The Sphere of Rigour Reporting

An essay on investigative journalism and its importance: In general and with some respect to New Zealand

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject Communications - Journalism, Journalism Professions, grade: A+, University of Auckland, 48 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This research paper presents a mosaic of powerful quotes and reflections in relation with investigative journalism. The ultimate aim is to explain the importance of investigative journalism - a phrase that is used interchangeably with rigour reporting and agenda-setting journalism further on, despite differing nuances in academics. Also, some of the presented reports and stories are not necessarily perceived as purely investigative pieces of writing, they do however exhibit characteristics of investigative journalism to some extent. It is not compulsory to be intensely involved and informed about journalism as a style of writing or as some say religion (Njawe, 2006), since the maxima of journalism do not only apply to the reportage but to every aspect of a strong journalist's life, in order to pursue the argumentation of this paper. Further, the quantity of references serve partly as proof of the presented argumentation while on the other hand invites for further reading. Classical synopses of muckraking stories and investigative journalistic achievements are rather kept short and serve as a basis for further examinations on rigour reporting. Moreover, the focus is on the effects of investigative journalism, consequences in state of its absence and eventually its importance. The soul of investigative journalism has been described in a myriad of ways. An adequate introduction into the topic, without consulting the 'big three investigation units' - the Watergate Affair, the Pentagon Papers and Ida Tarbell's merits - is a comment by Gene Roberts, an American journalist who was executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and managing editor of The New York Times.