The photojournalism is probably easiest to explain. I've been interested in photography for years. I bought a camera, learnt the basics of exposure and composition and studied the works of the great photographers to learn how they captured their images. The ones that fascinated me the most were the photojournalists and the war photographers. Robert Capa. Don McCullin. Larry Burrows. James Natchwey. I loved the way Burrows and W. Eugene Smith told entire stories with their photo essays.
As for the investigative journalism? Well, that seems to be a natural extension of an interest in whodunnits, cryptic crosswords and sifting through documents looking for lost relatives. I also get pretty cranky at the various abuses of power that occur in society and I'm a firm believer that one of the main roles of the press is to hold the powerful accountable for some of their less reputable decisions. It's an area of journalism that I'm certainly interested in pursuing, though according to the books on investigative journalism in the uni library I'm not alone; just about every other journalism student sees their future in it too!
John Pilger believes that the term investigative journalist is wrong as every journalist is, in theory, supposed to investigate and check facts before publishing. Other authors however disagree and consider that investigative journalism differs completely from general news reporting. Investigative reporters have to take their suspicions of wrong doing, whether it be an abuse of power or an official cover-up, and then find the evidence to prove their story. It's a long term process, one that requires evidence gathering and fact checking. If you read "All The President's Men" you'll discover the meticulous care that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward took in trying to ensure that their facts were correct in their Watergate investigation (you'll also discover the consequences too when they slipped up).
In the lecture we looked at the attributes an investigative journalist needs to possess. An interest in whodunnits, cryptic crosswords and sifting through documents looking for lost relatives wasn't specifically on the list though having good research skills was, along with determination, patience and good reporting skills.
Marie also spoke of the need to ensure that a story has public interest; a community should either benefit from a story, or be disadvantaged by not knowing it. She gave us a few examples of stories and we had to decide if they could be classed as examples of investigative journalism. I have my own example, one that appeared in the Sunday Mail last year. At the time I wasn't too impressed with this story; it seemed to me that listening in on a driver's phone call was more an invasion of privacy than investigative journalism, especially if it was recorded so it could be translated later. Looking at the whole story again, I think I can add a lack of public interest to my list of objections, though at least they didn't call it Currygate.
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