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Is investigative journalism dead?

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I've been wondering about whether or not part of the problems in this country might have something to do with the Fourth Estate not being the investigative crusaders for truth like they might have been once perceived.

When I was a kid, I used to respect and idolize reporters for pulling out all the stops and taking some great risks just to get the story to the public. I remember All the President's Men, the story of Woodward and Bernstein who worked tirelessly on a story no one else wanted, pored through mountains of evidence, interviewed countless people, and even risked their lives with late-night garage encounters with Deep Throat.

Unlike what appears to be the case for today's reporters, they didn't rely on press secretaries to spoon feed them information; they were skeptical and didn't take what was being said at face value. They investigated, even if it meant looking into places they're not supposed to look.

Nowadays, journalists seem more passive and apathetic, just sitting around waiting for someone to post a video or tell them something. A lot of the major news stories and scandals in recent times were the result of ordinary citizens posting videos (such as with George Floyd's death) or posting their stories online that the media pick up on. They don't seem to do much investigating anymore. If not for the video of Floyd's death going viral, the media might very easily would have missed this one, too. In the past, they would typically blindly accept whatever the police were telling them and leave it at that. (#Metoo is another example; the sexual abuse by Weinstein and others went on for decades, while the media were ostensibly asleep and unaware of it the whole time.)

It makes me think that if the media had been more diligent and proactive, they might have found out and reported a lot of things sooner. How many questionable acts by the police and government have been buried or minimized because of media passivity? It's only been in the past couple of months that anyone in media has addressed qualified immunity of police officers in court; they were totally silent on that for decades, when they should have been aggressively reporting on and attacking that doctrine all along. Things like this just make you go "hmmm..."

Even the investigations against Trump have been mostly led by official agencies, with media simply repeating what they're told by the government. They had to depend on a whistleblower, rather than doing their own investigating. It was the same thing with Snowden's allegations. The media ignored the NSA for decades, even though books like The Puzzle Palace came out a long time ago, so the media should have been checking and investigating all along. They should have known what Snowden knew long before it came out.

Various media outlets have been strongly criticized for "fake news," suggesting that they may have an agenda which doesn't include properly informing the public of things they have a right to know. But it's not just in what they report, but also what they don't report. Or things might come out about events from years or decades ago which should have been reported a long time ago, but somehow the media missed it. Groups like Project Censored have outlined important stories which have been missed or largely ignored by the mainstream media.

I've heard some people in media lament the fact that they're losing readers (and profits) due to so many bloggers and alternative news sites out there. Just the same, it appears that there is a great hunger for information among the general public - information they're apparently not getting from the mainstream media.

Do the media serve the public's interests anymore? Or have they all sold out to become propaganda outlets for the major political parties and/or Corporate America?
 
Do the media serve the public's interests anymore? Or have they all sold out to become propaganda outlets for the major political parties and/or Corporate America?

Newspapers have lost so many of their staff (up to 90% in some newsrooms) that they are reliant on cheap content (opinion, media releases, PR stories and other stuff that can be done by anyone sitting at a desk with a computer). Also their reliance on news agencies instead of their own bureaus, especially for international news, reduces the diversity of coverage.

Investigative stories are expensive and may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars which will never be recouped even for a massive scoop. How many other struggling businesses will consistently take a deliberate loss on the same product simply because it is 'the right thing to do'? Newspapers would love to do more, they just don't have the resources they once did.

While there are many reasons to criticise the news media, the main reason for the decline in investigative journalism is not the media 'selling out', but the public not viewing news as a commodity worth paying for.
 

Quetzal

A little to the left and slightly out of focus.
Premium Member
While there are many reasons to criticise the news media, the main reason for the decline in investigative journalism is not the media 'selling out', but the public not viewing news as a commodity worth paying for.
Correct. To add to this, the president calling any media outlet that reports unfavorable news the 'enemy of the people' is not helpful either.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
I do not believe investigative journalism is dead at all. What news we do get form networks is first reported by these journalists. These journalists are never called on in the present press conferences. I too remember the so called good old days and Dan Rather's relentless questioning of Nixon. Investigative journalism is alive and well and many times is what led to further investigation by state and federal authorities. In our state we've had big shake up, from the top down, in the state police submitting false work details etc. and earning 100,000's.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Newspapers have lost so many of their staff (up to 90% in some newsrooms) that they are reliant on cheap content (opinion, media releases, PR stories and other stuff that can be done by anyone sitting at a desk with a computer). Also their reliance on news agencies instead of their own bureaus, especially for international news, reduces the diversity of coverage.

