Citizen Jeff

Will Investigative Reporting Survive?

Will investigative reporting survive? Alarmed by the decline of major American newspapers, journalists and media analysts have raised the question with increasing urgency. According to Robert McChesney and John Nichols, “Journalism is collapsing, and with it comes the most serious threat in our lifetimes to self-government and the rule of law as it has been understood here in the United States.” The model scene for this argument is the Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal, a classic whistleblower story that eventually brought down President Nixon. If newspapers collapse, who will have the resources to pursue that kind of story to its bitter end?