March 28, 2024

Understanding The Times: How The Times Decides What to Investigate

CORBETT: Stories in my view have to be persuasive. Persuasive meaning you can make a case for whatever your thesis is. And your thesis has to be buttressed with all manner of things. It can be documents; it can be interviews; it can be the person’s own statements. Typically it is a combination of many things. There is no one handbook on what makes an investigative story.

How is this different from the way investigative journalism is portrayed in movies like “Spotlight”?

CORBETT: I think “Spotlight” is actually a pretty good rendering of investigative journalism, because it wasn’t glamorous. It was people going through all these documents and papers and trudging along.

MURPHY: The accurate part, too, is that it is a 24/7 commitment. I think that comes across in the movies. People are living and breathing it.

Where does the thrill come from that is captured in the movies?

CORBETT: Well, for most journalists, the thrilling part is the discovery.

MURPHY: I think the thrill is the same across the profession. I think a big part of it is the creation part. If you find A and B and are able to make C from it, you are basically creating a C that didn’t exist before. And it is hopefully in an area that makes a difference or has some sort of impact or is relevant to people’s lives.

CORBETT: In a lot of journalism it is clear what the big, important things are. But with investigative journalism, you have perhaps a greater opportunity for novelty, for finding new information, for telling a new story, because it takes such a commitment and you are going so deep into something that typically not every other news organization is doing that same thing. There is something very thrilling about understanding: “Ah, this is how this works, and this is what the consequences of this are.” And we get to show that.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/reader-center/investigations-explainer.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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