That seems to be the case for our local newspaper.

Investigative stories are expensive and may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars which will never be recouped even for a massive scoop. How many other struggling businesses will consistently take a deliberate loss on the same product simply because it is 'the right thing to do'? Newspapers would love to do more, they just don't have the resources they once did.

I guess it depends on how large the organization is. I recall that there was a time when the major broadcast networks would typically show losses in their news division, because reporting the news and having the trust of their viewers was considered more important. The networks made it up with higher profits in their sports and entertainment divisions.

Other newspapers might seem more like some rich tycoon's "labor of love" than anything intended to be a profit-making enterprise. Or even if they're not tycoons, they might have had a printing press and had a strong desire to put out the news, however and whatever way they could (such as the "underground newspapers" back in the day). It's much the same for all these bloggers, YouTubers, and others who have an urging to express themselves and put their thoughts out there for all to see. Most people don't seem to do it for the money as much as they seem to want to put out "the truth" as they see it.

While there are many reasons to criticise the news media, the main reason for the decline in investigative journalism is not the media 'selling out', but the public not viewing news as a commodity worth paying for.

I've noticed the decline for quite some time. We used to have a decent local newspaper which I bought every morning for 25¢ a copy. It wasn't the New York Times or any big city newspaper, but it was competent and informative for its size - and they did do investigative reporting and uncovered a number of stories of local interest. Over the years, I noticed that the actual "news" became less and less, while advertisements became more and more, coupled with periodic raising of the price. When they developed a website and created an online presence, it seemed to be okay at first - or at least not much different from the print version.

But there was one aspect which they didn't seem prepared for or didn't expect. In the online version of each article, readers had the ability to post comments on the story. After a time, they started to complain about the "Starnet trolls," although some them appeared to be a little too much "in the know" about certain local issues that weren't being reported in the paper. They were anonymous "leakers" that the newspaper apparently wanted to silence, so that's what they did. They removed the ability for people to comment, unless they did it through a Facebook account. In doing so, they lost credibility in my eyes.

As for the public not viewing news as a commodity worth paying for, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. A common refrain uttered by journalists and newspaper publishers has been "The people have a right to know!" But now it seems rather tainted by money.

I think of papers like the Washington Post, the former employers of Woodward and Bernstein. It's now owned by Jeff Bezos, who is one of the richest men in the world. He apparently hates Trump and puts in the phrase "Democracy dies in darkness" at the top of the page, and yet this multi-billionaire is still grubbing for quarters from readers to get around a paywall, as if he has to panhandle to survive. What he should say is "Democracy dies behind a paywall."
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
The printed Page and its digital equivalent costs money and has to have an income to survive.
Investigative Journalism is very expensive.

Rich owners will only sustain them out of their own pockets for so long before saying enough is enough.

Social media grows rich on fake news and conspiracy theories. it is lapped up by an un discriminatory audience that attracts revenue from unlimited clicks and advertising.
Politicians of all colours know where the audience is and feed them exactly what they want to hear in un-reconstituted garbage and lies.

People do not want to buy real news, it does not entertain them.

If the demand was there for accurate and truthful news, newspapers could thrive.
The chances of that happening in the future is minimal.

The Audience is happy as pigs in muck. they want nothing better than having their prejudices confirmed every day.

the result TRUMP and Lies
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
It's not that investigative journalism is gone, it's that "news" outlets are a dime a dozen these days and the proportion of them that actually practice journalism is small as noise crowds out signal. I basically don't read news from outlets that just regurgitate and repeat. If it's not investigative, I'm not interested.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Everything organized human endeavor has to be a money pump for the wealthy investor, now days. And investigative journalism costs money rather than generating it. And even worse, those pesky journalists might dare to investigate the money pump, itself. And the wealthy investors can't have us seeing how their money pumps work, who for, and at who's expense! So we get titillation pretending to be news, instead.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
I think of papers like the Washington Post, the former employers of Woodward and Bernstein. It's now owned by Jeff Bezos, who is one of the richest men in the world. He apparently hates Trump and puts in the phrase "Democracy dies in darkness" at the top of the page, and yet this multi-billionaire is still grubbing for quarters from readers to get around a paywall, as if he has to panhandle to survive. What he should say is "Democracy dies behind a paywall."

