Investigative Journalism: Dying or revamped?

Week 3 Blog

Growing up I fantasised about being the type of reporter that would break earth shattering stories, would hideout in building warehouses listening in on criminals’ conversations and discover the missing link in major scandals. I grew up and realised I had been watching too much television.

Although investigative journalism isn’t quite what I thought it to be when I was younger (and more
naïve), I believe it still plays an absolutely crucial role in society. Essentially, it is how we find out about things happening in the world and the truth about things we otherwise wouldn’t have known. It’s the journalist’s role to inform us, to teach and educate. Without investigative journalism work, we wouldn’t have uncovered the Watergate scandal. We wouldn’t have uncovered the abuse within the Catholic system. Without investigative journalism we wouldn’t hear or see the coverage of major political events or disasters. Basically, we wouldn’t know much of anything.

In recent times there have been claims of a decline in journalistic values, professionalism and work standards. Even journalists are questioning their own industry and the events taking place. Acclaimed British reporter Nick Davies argues that the influence of the PR industry, cost cutting and government enforcement is taking its toll on the profession as a whole.

Investigative journalism just isn’t given the most important aspect for success anymore; time. “If you take away time from reporters, you are taking away their most important working asset” he told ABC reporter Kerry O’Brien during an interview. It’s true right? Even in class we are told that deadlines are fast approaching an hourly basis, instead of what used to be daily, weekly or even monthly.

“And they churn it out. I use this word "churnalism" instead of journalism. They just churn this stuff over without having the time to check it, without having the time to decide whether or not this is what they should even be covering today. And it flows into the news and a lot of it is garbage”. (Nick Davies)

Even in our local papers we have probably noticed errors and mistakes on behalf of sloppy journalism and poor research. Journalism plays such a critical role in society that wrong reporting can mean more than just your job.

This slide show put together by the Huffington Post shows us some examples of declining journalism and what happens when you let your morals slip, you ignore journalistic values and you don’t do a Google search first.

 Carson talks about “nosey journalists” in the textbook. Although being nosy carries unpleasant connotations, it’s the type of journalistic values I would like to uphold. “Nosey journalists are likely to upset long-established non-inquisitive relationships between the media and officialdom” (Carroll as cited in Richardson). Ground breaking stories aren’t uncovered by people who sit in their office all day, scrounging through media releases for ‘news’. You can’t be afraid to rock the boat or not question something, simply because others aren’t or haven’t before.

Although it is argued that investigative journalism has changed and values are declining I still think there are plenty of quality journalists out there producing quality news. Peter Cave is one of my favourite journalists. He has literally put his life on the line to investigate stories and uncover the truth and he has the awards to prove it. His work over the years is the definition of what good investigative journalism is.  

Investigative journalism has gone under the knife, just like all other aspects of the media. Where there is good, there is bad and where there is very good there is the very wrong. The state of journalism is changing; hopefully we can remember that without investigative methods, we are in a bit of trouble.

(Picture source)