Investigative Journalism

Investigative reporting is a journalistic specialty that uses fact-gathering to expose wrongdoing by powerful individuals and institutions. This form of reporting has also been called advocacy, adversarial, crusading, watchdog and public service journalism, or muckraking. Experts have offered varying definitions: some emphasize in-depth reporting that is more time-consuming than traditional daily journalism; others claim that the very phrase “investigative reporting” is redundant since all reporting involves investigation of some kind. According to the nonprofit group Investigative Reporters and Editors, America's leading organization of such journalists, it is “the reporting, through one's own work product and initiative, [of] matters of importance which some person or group want to keep secret” (Shapiro 2003, xv).

Nonetheless, despite these varying definitions, the core of investigative reporting throughout American history has been its use of evidence to challenge authority and oppose entrenched power—political, governmental, corporate, or reli-gious—on behalf of ordinary citizens. This “journalism of outrage,” as one researcher has characterized it, “is a form of storytelling that probes the boundaries of America's civic conscience” (Protess et al., 1991, 5). According to another writer, the job of investigative reporters is “to speak documented truth to lying power” (Shapiro 2003, xv).

Investigative reporting has taken place in all forms of news media: newspapers, magazines, radio, television and, most recently, online. Investigative journalists conduct research using interviews and documents, including databases [Page 789]mined for hidden facts in computer-assisted or “precision” reporting that uses the rigorous techniques of social scientists. Sometimes, investigative reporters work “undercover,” with or without cameras, to witness and report about abuses firsthand. Given the nature of their work, many investigative reporters have been injured or killed in pursuit of stories.

Unlike traditional journalists, investigative reporters often do not abide by the journalistic principle of objectivity; by definition, their work is frequently subjective, even moralistic. Investigative reporters are “custodians of public conscience” whose “reporting yields stories that are carefully verified and skillfully narrated accounts of special injury and injustice … with a meaning that always transcends the facts of the particular case. Their stories call attention to the breakdown of social systems and the disorder within public institutions that cause injury and injustice; in turn, their stories implicitly demand the response of public officials—and the public itself—to that breakdown and disorder” (Ettema and Glasser 1998, 3).

To be sure, the line between fair-minded investigative reporting and partisan witch-hunting or sensationalistic gossip-mongering can be a fine one, and that line has been repeatedly crossed over the years. Right-wing critics have complained that investigative reporting undermines authority while leftist detractors protest that such journalism reinforces the status quo. The truth is probably somewhere in between. “Investigative reporters are reformers not revolutionaries,” one researcher has noted. “They seek to improve the system by pointing out its shortcomings rather than advocating its overthrow. By spotlighting specific abuses of particular policies or programs, the investigative reporter provides policy makers with the opportunity to take corrective actions without changing the distribution of power” (Protess 1991, 11).

While significant and substantive public service journalism is often high profile, even famous, it is also relatively rare. This is true in part because wrongdoing in high places is difficult to uncover. Investigative reporting can be time-consuming and expensive to produce and can generate costly lawsuits and alienate powerful authorities, from government officials to advertisers. However, by providing a check on abuses by authorities, investigative reporting is important to democracy. It helps mold public opinion, shape policy, deter wrongdoing, and reinforce society's key values.

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