Investigative Journalism and the Legitimation of Moral Order

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ED 284 277 CS 210 724 AUTHOR Glasser, Theodore L.; Ettema, James S. TITLE Investigative Journalism and the Legitimation of Moral Order. PUB DATE Aug 87 NOTE 41p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (70th, San Antonio, TX, August 1-4, 1987). PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Moral Issues; Moral Values; News Media; *News Reporting; News Writing; Press Opinion; Public Opinion; Social Attitudes; Social Values; Traditionalism IDENTIFIERS *Investigative Reporting; Journalism History; *Journalists; Media Bias; Press Role ABSTRACT Investigative journalists long have had an adversarial relationship with powerful institutions and those in public office, stemming from the "righteously indignant" reporters of the early nineteenth century penny presses who guarded the interests of the public. Currently, investigative journalistsare in a difficult position if they have to report news of moral transgressions, while remaining morally neutral. When documenting transgressions, they tend to circumvent the problem by (1) citing the law, (2) citing codes of conduct, (3) citing experts,or (4) appealing to common sense. Yet all news, how objective it purports to be on its "surface level" is inherently linked to morals because the subject(s) of the story have crossed some moral boundary, identified by the reporter. Hence reporters in their role as "watchdogs" not only reflect the moral norms of society but actively fashion and legitimate the very consensus they ostensibly only convey. However, because investigative journalists select from a limited range of dominant moral standards, accept these standards uncritically, and present them "objectively," they can evade responsibility for contributing to the definition and legitimation of what usually appears to be an "independent" moral order. The values journalists espouse in the "deep level" of their stories only become apparent in a historical and cultural treatment of news. (Seven endnotes and 46 references are included.) (JC)

*********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM AND THE LEGITIMATION OF MORAL ORDER

Nothing in westernjournalism is more invogne than the investigative reporter, those "boldand provocative journalists," as one leading text describes them, whorefuse "to be confined to the stenographicrole that had been ordainedfor them" (Hohen- berg, 1978: 8). It is now quite fashionablefor investigative journaliststo present themselvesas the true guardiansof the public interest. For it is now almost commonplacefor the press to position itself as the "lifeline ofdemocracy in reporting upon the use, misuse, and abuse of power,"a lifeline that requires, of course, a "large andeffective corps of trulyprofes- sional nonpartisan investigative reporters and editors" (Mollen- hoff, 1978: 354-355). No doubt fueled by the WashingtonPost's now legendary ef- forts in the early 1970s touncover corruption in the Nixon White House, the rise of investigative journalismrepresentsnothing less--and perhaps nothing more--thana renewedinterest ina watchdog or adversary press. To be sure, the adventuresof Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward--and especiallythe adventures of their celluloid counterparts, Dustin Hoffman and RobertRedford-- mark the beginning of whathas become an extendedcelebrationof the bravado spirit of"hard-hitting" reporters whosework affirms theimportance of a free and unintimidatedpress. Above all else, it is a celebration of the notion that the publicinterest is best served by a continuing rivalry between thepress and the powyrful.

3 That investigative journalism pitsthe press againstpower,

particularly but not exclusivelythe power of the state, under- scores its fundamentally populist Viewof the role of thepress. Though not unmindful ofthe drudgery of long hoursof routine and often mundane work, the burgeoning literatureoninvestigative journalism1 presents an unabashedly heroicprofile of theinvestigative reporter. With titles like TheTypewriter Guerillas

(Behrens, 1977) and Raising Hell (Weir& -Noyes, 1983) 12 investigativereporters appear in the roleof"newsroomirregulars" whose news stories "attack, charge, inflame, accuse, harass, intimidate, incriminate, and sometimesdamage or destroy people, organizations, agencies, and governmenton your behalf and mine" (Behrens, 1977: xxiv); theyappear, ultimately, in their roleas the final challenge to the authorityofgovernment,which is important, we are told, because "realistically,the public cannot count upon any administration to doa strictjobofpolicing itself" (Mollenhoff,1978: 354). But what best expresses the glory andromance ofinvestiga- tive reporting--and what bestcaptures the essence ofan adversarypress--is "righteous indignation," a term coinedby Ida Tarbellnearly a century ago as hercharacterizationofwhat propelled the muckrakersof the late 1800$. The contemporary version is IRE!, the acronym for InvestigativeReportersand Editors, a national organizationfounded in 1975. It, too, conveys the journalist'ssense of outrage.

