ipl-logo

Summary Of Democracy's Detectives By James Hamilton

1320 Words6 Pages

One of the more recent efforts to assess the impact of watchdog reporting is developed in the book Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism, published by James Hamilton in 2016. In this study, Hamilton presents the main trends of investigative journalism conducted and published in the US in the past three decades and provides a compelling economic argument regarding its impact and, consequently its worthiness.
Indeed, Hamilton examines –among other material- more than 12 stories submitted to the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award between 1979 and 2010. Based upon this extensive database, the author identifies the topics investigated by the US muckrakers in this period of time, the impact of this story, and how these works were produced and funded.
The study shows some discouraging trends: There are less investigative scoops produced by local media, a less intensive use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by local reporters, and more stories published or aired by just a few outlets that are leaders in the US media industry. However, some other findings are brighter, as the appearance and …show more content…

After all, the US journalism is a model that Latin American media have tried to imitated, whether for good or not. In fact, the book is an endless source of good practices, collective strategies, and institutional, professional, and individuals methods and processes. Actually, there is a whole chapter dedicated to a single reporters’ work, in local outlets, and how influential has been his work through his whole career. Nonetheless, there are some other practices and tools that there are not fully –or not at all- developed in environment different than the US journalistic landscape whether for short funding or

Show More
Related
1184 Words | 5 Pages

The tradition begun by the journalists in Jensen’s book still continues today. Greg Palast is one such journalist who is following in the footsteps of the muckrakers. He has been called the “most important investigative reporter of our time” by The Guardian and has been responsible for writing front page stories for influential news outlets such as “BBC Television Newsnight, The Guardian, Nation Magazine, Rolling Stone and Harper's Magazine”. His area of expertise is corporate fraud and he has gone undercover to conduct his investigations on five continents. He is responsible for writing influential stories such as “BP's Deepwater Horizon blow-out”, the U.S. role in the coup against Hugo Chavez, Enron’s attempt to buy favors from the British government, and the U.S. Presidential election theft in 2000 in

Read More
277 Words | 2 Pages

The lecture started with Sonia talking about what brought her to become journalist and some of the important stories in her life. She started by talking about growing up in Argentina and how becoming a journalist was going to be a way to advocate for her country. A little later in her lecture Sonia discussed how she came to realize that you cannot be an advocate and a journalist. She discussed how lack of political opinion was best when being a journalist and lack of political opinion is what made Enrique’s journey a better story.

Read More
917 Words | 4 Pages

Stories are no longer respectable and virtuous as they were at modern journalism’s beginning. Thus, by journalists Fallows and Rothman have named the media as unethical. Another way that modern journalists have transformed today’s media is that the media now relies on the popularity of its stories and articles. Journalist Jack Shafer uses his article, “The Rise and the Fall of the Obama Media Romance” as an example of popular opinion reflecting

Read More
721 Words | 3 Pages

Media that could reflect the real America should be based on diversity of views, pluralism of opinion as the American society. First of all, when someone provides the truth of the actual situation, that person is automatically called a “whistle blower”. There are not many of those people, which are willing to expose all secrets that would benefit the society by finding out the actual story. As Goldberg elaborates in his insider book, danger is a big risk factor to them, losing a job for example, takes a lot of courage or foolishness to do that. Goldberg states that it should be normal common sense for the media give accurate information, which surprisingly does not happened in

Read More
385 Words | 2 Pages

Muckrakers and Journalists Muckrakers were journalists in the Progressive era who would dig up rumors and stories of corruption in government and business. Journalism now is similar yet different. Muckrakers are still a thing today. Muckrakers and modern journalists have commonalities in the way they report.

Read More
981 Words | 4 Pages

From the time the word “muckraker” was conceived by President Roosevelt as an insult toward journalists, to the later years where the phrase was worn with pride, it remains that “muckraking” has had a profound impact on the way American society has reacted to controversial issues. While originally defined by Roosevelt as a journalist who ‘goes too far’ in the pursuit of their story, the definition has morphed through the years to mean one who “searches out and publicly exposes real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business.” Though there have been a few instances where “muckraking” has led to an exaggerated response, when the proposed information was true, it had led to a groundbreaking awareness of situations in society.

