PREPARATION OF SPECIAL REPORTS:Uncovering Truth, Reportage

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TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

LESSON 35

PREPARATION OF SPECIAL REPORTS

Investigative journalism

Uncovering Truth

Ultimately, the job of the journalist -- especially the investigative journalist -- is to uncover the truth

about situations and explain that truth to an audience in a clear and succinct manner.

Even when there seems to be a major injustice involved, it is not the responsibility of the reporter to be

an advocate of a particular viewpoint, only to bring all of the related facts to the public's attention.

In the case of complex stories and situations, this does not exclude the necessary interpretation of the

facts.

In mid-2002 two major stories were reported in the U.S. press: the molestation of hundreds of children

by clergy and the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. In both cases the incriminating facts had

been successfully hidden from the public as the situations continued to get progressively worse.

Had the truth been uncovered and publicized earlier, something could have been done to head off the

pain and suffering that a great many people had to subsequently endure.

This includes the many additional children who were molested and the scores of people who lost all of

their retirement funds while some corporate executives pocketed millions of dollars.

In both cases it was the journalist's job to uncover the facts that people were rather successfully hiding

and bring these facts to the public's attention; in other words, to fulfill their role as "the watchdogs of a

democratic society." Generally, public exposure is all that is needed to initiate corrective action.

Reportage sometimes refers to the total body of media coverage of a particular topic or event, including

news reporting and analysis: "the extensive reportage of recent events in x." This is typically used in

discussions of the media's general tone or angle or other collective characteristics.

Reportage is also a term for an eye-witness genre of journalism: an individual journalist's report of

news, especially when witnessed firsthand, distributed through the media. This style of reporting is

often characterized by travel and careful observation.

Literary reportage (pronounced ray-por-taj) is the art of blending documentary, reportage-style

observations, with personal experience, perception, and evidence, in a non-fiction form of literature.

This is perhaps more commonly called creative nonfiction and is closely related to New Journalism. The

prose of such reporting tends to be more polished and longer than in newspaper articles.

Investigative journalism is when reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest, often involving crime,

political corruption, or some other scandal.

There is no more important contribution that we can make to society than strong, publicly-spirited

investigative journalism. Tony Burman, editor-in-chief of CBC News.

De Burgh (2000) states that: "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 may be 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".

An investigative journalist may spend a considerable period researching and preparing a report,

sometimes months or years, whereas a typical daily or weekly news reporter writes items concerning

immediately available news. Most investigative journalism is done by newspapers, wire services and

freelance journalists. An investigative journalist's final report may take the form of an exposé.

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The Investigation

The investigation will often require an extensive number of interviews and travel; other instances might

call for the reporter to make use of activities such as surveillance techniques, analysis of documents,

investigations of the performance of any kind of equipment involved in an accident, patent medicine,

scientific analysis, social and legal issues, and the like.

Investigative journalism requires the scrutiny of details, fact-finding, and physical effort. An

investigative journalist must have an analytical and incisive mind with strong self-motivation to carry on

when all doors are closed, when facts are being covered up or falsified and so on.

Some of the means reporters can use for their fact-finding:

Studying neglected sources, such as archives, phone records, address books, tax records and

license records.

Talking to neighbors.

Using subscription research.

Anonymous sources.

Investigative journalism can be contrasted with analytical reporting. According to De Burgh (2000)

analytical journalism takes the data available and reconfigures it, helping us to ask questions about the

situation or statement or see it in a different way, whereas investigative journalists go further and also

want to know whether the situation presented to us is the reality.

Consequences

Consequences for society as a whole include:

revision of institutional policies

changes in the law

Some of the potential consequences for the subjects of successful investigative journalism include:

loss of job

loss of professional accreditation

payment of fines

indictment and conviction

loss of personal and professional reputation

critical consequences for family members/associates involved in unrelated criminal acts

discovered through the process of investigation

Professional references

In The Reporter's Handbook: An Investigator's Guide to Documents and Techniques, Steve Weinberg

defined investigative journalism as:

Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers or

listeners. In many cases, the subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain

undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism.

Conferences are conducted presenting peer reviewed research into investigative journalism.

Breaking news is a current event that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled

programming in order to report its details. Its use is often loosely assigned to the most significant story

of the moment or a story that is being covered live. It could be a story that is simply of wide interest to

viewers and has little impact otherwise.

