Digging the Dirt

Chapman, Jane L. (author) / Nuttall, Nick (author)

Journalism Today ; 55-74

2011-04-05

20 pages

9781405179539 , 9781444395372

https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444395372.ch3

Article/Chapter (Book)

Electronic Resource

English

journalism's role as watchdog ‐ seen as a safeguard against tyranny , Joseph Lincoln Steffens, one of the muckraking journalists ‐ working for McClure's Magazine before World War I , “Faux investigations” ‐ TV‐style dramatic reporting, that hyped a subject of no great consequence to the polity, often celebrity‐driven , digging the dirt, credentials as an investigative reporter ‐ Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, John Pilger, Paul Foot, coming to one's mind , investigative journalist, a man or woman whose profession ‐ being to discover the truth , impact of commercialism on political coverage ‐ public disengagement with political process, not just a result of news complexity , rise and fall of investigative journalism, latest renaissance ‐ in aftermath of the Pentagon Papers exposé and the Watergate scandal , Sociologists David Croteau and William Hoynes ‐ impact of corporate control on journalism in The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest , social reformers, power of the press ‐ highlighting injustice, mounting campaigns for social reform , general conception of investigative journalism ‐ getting at the truth, whatever that may be, and that the truth is being concealed