Read More
211 Words | 1 Pages

The narrative study explores and describes the use of storytelling, within a museum to teach individual rights, and how it can help new police recruits gain an understanding of human rights. It is not understood the efficacy of storytelling techniques used in museums ("Policing in a More Perfect Union" training) program positively impacts police recruits ' knowledge and assumptions about human rights. The purpose of this narrative study is to discover the opinions and perceptions of new recruits to the Philadelphia police department regarding the use of storytelling in teaching concepts of justice and fairness in American history. The questions for the narrative study enable us to build an understanding of how the training has changed the recruits

Read More
581 Words | 3 Pages

In the movie seven the two detectives Somerset and Mills faced problems that make veterans and young detective face expect that these detectives are chasing a serial killer together. From the perspective of Somerset, Mills is a young detective that doesn’t really know much about the big city crime. With their first crime scene to investigate together Mills seems like the person that wants to run there the crime scene at slap handcuff on anyone. Mills has a very narrow site and draw to conclusions to fast, instead of noticing the word “Gluttony” on the wall or waiting for an autopsy he think it was poison.

Read More
380 Words | 2 Pages

In his essay, Goodman lays out his argument about the decline of foreign journalism and a possible solution –crowd sourcing –for increasing the amount of foreign journalism in US media. Citing the power of the internet and social media technology, Goodman proposes enabling the average citizen to collect “testimonials, snap shots, and video clips”as a “genuine reporting tool,”though he also expresses reservations about these developments. To build his argument, Goodman deploys repetition, contrast, and direct appeals to his audiences through his use of we. These rhetorical strategies allow Goodman to call attention to a central contradiction and rally colleagues to this cause.

Read More
1540 Words | 7 Pages

Woodward and Bernstein’s investigative reporting of the Watergate scandal became a model of journalism devoid of bias. To sum up, the book 'All the President's Men', by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is the best illustration of investigative journalism exposing political corruption and revealing the truth, by holding those in power accountable. The writers provide an accurate and unbiased account of the Watergate scandal and their resolutely ethical view of investigative reporters' role in seeking the truth at all costs. Moreover, through reading this book, I have learned the benefits of investigative journalism in our democracy. Its significant role in keeping our government honest and transparent

Read More
440 Words | 2 Pages

Peter S. Goodman builds an argument to persuade his audience that news organizations should increase the amount of professional foreign news coverage by giving solutions to the problem he claims that news stations currently has. Goodman states that news agencies do not report nor have reporting about foreign news. Goodman than uses problem and solution to explain his points and to solve his points. He also uses the device appeal to logos to explain his points. And lastly, Goodman compares studies to support his views on this crisis.

Read More
1357 Words | 6 Pages

Overall, I disentangle the complex ways of consecration, distinction, and recognition in the particular field of watchdog reporting. Doing so, the research aims to craft a situated conceptualization of investigative journalism in a post-authoritarian society and problematize hegemonic conceptualizations coined in most stable democracies, more consolidated media systems, and within thicker fields of IJ. Particularly, I argue that investigative journalism in a post-authoritarian regime simultaneously performs both as a regulatory mechanism and a transgressor role in a neoliberal society. Doing so, investigative journalism serves (either unconsciously or consciously) hegemony at the same time it is contributing to produce, provide, and spread public, valuable, information.

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

The mix of local and international reporters on the ground improve credibility and balance in the newsroom. The expansion of major international media organisations, like Doha-based Al Jazeera and China’s Xinhua, give different views on African stories. Al Jazeera’s main objective is to give a “voice to the voiceless”(Figenschou, 2010). Besides the diversification in the newsroom, the development of technology and its accessibility in Africa has resulted in an increase in citizen journalism. Platforms like Twitter allow locals voices to be heard and recognised, so that the reporting is not one-sided.

Read More
1485 Words | 6 Pages

DETECTIVE FICTION “ The term ‘Golden Age’ stands for a particular blessed era of crime writing” – Susan Rowland. Golden Age of Detective fiction is regarded as the period between World Wars I and II, an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s; however, classic novels had been written since 1911 and still, are being written. Most of the Golden Age writers are British, however, in America the genre of ‘Hard-Boiled’ fiction is dominant. In this age, the major theme is ‘whodunit’ or the ‘clue puzzles’ in which the reader solves the mystery of a codified game.

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

4. Summary on “Women Detectives” by Maureen T. Reddy Introduction In this chapter, Maureen T. Reddy analyzes the development of crime fiction in the aspect of the rise of female novelists and women detectives in crime fiction through enumerating various writers with their magnum opus. Therefore, the origin of female detectives and the changes of feminist crime fiction will be summarized in this passage. Summary

Read More

More about Summary Of Democracy's Detectives By James Hamilton

Related Topics

Open Document