I think you might be wrong about Jeff Bezos with regard to the newspaper. I've read that he is strictly hands off and I've seen no reason to doubt that. However, the people he has in charge feel compelled to show a profit, which is not an easy thing to do given the competition in the online market..

With Ben Bradlee as the editor, the paper broke Watergate and the Ellsberg Papers but stories like that don't come along often. The Post is still being quoted by other online news outlets every couple of weeks or so for breaking news.
 

Tambourine

Well-Known Member
Everything organized human endeavor has to be a money pump for the wealthy investor, now days. And investigative journalism costs money rather than generating it. And even worse, those pesky journalists might dare to investigate the money pump, itself. And the wealthy investors can't have us seeing how their money pumps work, who for, and at who's expense! So we get titillation pretending to be news, instead.
To be fair, that still leaves investigative journalism that operates for the investor's benefit, such as Jeff Bezos's The Intercept.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I've been wondering about whether or not part of the problems in this country might have something to do with the Fourth Estate not being the investigative crusaders for truth like they might have been once perceived.

When I was a kid, I used to respect and idolize reporters for pulling out all the stops and taking some great risks just to get the story to the public. I remember All the President's Men, the story of Woodward and Bernstein who worked tirelessly on a story no one else wanted, pored through mountains of evidence, interviewed countless people, and even risked their lives with late-night garage encounters with Deep Throat.

Unlike what appears to be the case for today's reporters, they didn't rely on press secretaries to spoon feed them information; they were skeptical and didn't take what was being said at face value. They investigated, even if it meant looking into places they're not supposed to look.

Nowadays, journalists seem more passive and apathetic, just sitting around waiting for someone to post a video or tell them something. A lot of the major news stories and scandals in recent times were the result of ordinary citizens posting videos (such as with George Floyd's death) or posting their stories online that the media pick up on. They don't seem to do much investigating anymore. If not for the video of Floyd's death going viral, the media might very easily would have missed this one, too. In the past, they would typically blindly accept whatever the police were telling them and leave it at that. (#Metoo is another example; the sexual abuse by Weinstein and others went on for decades, while the media were ostensibly asleep and unaware of it the whole time.)

It makes me think that if the media had been more diligent and proactive, they might have found out and reported a lot of things sooner. How many questionable acts by the police and government have been buried or minimized because of media passivity? It's only been in the past couple of months that anyone in media has addressed qualified immunity of police officers in court; they were totally silent on that for decades, when they should have been aggressively reporting on and attacking that doctrine all along. Things like this just make you go "hmmm..."

Even the investigations against Trump have been mostly led by official agencies, with media simply repeating what they're told by the government. They had to depend on a whistleblower, rather than doing their own investigating. It was the same thing with Snowden's allegations. The media ignored the NSA for decades, even though books like The Puzzle Palace came out a long time ago, so the media should have been checking and investigating all along. They should have known what Snowden knew long before it came out.

Various media outlets have been strongly criticized for "fake news," suggesting that they may have an agenda which doesn't include properly informing the public of things they have a right to know. But it's not just in what they report, but also what they don't report. Or things might come out about events from years or decades ago which should have been reported a long time ago, but somehow the media missed it. Groups like Project Censored have outlined important stories which have been missed or largely ignored by the mainstream media.

I've heard some people in media lament the fact that they're losing readers (and profits) due to so many bloggers and alternative news sites out there. Just the same, it appears that there is a great hunger for information among the general public - information they're apparently not getting from the mainstream media.

Do the media serve the public's interests anymore? Or have they all sold out to become propaganda outlets for the major political parties and/or Corporate America?
I think investigative reporting is still fine but there has been a terrible rise in irresponsible journalism and a severe lack of integrity that is prevalent throughout the industry.
 
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