Other library resource(s)
Investigative reporting from Oxford Bibliographies Online - Communication by James L. Aucoin
With the establishment of the service organization Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) in the mid-1970s, a general acceptance arose that investigative reporting is different from routine daily journalism. Most would agree that investigative reporting is journalism resulting from a reporter's own initiative that reveals to the public important information once hidden or unknown. It involves extensive reporting that results in the exposure of corruption, political malfeasance or misfeasance, violation of civil rights, misused power, or other actions or inactions that bring harm to people. ...
IRE journal
The IRE Journal is published four times a year and contains how-to stories, investigative ideas, FOIA tips and more. Our audience is journalists from all media, journalism educators or students who want to hone their investigative skills — from tried-and-true watchdog fundamentals to the latest innovations that help you get the story. ...
Short definitions for investigative journalism
Watchdog journalism puts the spotlight on wrongdoing and injustices with the expectation that they will cause public outrage and prompt legislative and judicial action. By doing so, it serves democratic goals of accountability, honesty, truth‐telling, and transparency.
Waisbord, S. (2016). Watchdog Journalism. In The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, G. Mazzoleni (Ed.).
Reporting that sets out to discover something that somebody, somewhere, wishes to remain a secret, and that typically involves detailed and time-consuming work by an individual journalist or by a team of journalists inquiring into some kind of alleged wrongdoing. Methods associated with investigative journalism typically include meticulous searching and cross-referencing of documents and databases in the public domain; use of freedom of information laws to place more material in the public domain; receiving leaks of secret information; persuading people to talk either on or off the record; and, less typically, secret filming and/or recording, and using subterfuge to obtain evidence of wrongdoing. The targets of such investigations can range from corrupt politicians and business people misusing or misappropriating public money on an international scale to local landlords or builders taking shortcuts and thereby risking the lives of workers, customers, or the general public. Alleged miscarriages of justice have been another popular subject for investigative journalists to probe, as have arms deals and alleged war crimes. At the tabloid end of the market, investigative journalism often focuses more on exposing the alleged hypocrisy of celebrities and so-called 'role models' by revealing their sexual behaviour and/or drug habits (see fake sheikh).
Classic examples of sustained investigative journalism include Watergate in the USA and the Thalidomide scandal in the UK, the latter being a product of the celebrated Insight team at the Sunday Times under editor Harold Evans. Such investigative journalism is often said to have begun in 1885 when William Stead (1849–1912), editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, exposed the scandal of child prostitution in Victorian England by 'buying' a 13-year-old girl for £5.
Harcup, T. (2014). Investigative journalism. In A Dictionary of Journalism. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 9 May. 2022
In the Library's collections
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watchdog reporting
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Introductory reading(s)
The evolution of American investigative journalism by James L. Aucoin
Beginning with America's first newspaper, investigative reporting has provided journalism with its most significant achievements and challenging controversies. Yet it was an ill-defined practice until the 1960s when it emerged as a potent voice in newspapers and on television news programs. The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism provides readers with the first comprehensive history of investigative journalism, including a thorough account of the founding and achievements of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). ...
Investigative journalism: a survival guide by David Leigh
At a time of hyper-partisanship, media fragmentation and "fake news", the work of investigative journalism has never been more important. This book explores the history and art of investigative journalism, and explains how to deal with legal bullies, crooked politicians, media bosses, big business and intelligence agencies; how to withstand conspiracy theories; and how to work collaboratively across borders in the new age of data journalism. ...
Undercover reporting: the truth about deception by Brooke Kroeger
Brooke Kroeger argues for a reconsideration of the place of oft-maligned journalistic practices. While it may seem paradoxical, much of the valuable journalism in the past century and a half has emerged from undercover investigations that employed subterfuge or deception to expose wrong. Kroeger asserts that undercover work is not a separate world, but rather it embodies a central discipline of good reporting--the ability to extract significant information or to create indelible, real-time descriptions of hard-to-penetrate institutions or social situations that deserve the public's attention. ...
Selected book title(s)
Class unknown: undercover investigations of American work and poverty from the progressive era to the present by Mark Pittenger
Since the Gilded Age, social scientists, middle-class reformers, and writers have left the comforts of their offices to "pass" as steel workers, coal miners, assembly-line laborers, waitresses, hoboes, and other working and poor people in an attempt to gain a fuller and more authentic understanding of the lives of the working class and the poor. In this first, sweeping study of undercover investigations of work and poverty in America, Mark Pittenger examines how intellectuals were shaped by their experiences with the poor, and how despite their sympathy toward working-class people, they unintentionally helped to develop the contemporary concept of a degraded and "other" American underclass. ...
That the world may know: bearing witness to atrocity by James Dawes
What can we do to prevent more atrocities from happening in the future, and to stop the ones that are happening right now? That the World May Know tells the powerful and moving story of the successes and failures of the modern human rights movement. ...
The watchdog still barks: how accountability reporting evolved for the digital age by Beth Knobel
Perhaps no other function of a free press is as important as the watchdog role--its ability to monitor the work of the government. It is easier for politicians to get away with abusing power--wasting public funds and making poor decisions--if the press is not shining its light with what is termed "accountability reporting." This need has become especially clear in recent months, as the American press has come under virulent direct attack for carrying out its watchdog duties. Upending the traditional media narrative that watchdog accountability journalism is in a long, dismaying decline, The Watchdog Still Barks presents a study of how this most important form of journalism came of age in the digital era at American newspapers. ...
Finding articles and journal titles for investigative reporting
MLA international bibliography by Modern Language Association
MLA International Bibliography indexes journal articles, books and dissertations. Coverage includes literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.
Performing arts periodicals database
Performing Arts Periodicals Database covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television and more.
General article indexes
Academic search complete by EBSCO
A scholarly, interdisciplinary article index and a good starting place for article searching on any subject.
Census Reporter
Census Reporter is an independent project to make it easier for journalists to write stories using information from the U.S. Census bureau. Place profiles and comparison pages provide a friendly interface for navigating data, including visualizations for a more useful first look.
The Center for Public Integrity: Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest
This organization calls itself "watchdog journalism in public interest." It covers stories the mainstream press does not.
The Fund for Investigative Journalism
The Fund for Investigative Journalism has helped to finance exposes of harmful and wrongful conduct, such as corruption at all levels of government; corporate, governmental and press nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance; abuses of civil and human rights and of the environment; unsafe medical technologies; and improper donor influence on research in academe. ...
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is an international association of journalism organizations that support the training and sharing of information among investigative and data journalists—with special attention to those from repressive regimes and marginalized communities. ...
ICIJ is a nonprofit with their own reporting team, as well as a global network of reporters and media organizations who work together to investigate the most important stories in the world. ...
Investigative Journalism from UNESCO
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. ...
The Markup is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society.
ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
Keeping up with Journalism journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Journalism? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
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