INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Investigative Journalism means the unveiling of matters that are concealed either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances - and the analysis and exposure of all relevant facts to the public. In this way investigative journalism crucially contributes to freedom of expression and media development, which are at the heart of UNESCO’s mandate.

UNESCO has constantly fostered debate on media accountability and professional and ethical standards, which provide journalists with guiding principles and training materials on how to best exercise their profession. In collaboration with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), UNESCO launched the first manual for investigative journalists in Arab States, entitled Story-Based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists in 2009. Following the successful launch of the Manual which has been adopted by many journalism programmes in the Arab States, Asia, the United States of America and the Russian Federation, UNESCO presented The Global Investigative Journalism Casebook, as complementary material for training purposes.

The role media can play as a watchdog is indispensable for democracy and it is for this reason that UNESCO fully supports initiatives to strengthen the capacity building of investigative journalism throughout the world. At a time of a widening communications ecosystem, journalism today needs to clearly show its key value-add to the public interest. In this light, credible investigative stories, like the kind promoted in this book, are increasingly pivotal to public confirmation of the continuing importance of professional journalistic work in the coming years.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
What is Investigative Journalism?

Investigative journalism is a type of journalism that uncovers what others don't want uncovered. An investigative journalist digs deep into one story, whether it be corporate financial corruption, violent crime, or other topics that might not get covered in the everyday news.

One of the main goals of investigative journalism is to spur change. An investigative journalist might spend four years following a politician and uncovering a money laundering crime to protect the people from electing a criminal.

Then again, simpler forms of investigative journalism provide citizens with news stories via television networks and newspapers, but isn't the everyday sort of news. It may be a local grocery story that is prejudice toward hiring the elderly or a school failing to support students with special needs.

Another name often used to refer to investigative journalism is watchdog journalism. Underneath this umbrella term is interpretive reporting, which is is type of investigative journalism that evaluates the consequences of certain events or actions.

Keep in mind however that investigative journalism is not leak journalism, which is when a reporter releases sensitive documents to the public without any further research into the documents.
Resources Investigative Journalists Use

Investigative journalists use a variety of resources to learn more about the topic they are investigating. Reporters will use information from interviews, public records, legal and tax reports, and other federal resources.

Journalists use standard undercover work when there isn't enough information in databases or sources aren't willing to come forward. Usually a combination of these different methods is used to build a strong case.

It's important to note that an investigative reporter doesn't acquire sensitive material just to publish it; instead they use the information to write and publish a coherent and fact-based article or book.
Examples of Investigative Journalism

Investigative journalism takes on all sorts of topics. Let's look at few true-life examples of investigative journalism:
Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette-Mail

In 2017, journalist Eric Eyre won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for his report on opioid overdoses in West Virginia. Over a series of three reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail in 2016, he demonstrated how the pills were getting into the state and causing so many deaths.

It turned out that pharmaceutical companies were providing far too many pills to pharmacies in the poorest counties of West Virginia, which led to a vicious cycle of pill usage and deaths.

The beginning of investigative reporting is tied to the USA, where key events for development of investigative reporting happened; events like the foundation of the first organization that gathered investigative reporters and editors (IRE), then, the Watergate affair in which "Washington Post", by publishing information on wiretapping of political opponents forced president Richard Nixon to resign.

Both foundation of IRE and "Watergate" affair happened some 30 years ago, while roots of investigative reporting go much deeper, to the beginning of 20th century.

Already in 19th century the political and judicial practice in the USA spread freedom of public speech, therefore freedom of press. With the arrival of new immigrants and enabling women to vote, the newspaper gained a greater role during elections. That meant a huge increase in public opinion.

The messages of populism, a movement that started at the end of 19th century, inspired by the economic situation and efforts to help the middle class, farmers, and small industrial workers and merchants, spread with the help of a newspaper that supported populist's goals on the South and Middle West. (prof. dr. Josip Kregar, Značaj istraživačkog novinarstva za razvoj demokratskog društva / Importance of investigative reporting for development of democratic society - Zagreb 2001.)

