Investigative Journalism: blessing or curse?

As I enter the home stretch of this project, I’m going to use Rudy Giuliani’s recent slew of bad publicity to talk about investigative journalism. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read up.

With primaries right around the corner, these next four weeks are going to be intense for all the candidates. Americans tend to vote with a short-term memory, so the candidates’ actions will greatly affect their success as the primaries draw near. It will be interesting to see how the uncovering of Giuliani’s minor skeleton plays out for the GOP front-runner.

The role of investigative journalism has had a substantial effect not only on the perception of government, but it could be attributed to the overall lack of political efficacy my generation suffers from. Go with me on this; events like the Tet Offensive and Watergate asserted the media’s function of a watchdog over the government. The media begins to uncover scandals of politicians and corporations throughout the rest of the century, and through the next. Because my generation, the “echo baby boomers” or whatever we are called, has grown up in the midst of this new perception of the government’s ineptitude; people have no desire to read the newspaper or keep up with current events. We’ve been brought up with the notion that constituents are detached from the institution of government. Maybe I’m pulling this out of thin air, but I feel like the way I look at our leaders is much different from the way my grandmother did when she was my age. When she talks about events of the past, like World War II or the Red Scare, she thinks of them as national efforts; whenever the government was involved with a country or an altercation overseas, most Americans felt committed to whatever the government was doing. Today, Americans are very detached from the Iraq conflict, and all the blame is placed on the Bush Administration/Republican Party rather than the entire country taking responsibility for what our government has done.

This growing distance between citizens and leaders, no doubt, is partially due to the media’s responsibility to report the truth, no matter who, or what, is at fault. What was once controversial to disclose, such as a president’s polio affliction, is now grounds for a top story, like the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal or Giuliani’s run-in with the law.

Arguably, the era of investigative journalism has already passed. Sure, every once in awhile, local news stations will do an investigative piece, but that thread of journalism is expensive. An investigative team is a costly expenditure that many newspapers cannot afford during this perpetual dip in circulation. Regardless, the work of investigative journalists has left its mark in history.

An interesting article on the future of investigative journalism.

More on this subject later…I’m going to go play in the rain like the native Arizonan I am.