IRE! and "righteous indignation"serve well notfor what they describe but for theirunmistakably moral tone. And what is

4 significant about their moraltone is its apparent oppositionto the presumed impartiality of the press. Indeed, the moral implications of an ":indignant" or "outraged" press bringintofocus oneof the central contradictions of contemporary Americanjour- nalism: How can the presv function as thn "custodianofcon- science," as Betbell (1977) puts it, and at the same time claim to be morally disengaged? That is, how caninvestigative reporters expose wrongdoing without maldnga moral judgment?And more important, what are the enduyingconsequences of a press whose dealings with questions of morality must bepresented under the guSse cf moral neutrality?

In Deciding What's Nivs, Herbert Gans offersan insightful, though underdeveloped, answar to these questions: Journalists in general--and investigative reporters in particular--canmaintain theircommitment to the canons of objectivity and stilldistin- guish between right and wrong ifquestions of rightand wrong appearin strictly empirical (as opposed to moral) terms. The presscan therefore evade the normative "ought" andconcentrate instead on the descriptive "is" by limiting their investigative storiesto empirically incontrovertible instancesof wrongdoing. Forexample, Gans explains, the quintessential investigative story--the expose--"typically judgesthe exposed against their own expressed values, and these can bedetermined empiricallyby thereporter; as a result, even his or her valuejudgment is considered objective" (1979: 18.1). And because this"objectifi- cationof moral claims," as it mightbe called, necessarily upholds, not challenges, the prevailing moral order,Gans posits afundamentally conservative role fora watchdog oradversary 3 5 press: It conserves the status quo insofar as it "reinforces and relegitimatesdominantnational and societal valuesby publi- cizing and helping to punish those'who deviatefrom thevalues" (1979: 293).

Our goalhereis to refine and enrich--and to a degree reviseGans' understanding of the relationship between investi-

gative journalism and moral order. Specifically, our objective is threefold: (i) to provide a brief account of the origins and

influence of the tradition of adversaryjournalism, with emphasis

on the paradoxical connection between journalism's moralabsolu-

tism and its professional claimto moral neutrality; (ii) to use

materialgatheredfrominterviews with leadinginvestigative reportersto illustrate how the tradition ofan adversary press

manifestsitselfin the day-to-day world ofthe investigative

reporter; and (iii) to examine how the traditionofadversary

journalism and the practices of investigativereportingcontri-

buteto the creation and legitimation ofa moral order inextri- cably tied to society's moral authorities.

The Tradition of Adversary Journalism

Inhis celebrated Commentary essay on "The Presidencyand thePress," published a full three years before RichardNixon's

resignation, DanielMoynihan lamented "an almost feckless hos- tility to power" among members of thepress. Due in large mea- sureto the rising social status of its practitioners,Moynihan argued, "thepress grows more and mor influenced byattitudes

4 genuinely hostile to Americansociety and American government"

(1971: 43). What was now "a conspicuous element injournalistic practice"was what Lionel Trilling (1965) had calledan"adversary culture," a "culture of disparagement,"as Moynihan put it, that "hasexerted an increasing influenceon thetoneofthe national press in its dealings with thenationalgovernment" (52). A decade later, in his presidentialaddress to the Ameri- can Society of Newspaper Editors, Xichael.J. O'Neill (1983: 8) soundeda similar alarm when hecomplained bitterlyaboutthe press's "adversarial posture towardgovernment and its infatua- tion with investigative reporting." A more appropriateeditorial philosophy, O'Neill proposed, wouldinvolve a "clear but uncrab- bed view of the world"; it would be "more positive,more tolerant ofthe frailties of human institutions and their leaders" (15, 12).

