Investigative journalism - Whats happening now?

The one word that stuck into my mind during the lecture was “trust.” It was stated that we, as a journalists, need trust from the participants. This was due to the fact that there could be a lot of risks while you are inside a certain place in order to obtain information for the general public.

This lecture was contrasting to the other lectures where we talked about ‘light’ journalism such as, churnalism commercial media and so on. Investigative journalism, however, is a critical and thorough journalism which is quite serious. What investigative journalism was different with others that were previously learnt was that ‘the journalists were active participants.’ In other words, they don’t write by copying PR releases or depending on other secondary information they actively search and obtain the information needed for the work.

There are many positive aspects of investigative journalism. It is thorough, thus, a lot of time and effort is put into the work before it is actually released. Also, they check and analyse in order to produce correct information for the public. There are, however, threats to this investigative journalism; the online news and Public relations.

This was a surprise to me as I was someone who believed that every type of news, including online, was researched as thoroughly as investigative journalism before it is posted up onto the internet. Through this, however, it was evident that online news meant less investigative journalism. As technology evolves, old news is slowly dying which meant that journalism industry is slowly dying as well. By this, it seemed like investigative journalism was linked to the old news, as thoroughly researched journalism is somewhat old fashion. There are many social media platforms used in our society today and many of the general public uses these social media platforms as their own journalism site. In other words they post up information or news they think others would enjoy reading or watching. The problem with this is that many of this news maybe false or just a gossip. I personally believe that this development of technology has influenced the journalism industry. Many journalists seem to focus more on entertaining the audience instead of conveying an important message to the readers or viewers. Thus, instead of spending time and actively participating in obtaining information they spend less time writing about gossips and scandal. This is probably why the online news is the most threat to the investigative journalism.

Another threat mentioned was Public relations. Public relations have been mentioned throughout the semester in the lectures as a threat to journalism. I don’t completely understand why as I believe Public relations and journalism are two very distinct categories. I still don’t fully understand how it is a direct threat to investigative journalism, however, due to the characteristic of PR, such as, propaganda by truth which is quite opposite to journalism, could influence some aspects of it. This is something I would like to further investigate throughout my course of journalism and communication.

After this lecture, which is the second last lecture of this course, I came to find myself such a naïve student. News, to me always had the image of being ‘true’ and a source that could always be trusted. This was because the thought of journalists checking thoroughly and only publishing information when it is proved to be true. I guess, this stereotype or image of news has developed throughout the years. I believe journalists and general public should help investigative journalism to endure so the “trust” between the public and news sustain.