Investigative Journalism Being Reborn Through the Web?

Combating the stigma that investigative journalism is dead or dying, the Huffington Post has just launched a new venture to bankroll a group of investigative journalists to take a look into stories about the nation's economy. "The popular Web site is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said. The Huffington Post Web site is a collection of opinionated blog entries and breaking news. It has seven staff reporters. Huffington said she and the donors were concerned that layoffs at newspapers were hurting investigative journalism at a time the nation's institutions need to be watched closely. She hopes to draw from the ranks of laid-off journalists for the venture."

Comments

Journalists protection

[IamGarageGuy 2]

I believe the big question here is whether the journalists will be provided the protection that the big newspapers could always provide. It is fine to believe in the letter of the constitution but without the backing of a major media conglomerate with deep pockets to go to bat for you when you are sued in indispensible. You may want to say something publicly against corporate America but the fear of repercussions is usually what limits individuals from doing so. So...how would they propose to protect the whistleblowers?

Shattered Glass

[VinylRecords]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323944/

Shattered Glass is a film about how an investigative journalist, Adam Peneberg, working for Forbes.com in 1996, exposed journalist Stephen Glass for plagiarizing nearly every article he wrote for The New Republic, a well trusted and highly respected journalistic publication.

This was considered one of the first major breakthroughs for online journalism and it happened in 1996. Online news has been filled with investigative journalism for a while.

Even wikileaks can be seen as legitimate investigative reporting and whistle blowing. http://www.wikileaks.org/

 

disconnect. reconnect. abort, retry, ignore.

[girlintraining]

Disconnect. Bad plan, darlings. Journalism is undergoing a paradigm shift right now in the same way graphics design underwent it. Before the 1990s, we had separate jobs for typesetting, graphic artist, layout, etc. All that went out the window when the PC came along and suddenly anyone could make a newsletter using PageMaker. The demand for all that graphic design footwork -- needing to hire a team of people to design it, imploded. What came out of it was the versatile graphic designer -- a jack of all trades. Journalism until recently had many different career paths. With the collapse of the printed media and an entire generation growing up used to the idea of instant access to everything, cross-referenced and streaming on demand -- deadlines have gone from a day to a few minutes. How long does it take to get indexed into google so people can search for your article? That time difference is the new deadline. And audiences aren't local anymore -- they are global.

Reconnect. Our collective knowledge is also heavily slanted to the global and national level now. For example, up here in Minnesota, a recent "local" story has been the flooding near Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN along the Red river. When I asked my friends who would be willing to car pool up with me to help sandbagging efforts last friday (the story had been out for a good week) -- only one of my friends had any knowledge of the event, out of about 15 people I asked. Local news doesn't exist anymore for our generation. Strange, but true. Of course, they ALL knew about major national and global events. Our communities really are losing their geographical ties.

I see the future of journalism being somewhat akin to blogging. Journalists simply pick their own interest and self-direct their energies towards it. Interested parties will, via word of mouth and advertisement, come to know that particular journalist. A one-to-many relationship. The sources for these stories will be the readers of those stories. Slashdot is a decent example of what journalism will come to resemble -- open, online forums that are dedicated to particular communities. But I highly doubt that in the journalism to come that people will simply visit one website for their needs. It'll probably look more like Google news -- RSS feeds that we select and create lists of journalists who are involved in fields we have a mutual interest in.

Journalism will become, much like graphic design, at least half or more self-employed or contract/temp work in the next ten years. And we'll come to know journalists by name, instead of by what network or paper they represent.

Re:Investigative?

[conspirator57]

So why did Obama keep on so many of Bush's economic team? Geithner for example got a promotion from Goldman-Sachs to Bush's TARP administrator to Obama's Treasury Secretary. I'd suggest that there are not quite as many differences between the two parties as many on both sides like to pretend there are. Both are in favor of crony capitalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism Your (and since you're just repeating the party line here your party's) attempts to place blame on a fantasy deregulation straw man are... unconvincing to those who do more than accept your play on class warfare chords. Both sides are to blame for allowing so many unproductive ventures to survive for so long on the backs of the productive members of society. One of my favorite pieces on the framework for the current crisis (over last 30 years) is this one: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom

Parent is true

[eclectro]

Parent is not flamebait as the Huffington Post actively works to censor comments it doesn't like and then outright bans the user.

So yes, the Huffington Post does appear to be be a shill site and this attempt at investigative journalism should not be taken seriously.

Re:Investigative?

[ArcherB]

Seems to me this new investment directly addresses your problem with them. Hiring investigative reporters is the best way to become more fact-based.

That depends on what they choose to investigate and the angle they take. They might take the angle that the Bush twins are party-girl lushes and with a straight face, claim that Biden's daughter "has an addiction problem" with cocaine.

OK, here's a better example: Did the recession start under Bush's watch or did it start when Democrats took over congress? Both are true. How do you report it? Looking at Huff-Po's record of distortion and hatred, I don't have high hopes for honest, non-biased reporting.