Obviously not withoutits critics,3 the view ofgovernment and the press as adversariesnonetheless endures as the unspoken ethosof American"jOurnalism. Whether it manifests itself as exaggerated cynicism or healthy skepticism, whetherit represents what Moynihan regardsas the genuinehostilityofroutinely antagonistic journalists or what others view as interestsof Constitutional significance(cf. Blasi, 1977), the ideal of an adversary press, an ideal of mythic proportions, has longin- formed the dominant view of the role of the Americanpress. While it may be true that only a minorityofjournalistsexpressly endorse an adversaryrole for the press (Weaverand Wilhoit, 1986), it is probably just as true that an adversarialattitude

7 "has always lurkedin the psycheof Americanjournalists" (O'Neill, 1983:8). It istelling that a recent studybythe Hasting's Center, a study critical of the logicof "adversar- ialism," found that today the relationshipbetween Congress and the press can be "characterized by thelegitimization, although not the regular practice, of what has come to becalled adversary journalism" (Callahan,1985:13). The notion of an adversary or watchdog press is, in short,a tradition with deep roots. Indeed, its history beginswhere the history of modern journalismbegins: the penny press.

The Penny Press and thePublic Interest A radical departure from its six-centcounterpart, the penny press ofthe 1830s aimed ata readership beyond the mercantile and political elite. It sought to reach"the gi:eat masses of the community--the merchant, the mechanic, workink people--the pri- vatefamily as well as the public hotel--thejourneyman andhis employer--theclerk and his principal," as James GordonBennett explained in 1835 in the fir3t issueof his New York Herald (quoted in Lee, 1923: 95). To reach this new andlargely un- served audience, the penny press tookto the streets. Its news wasnot only sold daily, in contrast to theannual subscription ordinarily required for the day'scommercial or politicalnews, but aggressively by "shouting, pavement-wise little urchins,"as historian Bernard Weisberger (1961: 93-94) portrayedthem, who would dart, "through trains andsteamboats, across crowdedbusi- ness districts, and up anddown residentialstreets."

6 8 Street sales underscored the undiffetentiated circulationof the penny papers and signaled the beginning ofthe decline of the special interestpress. The penny press wanted toappealto everyone's interest and thus, logically, it stood in opposition to anyone's "special" interest--except,of course, its own, which presumablycorresponded to its professed policyof indifference.

Street sales sustained this policyof indifference insofaras the "nonsubscriber plan," as Bennettonce called it, served to insulate the newspaper from the unwantedinfluences of itsreaders. Ultimately, this insulation and indifference, according to Ben- nett, accounted for the independence of thepenny press, which, inturn, explained its greatappeal. The Herald, Bennett claimed, was truly free "simplybecause it is subservient tonone of its readers--known to none of its readers--and entirely igno- rantwho are its readers and who are not" (quotedinSchudson, 1978: 21).

The self-proclaimed independenceof the penny press enabled it to pursue what .was thenan entirely novel approach to journalism: "surveillance of the public good" (Schillet:,1979: 47).

Unburdened by party patronageor the "men of commerce," thepenny papers introduced and cultivateda new role for the press; they "facilitatedthe transformation of the infamousself-interest of the elite press intoan interest that seemed to embracethe whole people" (Schiller, 1981: 76). The Baltimore Sun expressed it well:

