21st Century Muckrakers: Staying Local, Digging Deep
On this point, editors, reporters and newspaper readers agree. In a time of cutbacks and a shrinking news hole, at a moment when print is in peril and digital is dominant, watchdog and investigative reporting must remain at the core of journalism’s mission. In this third part of our 21st Century Muckrakers project, editors and reporters speak to how metro and regional newspapers are confronting the enormous challenges of today and offer clues to where this kind of reporting will likely be headed tomorrow.
Now for a little truth-and-disclosure. Roy Harris is both a friend and a neighbor. He and I met 10 years ago on a fundraising walk for our local wildlife rescue center. He spotted my Los Angeles Times T-shirt, and I saw his hat from the Napa Valley. Good wine and printer’s ink: In a small colonial town in coastal Massachusetts, that made us instant comrades.
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"Public Service Pulitzers: How These Stories Were Told"
— Elizabeth MehrenThroughout the arduous research and reporting process, Roy occasionally bounced ideas off my husband, Fox Butterfield, and me. We represented two newspapers named Times, and Fox, after all, was part of the investigative team that helped The New York Times win the Pulitzer for Public Service in 1972, for publication of the Pentagon Papers. (Blessedly, the no-byline policy was long since over by then.) Roy rewarded us with kind references in his book.
RELATED ARTICLE
"Public Service Pulitzers: How These Stories Were Told"
— Elizabeth MehrenThroughout the arduous research and reporting process, Roy occasionally bounced ideas off my husband, Fox Butterfield, and me. We represented two newspapers named Times, and Fox, after all, was part of the investigative team that helped The New York Times win the Pulitzer for Public Service in 1972, for publication of the Pentagon Papers. (Blessedly, the no-byline policy was long since over by then.) Roy rewarded us with kind references in his book.
