Chapter 18: Investigative Reporting

After the police ride-along and reading this chapter, I feel like James Bond with a notebook and pen!

Investigative reporting sounds cool!

So, the book mentions Theodore Dreiser as one of the famous muckrakers. I happen to love his book An American Tragedy, so I did a little research on him. According to an online article, Dreiser was the “leading sensationalist or 'naturalist' journalist in the country.” Then later on he stopped working as journalist and became a novelist famous for his powerful and cruse writing style. It seems to me that Dreiser did a lot of reporting and then just decided to give up and go into fiction, but even in his novels he goes back to what he experienced during his years as an investigative reporter.

So, there are the two questions I need to ask before plunging into a long investigation: 1. “Is there a story here?” and 2. “Am I going to be able to get it?” What if the answers are yes and no. What if I know there is something going on, but I also know there’s no way I can get the evidence I need. I guess the editor would tell me just to give up on the story. And that’s sad! Someone should start a paper or magazine just for investigative reporting, and the editors of that paper should never say no!

“There is no good excuse for an error.” True.

Reporters love to suggest solutions for problems. I don’t know. I mean not that I wouldn’t have solutions for everything, but I feel it has the potential of editorializing. I think I’d rather get my sources, who have more insight to the problem, to suggest something.

Human sources:
1. Enemies. They are “usually the best sources,” says the book. “And the most biased ones, too,” says Em.
2. People in trouble. I think it’s not true that reporters can’t offer things to such sources. First of all, they usually feel remorse over what had happened, and this could be an opportunity to make things somewhat better. I think that’s pretty cool. Also, we can offer the sources anonymity, which gives them the freedom to speak their minds. I mean, what can be better than speaking without responsibility?
3. The world of Harry Potter is a journalist’s dream. Just think of the pensieve (it’s that stone pool where Dumbledore preserves his memories). We could just go back into someone’s memory and could be absolutely sure that what we see is true and accurate. Or not. Because some magicians can change and censor their memories, but the thing is they still have the original memories, too, a journalist just needs to find it. Anyways, the point is, HP rocks!

FOIA. So, every time there is a question that can possibly involve official documents, the first thing poping into the minds of little journalism students is: “I would file a FOIA request!” Well, the book mentions this possibility as the last one, when all the other methods have failed, because it’s so time consuming. Sad. I always though FOIA is the Jolly Joker in journalism, and now it turns out I was wrong!

Investigative reporting needs time and money. This is true, but if the journalist finds something really interesting, I think it can be sold as an individual news package. For example, CNN’s Planet in Peril must have cost a lot, but it can be downloaded from iTunes for $4. That’s a pretty good deal, I guess. So, I believe there must be ways to make investigative reporting profitable. The book recommends that journalists can do it in part time. Maybe that’s even better, because then it becomes a passion or a hobby.