We shall give no place to religiouscontroversy norto political discussions of merelypartisan character. On politicalprinciples, and questions involving the interests or honor of the wholecountry, it will be free, firm and temperate. Our object will be thecommon good 7 9 without regard to that ofsects, factions, or parties; and for this object we shalllabor without fear or partiality (quoted inBleyer, 1927: 180). Disengaged fromthe worlds of politics andcommerce, and consequently less opinionated than thepartisan press andless overtly self-interestedthan the commercial press, thepenny press transcended what had beenthe circumscribed worldof daily journalism (cf. Schiller,1979; Schudson, 1978). With presumably no cause to advocate and no interest to promote, the penny press could offer, it claimed, a moredependable and authentic"news," a report untainted by the political, social, and economicvalues that had for so long defined the content of dailynewspapers. That the penny press championedthe values of itspredomi- nantly working classpublicserved nottodiminish butto strengthen faith in its authentic and "value-free"news; for the values of its readers, especially when thosevalues were cast in terms of political or economic opportunity, were not treated as values but as "natural rights." Thus without apparentcontradic- tion, the penny press could claim to beboth the "private de- fender of the public good" (Schiller, 1981: 47-45) and the re- corderof what Bennett said would be "factson every public and propersubject, stripped of verbiage and coloring"(quoted in Lee, 1923: 195).

Progressivism and thePress Whereas the JacLsonian era, the 1830s, gave rise tothe penny press and its vision of an independent and impartial journalism, the Progessiveera, roughly the turn-of-the-century, brought to journalism a deepening distrust of urbanbureaucracies and a

8 10 dedication to reform. Rapid industrializationbetween 1840 and 1860, followed by nothing short ofa "communications revolution" that began decisively in the 1890s with theintroductionof magazines for national distribution(Carey, 1969), transformed not only city life but thepress's treatment of it. The city was no longer whet Robert Park (1925: 94, 96) describedas "a mosaic of little neighborhoods...in whichthe city dweller stillmatn- tained something of the provincialismof the small town"; and the metropolitan newspaper was no longer content with"the theory that its businesswas to instruct. The Progressive movement emerged inoppositiontocities growing larger and more centralized in their controlover individuals. Progressives opposedthe increasing concentrations of power and what was regarded as its inevitable abuse. ThePro- gressive era, in short, moved to reconstitvte theindividual as the primary agent of power; it sought to embracea Social Dar- winism that promoted "natural selection"as the mostdemocratic social order.

Not suprisingly, Progressivismand the press became immediate allies. Journalism'ssenseof independence, its disdainfor "special" interests, and its commitment tonews ofgeneral or "public" interest--all the legacy ofthe penny press--coincided well with the Progressivecall for reform. This was especially true in the larger cities where metropolitan dailiescould expose their reporters to "the seamy sideof urban life and shake them into awareness of whatwas happening in the unsulliedrepublic of their schoolbooks" (Weisberger.1961: 160).

11 The urbanpress fed the Progressive movement through its coverage of crime, corruption, poverty, and hypocrisy. And in turn theProgressive movement fed, the urbanpress: the"cru- sading tradition" turned out to be goodfor business. In fact, a number of publishers--Joseph Pulitzer and WilliamRandolph Hearst aief among them--turned sensationalizedaccounts of greed, vice, andother urban ills intoa veritable livelihood. Pulitzer's crusades, for example, helped his St. LouisPost-Dispatch grow from a circulation of 4,000 to 23,000 in onlythree years (Leo- nard, 1986: 174).

Butthe daily newspaper reporter'sgreatest contributionto theProgressive era appeared not on thepages of a newspaper but in the new magazines of nationalprominence. Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, David lraham Phillips, Samuel HopkinsAdams, Ray Stan- nard Baker--allfirst newspapermen--published their "muckraking" in such magazinesas McClure's, Everybody's, Munsey's, and Col- liers (Weisberger, 1961: 160). Much in the traditionof the pennypress, the "muckraking magazines" of theProgressiveera had"triple thecirculation of the older monthlies andsold at a thirdof the price"; with "bolder editing andgreater useof photographs, the new monthlies brought vivid storiesofcor- ruptionto hundreds of thousands of Americanswho wereusedto nothing more thandisjointed newspaper accounts"(Leonard, 1986: 185).

