Week 1: Student Response and Assignment

MondayApr 30 at 2:07pm

Manage Discussion Entry

Investigative journalism is when one takes a certain issue like for example a politician and deeply investigates that person or topic. It typically is a story that take months to put together to compile a full story. All investigative journalism is the deeper investigation of an issue. Paul Williams describes investigative journalism in 11 steps. Through his description he describes investigative journalism as the process of knowing exactly everything you are getting into before and while going into an investigation. Williams process of investigating is very precise and to the point in how one must conduct their investigative research. Through doing so he makes a key point of keeping quiet on the story you are doing so other media outlets do not find out and go do the same investigative research for a story (Houston, 2009). Overall, the same basic tools are applied to investigative journalism as basic journalism.

This can definitely help in how one understands how to investigate, research and do business within the journalism field. For example, in Williams 11 steps to investigative journalism he talks about writing and rewriting which is a key tool used in basic journalism. Not only that but the aspect of planning also helps considering as a news writer/journalist you need to be able to plan, schedule and organize when writing a basic news story to writing an investigative news story. Also, basic journalism and news writing is turning more into investigative journalism (Singh, 2014).

Another point to mention is how through consistent research it definitely improves your researching skills. The overall fact of the matter here is through investigative journalism you are utilizing most of the same skills used to write basic news stories which in turn allows one to develop a better process of understanding and staying on task to what needs to be done.

References

Houston, B. (2009). The investigative reporter’s handbook: A guide to documents, databases and techniques (5th). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin

Singh, S. (2014). An Analytical Study of Move from Traditional Journalism to Investigative Journalism. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Approach & Studies, 1(4), 353-360.