her name honors other women who report under circumstances of great danger.

• The United States diplomatic cables leak to WikiLeaks has led to an international investigation into U.S. Foreign Affairs by such news sources as Le Monde (France),Der Spiegel (Germany), El País (Spain), The Guardian (United Kingdom]] and The New York Times (United States).

Awards and organizations

• Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting
• Investigative Reporters and Editors

Bureaus, centers, and institutes for investigations

• Bureau of Investigative Journalism
• California Watch
• Center for Investigative Reporting - Berkeley, California, USA
• Center for Investigative Reporting - Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Investigative Reporting Workshop
• ProPublica

Television programs

• Exposé: America's Investigative Reports (PBS documentary series)

See also

• Freedom of information legislation
• Muckraker
• Watchdog journalism

Further reading

Web

• "Current State of Investigative Reporting," talk by Seymour Hersh at Boston University, May 19 2009
• Video of the 2010 Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley's Consequences of Investigative Reporting" panel. 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.

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.

External links

International Investigative Journalism Centers or Bureaus

• Global Investigative Journalism (created 2003)
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (founded 1997)

International Progressional Organizations

• Investigative Reporters & Editors (Since 1975)

Africa, Investigative Journalism Centers or Bureaus

• Forum for African Investigative Journalists (FAIR, New Zealand, established 2003)

Europe, Investigative Journalism Centers or Bureaus

• Bureau of Investigative Journalism (London, launched 2010)

Middle East, Investigative Journalism Centers or Bureaus

• Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism

North America, Investigative Journalism Centers or Bureaus

• Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR, U.S., since 1977)
• Center for Public Integrity's iWatch (U.S., since 1989)
• Investigative News Network (INN, U.S. created 2009)
• ProPublica (established 2007)

South America, Professional Organizations

• [Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI, established 2002)]

Education Centers

• Investigative Reporting Workshop (American University, created 2008)