The muckraker'sexpose, and even the sensationaljournalism of Hearst and Pulitzer, benefitted enormously fromwhatwas becomingthe hallmark of the new century: reverence forthe logicof science and faith in the powerof detached observation. 10 12 What made muckraking credible - -indeed, what made it possible- -was the pressIs distance from the subject of itsexposes; for no one "could unearth a scandal," Weisberger (1961: 160)reminds us, "as effectivelyas a man with no vested interest in any part ofthe scandal-making mechanism."

Theindependence of the press now meant allegiance touna- dorned "facts," and allegiance to facts- -and nothing butthe facts, no matter how outrageous they might be- -becamenothing less than an occupational obligation. Soon rationalized into"a canonof professional competence and an ideologyof professional responsibility," the idea of an "objective"press inveyed a "reassuring sense ofdisinterest and rigor" (Carey, . 33,36). Althoughits origins date back to thepenny press af the 1830s, theascendancy of objectivity during the Progressiveeramarked the beginning of what Hallin (1985:129) describesas the "scien- tization of journalism," a time when the "changingconventions of journalism paralleledthe rise of scienceas a cultural paradigm against which allforms of discourse came to be measured." With straightforward, factual reports based on "detachedobservation," journalists, like scientists, positioned themselvesas "value- free" in their treatment of "value-free" facts. Consequently, neva judgment appeared not as a value-ladendetermination but as an essentially impartialand disinterestedresponse to the day's events, issues,an rsonalitios.

Objectivity and theIdeology of News

Journalists today, Cans finds, are "Progressive reformers"

13 in that their values are the values of the Progressivemovement of the early twentieth century. Like theProgressives, jour- nalistssupport individualism and resist "collective solutions, other than at the grassroots level"; the resemblance, says Gans,

"is often uncanny, as in the common advocacy of honest,merito- cratic, and anti-bureaucratic government, and in the shared anti- pathy to political machines and demagogues, particularly of populist bent" (1979: 69). Sorauf (1987), for example, in his recent studyof the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, found "a pervasive neo-Progressive outlook on the reporting of American campaign finance":

Theconflicts between narrow, special interests and those of the broader public that are the essence of the Progressive view provide precisely the drama, conflict, and reader appeal that successful journalismdemands. Reportsof campaign finance tend generally to be abstract, impersonal, and beset with numbers; they are notgood copy unless one finds knaves, buccaneering PACs [Political Action Committees], or lavish campaign spending in them. But stories about declining numbers ofPACs or stabilizing spending levels alsoconflict with the fundamental understandings of the Progressive vision--withthe long-term reality of the corrupting capacity ofmoney in the hands ofspecial interests (41). . But what Gans, Sorauf and others do not always make clear is that while Progressive values may inform the values of mainstream

American journalism, it does not follow that Progressivevalues inform--orevencoincidewith--the values ofindividualpub- lishers and the editors and reporters with whom they work.

Thedistinction between the values of journalists and the valuesof journalism is crucial because it focuses attention on two very different aspects of a news story's bias: bias attri- butableto the individuals (reporters and editors) whoproduce

12 14 thestory, and bias attributable to the very structureofthe story itself. Hall (1982) elaborateson thisdistinction by callinginto service Chomsky's (1967) distinctionbetween "surface meaning" and "deep structure." Bias attributed to anews story's surface meaning refers to the "manifest biasesand distortions" inherentin any specific use of language. Biasat- tributed to anews story's deep structure, however, alludesto thelatent biasesand distortions inherent inanysystem of language. Surface meaning, in other words,represents one of a varietyof "transformations" generated out of, or permitted by, the "grammar" of itsdeep structt.re. When journalists talk about bias they ordinarilymeanthe kindof manifest bias found in surfacemeanings. And it is precisely in response to this kind ofbias, particularlywhen the bias is overtly partisan, that reporters employtechniques and strategiesdesigned to insure balance andimpartiality--"objectivity," in short (cf. Tuchman, 1972). But when the biasof news is defined in the Aarger context of itsdeepstructure, the narrower meaning of objectivity becomes problematic; for in this larger contextobjectivity is itself a bias--a bias in favor of certain presuppositions about the "world outside"and how that world, to complete the title of Walter Lippmann's(1922) famous essay, ends up as "pictures in our head."4 This larger bias,to which the term"ideology" appropriately applies, typicallyevades scrutinyand defies the label "bias,"however, becauseamong journalistsobjectivity remains, to use Kuhn's (1970)terminol- ogy, the "dominant paradigm"; its bias, therefore,appears "normal" and thus thelabel "bias"appears inapt.5

