Ida B. Wells was a prolific activist and muckracker who used her journalistic abilities to expose the brutal lynchings of African Americans in Memphis, Tennessee that were tragically common in the late 1890s. Living in a segregated, post-slavery society, Wells experienced discrimination herself that inspired her to write about the struggles of African Americans at […]
Posts tagged with Investigative Journalism
As an investigative journalist, I thought for the week of Halloween I would investigate a very common Halloween hoax that comes up year after year. Is Halloween candy collected from trick-or-treating safe to eat? According to the Halloween poisoning page on snopes.com , the rumors of poisoned candy being distributed to children on Halloween is false. The […]
Tisha Thompson is a new addition to the NBC Washington news team. Her role is very specific. Thompson has joined the station to bolster the channel’s investigative news department. The Iteam is a new feature of NBC’s newscast that allows viewers and citizens of the Washington, D.C area to report issues of scandal and corruption […]
Nellie Bly fakes insanity, exposes women’s lunatic asylum
Posted by: Danielle Roussey | October 12, 2011 | No Comment |Nellie Bly’s story sounds like it should be turned into a box office hit. A striking young woman fakes insanity to expose a mental institution from within. A little “Shutter Island” mixed with, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Credit: Nellieblyonline.com Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She was given the […]
Is it on the rise or the decline? Is the decline of investigative journalism hurting Americas’ democracy? According to The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the increase of fluff stories in the news are hurting our democracy. Michael Copps is one of five commissioners for the FCC. Cronkite News reports that Copps said that reporting has […]
While it is easy to assume that the term muckraking only refers to political reporters in the 1800’s, the act is still performed today. A new term has been coined. Investigative journalism is a widespread act of exposure. Instead of reporting a feature story or even hard news, investigative reporters are in the business of […]
In the late 1800’s, mostly cold hard facts were considered for news stories. At the turn of the century however, journalists were beginning to stray from objectivity. Finding the dirt of the story became more important than the where’s and they why’s. The word muckraker was first coined by Theodore Roosevelt, who was president during […]