Investigative Journalism

    Investigative journalism. Apart from thinking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I've always thought that most types of journalism are investigative because  don't most types of journalism require questioning facts and opinions, researching and finding out more to the story? My suspicions were proved correct by the quote from investigative journalist, Ross Coulthart - what a genius, I must say.

And Bruce, I freaking love acrostics! God this made the lecture so much better. So the "in's" of investigative journalism are:
Intelligent: you must have a plan and know what you're looking for and it has to be well thought out.
Informed: we've got to know the facts!
Intuitive: that gut feeling. Go with your instinct!
Inside: you need to get on the inside the story - you need to gain the person's trust.
Invest: invest your time, money, health, YOUR LIFE! Okay not so full on, but you get the idea. You've got to invest yourself. Going off track a little, whenever I hear the word invest, I immediately think of this scene from Moulin Rouge. One of the best movies ever! Oh my God it cracks me up.

But why do we need to be and know all these things?

Critical and thorough journalism: we ain't just messin' 'round 'ere. 'Tis serious stuff. Active intervention!

Custodians of conscience: testing people's ethics, morals and seeing what they think. Exposure!

Providing a voice to the voiceless: social justice - power to the people! Public interest, people. 

Fourth estate/branch of government/watchdog: ensuring the free flow of information necessary for the functioning of a democracy and being able to hold public personalities and institutions accountable.

So what are types of investigative interaction?

Interviews, observations, documents, briefings, leaks, trespass and theft - but thank God for technology. Instead of stealing things now we can just take pictures of them instead. Don't want to be going to hell now do we! And methods of investigation (quite obvious) are interviewing, observing and analysing documents. And believe it or not, there are other places to research other than Google (though I am yet to figure that out properly myself).

So I have, in fact, learnt a lot from this lecture. I quite liked it. My view on investigative journalism has changed quite a bit. It's not all sneaking around in dangerous places around dangerous people trying to solve a murder, there's a bit more to it than that. But one thing is for sure: always check your facts and assume nothing!

Here's the trailer to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo if you haven't, for some insane reason, read it or seen it.