ISSUES IN JOURNALISMChapter 6: Monitor Power and Offer Voice to the Voiceless

Investigative reporting

Coverage of the Watergate scandal reinforced the need for investigative reporting as a necessary and critical tool to monitor power.

Watchdog role

Journalists must serve and an independent monitor to power

Investigative reporting as a tool But isn’t all good reporting

investigative? Overuse, pandering to audiences,

(ratings)“faux watchdogism” (page 141)

Public service role threatened by conglomeration/technology

Being a watchdog

“Today journalists continue to see the watchdog role as central to their work.” (page 143)

…”keeps political leaders from doing things they shouldn’t do.”

Informing the public Watchdog role is unique from other

types of communication

Watchdog role

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”

Connotations of liberal bias It’s more complicated. Not just a

watchdog of government, but of institutions, corporations, people and the process of power that influences daily life.

Gauging success and failures of the powerful

Three types of Investigative reporting

Original investigative reporting uncovers facts/activities unknown to the public.

Interpretative investigative reporting takes an approach that is analytical and thoughtful. Taking data and interpreting it to provide insight. Sometimes criticized as advocacy journalism.

Reporting on investigations involves taking government/academic/corporate studies and reporting the information.

Watchdog role weakened

Investigative reporting changing from monitoring the powerful elite to more everyday issues.

Cult of personality (60 Minutes, Dateline)

Local TV news or newspapers purporting to be watchdogs but the real intent are rating/audience building.

Watchdog role

“The watchdog is unlike any other role” in journalism. (page 159)

Special skills, expensive, time-consuming enterprise

Efforts meet push back from the powerful Is it worth it? Demands accuracy. Demands trained and

dedicated journalists. New investigative units (non-profit)

cropping up

The rise of nonprofit watchdog journalism

The WikiLeaks controversy

The release of hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. State Department cables and U.S. military communications by the website WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks shocks the world with the April 2010 release of U.S. Army helicopter attack on its website

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/04/video-wikileaks-obtains-footage-of-2007-us-army-helicopter-attack-on-reuters-employees-children

The New York Times account of the initial helicopter attack using information provided by the U.S. military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=prin

The New York Times account after WikiLeaks went public

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/middleeast/06baghdad.html

Using WikiLeaks to monitor power http:/

/video.nytimes.com/video/2011/01/26/magazine/1248069587816/wikileaks-the-back-story.html

Pot-calling-kettle-black Department Judith Miller’s

take on WikiLeaks

http://crooksandliars.com/scarce/judith-miller-criticizes-julian-assange-not

For comparison’s sake, here’s what Miller once told Michael Massing in defense of her reporting (courtesy of Crooks and Liars):

“[M]y job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.”