Investigative Reporting

I really liked this week's topic in lecture on Watchdog reporting. As we have been studying the history of journalism, investigative reporting is really what got newspapers to start being successful. The original muckrackers, like Ida Tarbell, helped bring corruption to light and she helped start the style of investigative reporting. She helped create the role of independent newspapers investigating those who are in power over the general population. You can read about the history of muckrackers by following this link.

It is the job of mainstream media to keep our powerful leaders from becoming too corrupt by making them accountable through investigative reports and subsequent news articles printed in the newspaper. I found a great article called the Withering Watchdog that talks about the demise of investigative reporting and the continued need for it. The author, Laura Franks, writes of an award winning investigative reporter for the Rocky Mountain News before she is laid off during major budget cuts. The newspaper has since shuttered its doors and has gone out of business after over 150 years of reporting. In this article, Ms. Franks discusses that the internet is killing mainstream media. We owe many of our open access laws, like open meetings or open records law, to the mainstream media. They had the resources to fight for things that the general public needed to know. With the decline of newspaper budgets and the growing popularity of blogs and citizen journalism, newspapers can't afford the costs of indepth investigative reports and lawsuits that are required to open information to the public. Her argument is that with the demise of newspapers and investigative reporting, overall corruption of the powerful will increase.

My first opinion of investigative journalism was that it is often skewed and taken out of context. We don't always see both sides of the story. But, now I realize that we need watchdogs. We need independent sources, such as newspapers, to give a voice to those that may not have the presence that they need.