21st Century Muckrakers

‘Bottom line is that it takes time and money to do the kind of muckraking that newspapers have always excelled at, and I’m not sure the blogosphere can reliably reproduce…

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…

‘Our story selection is attuned to answering the question a reader might ask: How does this affect me?’

‘In an age when our critics love to crow that news is an undifferentiated commodity available anywhere, investigative reporting clearly isn’t.’

‘… the Journal Sentinel has built a 10-person Watchdog Team with a robust Web presence called Watchdog Online.’

The Blade’s commitment to investigative reporting endures despite the loss of key reporters to larger news organizations with better pay.

Tensions surfaced as an investigative team produced a six-part series amid pressures of a downsized newsroom.

At the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the I-team created a new strategy to make certain that watchdog journalism is featured in the newspaper.

‘By using a model like this one, we can more effectively use our staff to do investigative journalism that holds government institutions accountable.’

In restructuring The Post and Courier’s newsroom, the top editor strengthened the focus on investigative journalism in the newspaper and on the Web.