13 15 Soideology is an aspect of biasoperates not at the level of a news story's surface content but at the levelof itsdeep structure. The ideology of news, then, refersnot to the biases or values of individual journalists but tothereservoir of

themes, premises, and.assumptions that have come to definethe

"system of signification"we call "news." At the level of ideology, it follows, news needs to be viewed, as Hallrecommends, as a "discursive object" with a "particulardiscursive formula- tion" that determines--for reportersand readers alike--what is and what is not "ideologicallycorrect." Of course, journalists do not talk aboutdeepstructures, discursive formulations, or what is or isnot"ideologically correct." But they do talk about somethingeven moredifficult to comprehend: news judgment.

Newsjudgment is as mysteriousas it is because journalists are not consciously aware ofnews at the level of its deep structure. Just as most of us cannot recite in detailthe rules of grammar but can manage to constructgrammaticallycorrectsen- tences, journalistscannot make explicit the logicof newsbut can manage toidentify news ata moment'snotice. From the perspective of thepress, the productionof news, as Rock (1973:74) observes, is "governed byan interpretative faculty called 'news sense' whichcannot be communicatedor taught." In the absence of formal rulesor standards, journalists' "news sense" derives from theunstated conventions--the "hidden consensus," Hall calls it--thatserve as a guide through "a whole series of selections as to what itemsshall be printed, in what position they shall be printed,how much space each shalloccupy, 14

16 what emphasis each shall have" (Lippmann, 1922: 223). Unable to articulate "news judgment" beyond vague and largelytautological reference to "importance" or "readerinterest," knowingnews can appear to be little more than a masterful physiognomy--anose for news or an eye for truth. "This smells right"wasthusWash- ington Post editor Ben Bradlee'sexplanation for why hedecided to publish Seymour Herch'sexpose of the Army massacre atMy Lai (quoted in Chase, 1971:17). But, significantly, journalists do not viewnews judgment as amystery. They view it asa self-evident professional claim about the empirical world--aclaim about something beingmore or less newsworthy. And what is interestingabout this professional claim--indeed, whatmakes it a professionalrather than aper- sonal claim- -is its complicitousconnection to what remainsthe centerpiece of professionalism in journalism andelsewhere: objectivity.

As a professional ideal, objectivity succeeds inasmuchas it locates news away-ftom--and independent of--thepress.. For when news is viewed as a wholly autonomous phenomenon, journalistscan limit their responsibility to the skillful but ratherunproblem- atic task of its recognition, description, and transmission. Just as scientists like to think ofthemselves as gatheringand presenting "data," journalists like to thinkofthemselvesas gathering and presenting "news"; in either case, nothingcould be a more scandalous breach of professionalism than "creating"what presumably can be only "discovered" and "reported."Objectivity, therefore, casts the journalist ina decidedly passive roleby

15 17 definingnews not as a human creation but as a fundamentally natural phenomenon for which journalistscan neither takecredit nor accept blame.

Becauseobjectivity enables journalists to denyany but the most passive role in the production ofnews, news seems totake on alife of its own. Progressively detached from thevery

history and culture that accounts for itsexistence, news is thus

positioned to be a self-generating andself-fulfillingparadigm. This paradigm survivesover time as one generation of journalists

learns the practices of the previous generation; and it survives overgreat distances as onenewsroom learns toappreciate the similar constructions ofnews in other newsrooms. Not only does news become a tradition embedded in the practicesof a particular newsroom, thesolipsismof rewsvork sk-lads the tradition to other newsrooms:

Oncesome newspaper ratifies an event asnews, others mayacceptthat ratification and treat the eventas independently newsworthy. Journalists religiously read theirownand others' newspapers; theyconsult one another;Andlookfor continuities intheemerging world which their reporting hasconstructed. Inthis process, a generally consistent interpretation ismain- tainedand built up. It possesses an independent and impersonal quality which makes it seemcompelling (Rock, 1973: 77-78).