Spokespersons for the movement were reporters of a new kind. The group of reporters, connected by a sense of purpose, polemically and sensationally exposed the examples of the abuse of wealth and political power, political corruption and illegal doings. From 1902 to 1920's they published more than a thousand articles on big companies and political corruption. (E. Foner, J.A. Garraty; The Readers Companion to American History - Boston, Houghton Miflin 1991.)

That group of reporters exposed corruption in the big cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, etc. while their target were also big companies, such as the oil conglomerate, Standard Oil.

Their characteristics were a high level of social responsibility, their style by which they arose the emotions of the public, their skill of writing, and their unhidden ambition to become the society's consciousness.

Those were very talented reporters with high literary ambitions. Some of them are known in history as successful writers, but nobody but their contemporaries ever heard that they were journalists as well, especially that they are the founders of investigative reporting.

In this group of journalists are, for example, famous novelists Theodore Dreiser and Jack London.

When it was noted that a sharp critic of capricious rich people and politicians attracts the attention of the audience, publishers continued to encourage reporters to work on investigative reporting. The newspaper did not just report the news anymore; it created the news.

Publishers paid high amounts to the reporters who were able to create the news and get the readers interested so that they would impatiently wait for the next story. They were giving them enough time to prepare themselves and to choose their topics as they would. Ordering the articles became an exception.
There was no public person who could avoid supervision and press critique, no matter how rich or politically powerful that person was. Newspapers that used the opportunities of investigative reporting kept gaining new readers all the time.

And those newspapers that did not do so at the beginning had to start. Very often, the goal of their publisher was no longer to gain new readers, but to keep the existing ones.

It is said that all reporting is investigative. After all, journalists routinely dig for facts. They ask questions. They get information. They “investigate.”

THE DONTS OF INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
1: Daily news reporting is seldom investigative, it is mostly reactive


. Most of the time, journalists react to what is happening or what has been publicly announced. Reporters seldom decide on their own what or who they cover. They often do not initiate story ideas. Unfolding events and the daily schedule of news briefings and press conferences determine what the makes it to the newspaper, the newscast or the Web.

2: investigative reporting often involves digging up what is secret or hidden.

 

Most of the time, investigative reporters uncover wrongdoing by individuals and institutions. The good that public officials or private companies do is often publicized; a whole army of public relations people makes sure this is so. It’s the wrong that powerful groups and individuals do that is kept away from the public. This is why investigative reporting often involves digging up what is secret or hidden.

3:Leak journalism is not investigative reporting. 

An investigation can begin from a leak, but journalists must do their own digging, verify information and provide context. Unless they do so, their reports will be distorted and incomplete. They will also be allowing themselves to be used to manipulate public opinion and to advance the agenda of individuals, rather than the public interest

4:Investigative reporting entails the use of multiple sources – both human and documentary – that together paint a picture of wrongdoing or abuse. It requires the verification and corroboration of every piece of information, even if these come from sources that are considered reliable or authoritative. Reporting based on a single source cannot be considered investigativE

5:Using information for extortion is not investigative journalism.

Paul Radu, founder of the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism (or CRJI, its Romanian initials), says that some reporters have used the information they have uncovered in their investigations to extort money from individuals or companies. That is true not just in Romania but elsewhere in the world as well. These reporters taint the name of investigative journalism and do damage to its tradition and reputation. Using information for extortion is not investigative journalism.

The Dutch-Flemish organization of investigative journalists, known by its initials VVOJ, lists three kinds of investigative reporting

• Revealing scandals or the violation of laws, regulations and ethical/moral standards by individuals or institutions; 

• Examining the policies or functions of governments, companies and other organizations; and 

• Describing social, economic, political and cultural trends. 

