The History of Investigative Journalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The History of Investigative Journalism - Essay Example Some of the important scandals and incidents that have been covered through this form of journalism in history include the Watergate scandal and the Helen Jewitt Trials. More regarding the same has been discussed in this paper. Keywords: investigative journalism, scandal, information. Investigative Journalism Analysing documents and facts require a different kind of expertise; not something that most reporters and journalists may be engaged in doing. Such finding of facts and closely examining them, in the past, gave way to a new branch of journalism altogether known as investigative journalism. Newspapers, services on the internet as well as freelance journalists carry out the practice of investigative journalism in the modern day and age. This is based on researching and making reports regarding incidents and happenings with a view to make the public understand important events better. Today, this form of journalism has become very important and many universities are even teaching the same as a course. This is because in the rapidly growing and developing world that we live in, corruption and illegal activities are widespread to a very vast extent. In the field of crime and politics, investigative journalism has been used the maximum in order to uncover the truth about what exactly happened and the exactitude of facts presented for cases that affect many people and society. According to De Burgh (2009), â€Å"â€Å"An investigative  journalist is a man or woman whose profession it is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media is available. The act of doing this generally is called  investigative journalism  and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity.† Thus, an investigative journalist might spend a number of months reading, researching and trying to understand and kno w more about the topic that he has been investigating and writing about. That is why, they are also referred to as watch dogs because they keep their eyes and ears open at all times in order to unearth absolutely any kind of information that they might need in order to write about the particular events that they have been searching for. An investigative journalist needs to have certain qualities of courage, fearlessness towards dangerous situations that he might be thrust into due to uncovering the truth about certain events, commitment towards his work, and the power to let people remain in anonymity if they wish to, after delivering certain kinds of information. Presently, investigative journalism can be seen through the famous Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, through which he aims to uncover the truth about governments and economies all around the world, curb corruption and other illegal happenings and provide to the public all the information that they need to know about whate ver is happening to the people in power and how they are sweeping secrets under the rug. (Lloyd, John) Various sources have been known to provide information to the renowned website which are then scanned for proof and typed out after research by other qualified investigative journalists, after which the information is presented to the public. In history, the first ever piece written with respect to investigative journalism was the criminal case about Helen Jewett’s Trial. As the murder of the young woman took place in a rather sinister