invesment.html - adjective (Lifestyle and Leisure) Of a style of reporting used especially in television and radio (and also of those who use it): actively seeking to expose malpractice, injustice, or any other activity deemed to be against the public good; penetrative, delving. Etymology: A specialized use of investigative, which in its most general
sense means 'characterized by or inclined to investigation'. History and Usage: The
principle of investigative
newspaper reporting,
which would be so penetrative as to force public officeholders to take account of public
indignation at any malpractice, was first established in the US by Basil Walters as long ago as the early fifties. However, investigative reporting
only really came into its own in the US in the seventies (in connection with the Watergate scandal). In the UK, investigative journalism has been associated
particularly with television and radio, with a whole
genre of 'watchdog' programmes using the technique by the middle of the eighties in fields as diverse as consumerism and foreign aid. Amateurs and intellectuals should not play at the hard and dirty business of investigative journalism. Philip Howard We Thundered Out (1985), p.
66 It may be that...the contemporary 'investigative reporter', in contemporary myth, and even by his own account, is inevitably a sort of scoundrel. New Yorker 23 June 1986, p.
53 Quality programmes such as drama and plays are expensive to produce, as is investigative journalism and high-standard current affairs
and documentaries. Which? Feb. 1990, p.
84 See also pilger