Investigative reporting as a set of techniques  

These techniques include

: Getting documents or following the paper trail:
Documents are at the heart of investigative reporting. Often, they provide proof or clues on the wrongdoing that journalists wish to expose. Documents can corroborate – or disprove – the information that is given by human sources. Investigative reporters analyse the documents they obtain and use the information they find there to piece their stories together. It is difficult, although not impossible, to do investigations without some sort of paper trail. Many journalists begin by unearthing documents even before they do their interviews. This is because documents provide them the background, the context and the detailed information they need so they can ask more probing questions from their sources. Often documents give leads on how the investigation can go forward. They give clues on how the journalist should proceed. A signature on a government contract, for example, points to the person who is responsible for that contract and who the journalist ought to interview. Sometimes documents cite other documents, thereby providing clues on what other documents exist that journalists can then obtain.

Interviewing sources or following the people trail: 

People are as important as paper in a journalistic investigation. They can talk, answer questions – things that documents cannot do. They can provide history, background, colour and anecdotes that spice up a story and give it depth. They also lead to other documents and to other people who may be vital to an investigation. Journalists talk to a range of sources in the course of their investigations. These could be official sources, such as government or corporate officials or representatives. They could be private individuals involved in the case the journalist is probing. They could be victims of crime or disaster, human traffickers, drug dealers or arms sellers. Sometimes they are eyewitnesses to a crime, an accident or a calamity. They could be classmates, neighbours, relatives or friends of a politician who has amassed wealth that cannot be explained by what he earns. Journalistic sources are often also experts – scientists, lawyers, accountants – who can explain the technical issues and make an impartial or disinterested appraisal of available facts. In short, journalists interview just about anyone who can give information on the subject they are investigating.

Using computers and the Internet or following the electronic trail:

 Increasingly, investigative journalists are using the Internet to do research on just about any topic they are investigating. The Internet, with its vast resources, is a mine of information. Familiarity with online research techniques is now a requisite for investigations, even for those working in countries where computer and Internet access is minimal. In addition, journalists have used email to correspond with sources in government or the private sector. They have also used electronic or digital communications (including SMS or Skype or Google Talk) to receive information from sources who wish to remain anonymous or who find it dangerous to meet with journalists face to face. Computer databases that contain a lot of information are also now part of the investigative journalists’ toolkit. Reporters have analyzed trends and patterns from available databases from companies or from government and used these as building blocks for their stories. Sometimes journalists construct those databases themselves, based on information obtained from documents.

Doing fieldwork: Often there is no substitute for the journalist getting her hands dirty and going to the field to do research.

Investigative journalists have gone to the scenes of disaster, whether it is to examine an area that has been destroyed by a fire or devastated by the toxic waste spill from a mining company. They have visited or even lived for a time in communities to do reports on victims of various forms of exploitation – such as poor villages where women are forced to find jobs in the cities and end up as sex workers, factories where poorly paid immigrants workers are forced to labour, or underground mine tunnels where workers risk their lives. Fieldwork is essential for the journalist to get a feel – and also the sounds and the smells – related to the subject she is working on. Investigative reporting, like all journalism, is about real life. Conveying a sense of other people’s lives as it is actually lived is as important as obtaining documents or getting informants to talk. For example, a story on corruption in a government hospital is made more compelling if a reporter spent time in the hospital, observing the poor delivery of health care and the inadequacy of drugs and equipment. By recording or filming what takes place in the hospital, the journalist can show graphic examples of how corruption causes unnecessary suffering and even death. 

In 2007, Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Ann Hull, made several visits to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to expose the maltreatment of wounded war veterans. The lead of their Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigation – a graphic description of the conditions at the hospital – was based on what they saw during those visits:

 “Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.” 

Sometimes, fieldwork involves the use of undercover reporting, where journalists do not identify themselves so that they can gather information more freely. This is a controversial method with ethical and legal implications. Going undercover makes it easier for journalists to get into places where they are not welcome or interview people who would otherwise not talk to reporters. But it risks violating the privacy of individuals and can be physically risky for the journalists themselves. In addition, the reliability of information gathered through deception can be questioned. Moreover, unorthodox methods make journalists vulnerable to criticism about their motives and methods.