Format

The format of a special report or breaking news event on television commonly consists of an opening

graphic, featuring music which adds an emphasis on the importance of the event. This is usually

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followed with the introduction of a news anchor, who welcomes the viewer to the broadcast and

introduces the story at hand.

Once the story is introduced, the network may choose to continue to show a live shot of the anchor or

may cut away to video or images of the story that is being followed during the broadcast. Additionally,

the coverage may be passed to a reporter at the location of the breaking event, possibly sharing more

information about the story as it breaks.

Depending upon the story being followed, the report may last only a few minutes, or continue for

multiple hours at a time. If coverage continues for an extended amount of time, the network may

integrate analysis about the story through analysts in-studio, via. Phone, satellite, or through other

means of communication.

When the coverage comes to a close, the network may either resume programming that was occurring

prior to the event or begin new programming, depending upon the amount of time spent on the

coverage.

Usage

While in the past programming interruptions were restricted to extremely urgent news, such breaks are

now common at 24-hour news channels which may have an anchor available for live interruption at any

time. Some networks largely emphasize this, even advertising the station as being "first for breaking

news".

The term breaking news has come to replace the older use of news bulletin. There has been widespread

use of breaking news at the local level, particularly when one station in a market wants to emphasize the

exclusivity of coverage. Not all viewers agree that stories assigned breaking news rise to the

significance or level of interest that warrant such a designation.

Criticism

When a network begins coverage of a breaking story, the early details about the stories are commonly

sketchy, usually due to the limited amount of resources available to the reporters for information during

the time the story initially breaks.

Another criticism has been the diluting of the importance of breaking news by the need of 24-hour

news channels to fill time, using the title when covering any number of soft news stories.

Know Your Story

Before shooting it's vital that you know the whole story and how your sequence fits into it. Story

summaries are one tool you can use to ensure you don't lose the plot. If you have time, pictures and

storyboards can help to visualise your ideas.

How to do it

Decide the story's angle.

Write a summary or sketch storyboards.

However "last minute" the shoot, make sure you have a clear brief.

Check that what you're doing is realistic in the time available - don't compromise your safety.

Unforeseen events can occur - be ready to react if the story changes, and follow new

developments.

Remind yourself "I will always focus on telling the story".

Covering News vs. Making News

Scientists say that when you observe an event you in some way change it. Leaving the esoteric concepts

of theoretical physics aside, we know that the presence of news reporters and cameras not only changes

events, but it can even create news.

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TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

At Times, a Dangerous Profession

In the may countries, reporters have been killed before their stories could be aired. Numerous books and

articles document this.

Although some of these authors might be seen as "conspiracy theorists," the death of journalists and

scores of informants on the eve of important revelations can't all be viewed as coincidence.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, between 1992 and 2001, 399 journalists were killed

"because of their work." By 2007, more than 100 journalists had been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan

wars. In the last decade years more than 1,000 journalists have been killed around the world.

Suffice it to say, investigating and breaking important stories often carries a degree of professional and

personal risk. At the same time, this is the way awards are won and professional careers are advanced --

and, far more importantly, wrongs are rectified and needed social change is instituted.

News and Politics

Most of the nation's newspapers and magazines and television stations, seeking greater profits through

larger audiences, fed the public a diet of crime news, celebrity gossip, and soft features, choosing to

exclude more serious topics that news managers feared would not stimulate public attention.

CNN Journalist Peter Arnett, with one explanation as to why Americans tend to be less informed about

world events than citizens of many other countries.

At the same time we need to put some things into perspective.

For many years TV has represented the number one source of news and information for the vast

majority of people in industrialized nations.

When a scandal is uncovered in a news show, we often see action taken. When the spotlight of TV

scrutiny is focused on a problem in a distant land, and there is public outrage, we often see steps taken

to correct things. This is the reason that third-world despot's fear, and have taken great measures to ban,

the press, in general, the TV news in particular.

Does not the fear of exposure keep many on a nobler path?

Often the news isn't pleasant. As the bearer of some unpopular messages TV news has generated many

critics. In fact, TV news probably gets more complaints than any other type of programming, especially

from those who want to believe "a different truth."

Many longtime professionals remember a time when newspapers and electronic journalism were held in

much higher esteem -- primarily because there was a "high wall" separating news departments and

bottom-line corporate interests.

It appears that the drop in credibility has impacted where people are getting their news.

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