Investigative Journalism Finds A New Home: Online

With advancements in technology we no longer just absorb news or information in one way at a time. Instead, we rely on multiple media sources at once, and everything is now on a multimedia platform.

For example, when I open a new story on KCCI's website, I can view/listen to a video, see pictures, and read a typed article, all full of information about what happened.

I had never before considered how this would effect the necessity for investigative journalists, until I read a blog about the topic.

In past years investigating a large story would take an investigative journalists a lot of time, and there for they would have to be payed a lot of money. Today, social networks and millions of other networks make it easier to find leads, sources and experts to contact about a particular topic. Therefore, it takes much less time for someone to get the amount of information they need.

So now you might think that with this many sources to use anyone could do the investigating themselves and wonder, what is an investigative journalist for? The author says the two main things are:

-uncovering the hidden

-reporting the new

Not all of their work is done online. They not only have to find this information, but they have to verify it, link it together and explain why it's newsworthy.

Instead of thinking that investigative journalism is becoming easier, I think we should realize that this accessibility might actually make it harder. All of this information is available, and now the investigative journalist will have to take the time to look at ALL of it and will have no excuses for missing bits of information.

It's a changing platform, just like all aspects of the media, but it's definitely not dying off.