What is Investigative Journalism?

Investigative Journalism is all about finding news and reporting and presenting the news. Some people might cause hindrance to this process of news reporting. Just like the standard reporting of news, the investigative journalism also finds and reports the news, however; the only difference is unlike the standard news reporting, people might come in the way and even try to stop or hinder the process of reporting. Last minute essay writing service will help you write the cheapest essay for you.

As we know, the job of a journalist is to provide information to people about the things happening in our surroundings, community, or society and world. They find information and share them with the readers so that the readers can enhance their knowledge by reading it. 

Hence, the work of a journalist can be comfortable as well as challenging. It is easy when they find the facts easily as there are many places such as parliaments and courts, churches, public meetings, sporting events that are very eager to share the news with the people. Many professionals provide news to the journalists as they work full time in departments of public relations. Their job is to share information with the journalists through press releases. On the other hand, the job becomes challenging when the journalists want to share information with the world which some people want to hide and keep it as a secret. For example, sometimes the companies or organisations try to keep their decisions secret and do not wish to divulge the information. These decisions might have an impact on the lives of other people, and when the journalist wants to share such information and report such confidential matters, such findings or news reporting are known as investigative journalism. 

Need for Investigative Journalism

- People should know about the things that are happening in society. They should be made aware of the events or decisions that might have an impact on them.

- Influential people, especially those who are in the government sectors or any society or group, can misuse their power. They can become corrupt, steal the money of the ordinary people, do things that might harm the familiar people. They might be inefficient and not able to do their work correctly. Such people should be exposed.

- It is the responsibility of the journalists to watch how well influential people are performing their duties, especially those people who work in the government departments. Journalists should keep an eye on these people to find out whether they are keeping their promises. Some politicians might try to keep these things confidential and hide the fact that they are not keeping their election promises- such people should be exposed.

Although, indeed, journalists are not the only persons who have the responsibility to expose corruption, inefficiency and incompetence. There are other authorities like parliaments, courts of law and police who take care of these things. However, journalists play an essential role too.

Who should be investigated?

The duties of the journalists are to expose corruption, abuse and crime in areas of public life; however, some of the main areas that should be investigated are as follows:

Government Departments

The government departments include parliaments, foreign governments and local councils. Some public servants and politicians might become corrupt; hence they should be removed immediately from the office. It is the public that elects people to government offices, they pay tax, and therefore they have every right to know what is going on in these sectors and how are these sectors operating.

Organisations and Companies

Some companies break the law and hence they should be exposed. The companies usually keep these things secret primarily due to the fact they don’t want the competitors to know this, or they don’t want any hindrance that might come from the people when they will come to know about the misdeed.

Criminal

The job of the police is to fight crime however; they might not have enough resources to perform their jobs. The law might limit their power, or sometimes the police can be corrupt.

Some underlying principles

Some basic principles of investigative journalism are as follows:

1. Must keep your eyes and ears open: The journalists should always be on the lookout for exciting stories. Some people might come to you to report about something, but it is very often you might discover new stories yourself.

2. Value of the News: You might get requests from people to investigate on some wrongdoings. In most of the cases, these are hoaxes and lies. However, you need to spend some time and investigate to understand if there is any truth associated with it. You should be able to judge the topics and decide whether it will make a story. 

3. Get the hidden facts: Investigative reporting is nothing but digging up facts, so the job of a journalist is not easy. People may continuously try to hide things from you; however; you should try to collect relevant and accurate facts. 

4. Check facts and collect evidence: Once you get some facts, you need to check them and try to find out if they are relevant or not. Irrelevant facts might land you up in trouble, and you might be dragged to the court to face serious consequences. After checking the accuracy and relevancy of the facts, collect evidence to support the facts. The evidence can prove to be extremely helpful and help protect you if you are taken to court for defamation. 

Conclusion

Investigative journalism is required to uncover extraordinary stories that people might want to hide and keep it as a secret. This type of journalism will need all skills related to general reporting. The primary job of the journalists is to gather information and support them with proper evidence if the news is challenged. It is advised to consult a lawyer if you want to know about the legality of your work.