Objectivity is important, then, because it effectivelycon- ceals or submerges journalism's values--values of4:21e kindem- bedded in any discourse, scientific or otherwiseand allows the

pressto present its decisions "as reactionsto the newsrather thana priori judgments which determine whatbecomes newsworthy"

(Gans, 1979: 183). And this is especially relevant inour as-

sessmentof investigative journalism, because objectivitycom-

16 18 bines with the traditionof a watchdog press to provideJour- nalista with the justificationthey need to protect the public

interest by focusing narrowlyon wrongdoing. Callahan (1985: 13) sums it up well: "Adversary journalism has greatlyreinforced the idea, already implicit in the progressivenotion ofobjec- -tivity, that the press, as a surrogate for the people, has a responsibility to holdgovernment accountable, root out wrongs, expose corruption, and help throwthe rascals out of office."

Investigative Reporting andMoral Disorder News

Moral disorder news, as Gans (1979) defines it, involves revelations of "instances of legal or moral transgressions, particularly by public officials and other prestigious individuals who, by reason or virtueof their power and prestige, are not expected to misbehave" (50). In contrast tosocialdisorder news, which "monitors the respectof citizens forauthority," moral disorder news evaluates "whetherauthority figures respect the rules of the citizenry" (60). However, we prefer a broader definition provided by Hall et al. (1978: 66): any storyor report that "evokes threats to, but also reaffirms, the consen- sual morality of society." Ws prefer the broaderdefinition because it better accommodates what has longbeen the mostpopu- lar subject of moraldisorder news: crime. Crime remainsa popular topic for journalistsin part be- causecrime, as a perianent and recurrentphenomenon, lends itself wellto the kind of highly routinized and thushighly efficient coverage newsrooms need togenerate their daily quota

17 19 of news. Because the sources of crimenews--essentiallythe

. police and the judiciaryare taken by journalists tobe authoritative and therefore immediately credible in the informationthey provide (cf. Fishman, 1980), thefactsabout crimecan be gathered and processed with a minimum ofresources. Moreover, crime news is comparatively easy to "find" because itappears in three handy "typifications": news about a particularcrime, whidh usually comes from the investigatin4officer; newsabout crime in general, whidh usually comes from statisticssupplied by alaw enforcement administrator; and news about howsociety treats its, criminals, whidh usuallycomes from the courts (cf. Hall et. al., 1978). It is no coincidence,then, that the "policebeat" can be--and often is--assignedto the mostjunior menber of thenews staff. But what also accounts for the press'senduring interest in crime--and what explains the attractionof readers tonewsabout 6 crime--arethe moral implications of crime and the moral challenge posed by the press in its treatment ofcrime. Fromthe earliest days of the penny press,crime news representeda unique opportunity fora newspaper to play therole of "the protagonist of the common man" (HUghes, 1940: 279). As Schiller observes in hisstudyof the National Police Gazettel7 notonly didcrime newsserve "as a concrete indicator of the vitalityof the prin- ciple of natural rights," but the"facts of crime andstate corruption showedthat continuing, comprehensive evaluation of the state'sperformance in the redress of crime wasnecessaryto ensure that the state's supervisionof public goodindeed was scrupulously impartial and just" (1981: 179, 170). Crime news, 18 20 it follows, Jnablesthe press to both honor theimportanceof moral order and act as a check--awatchdog--on the state'ssuc- cess as the official keeper of thatorder.

Crime news, however,as important as it may be as ameans of

monitoring the state ahd thestate's dealings with questionsof

public morality, limits the role of thepress in twoimportant ways. First, news of crime dealsonly with moral transgressions

that are also.legaltransgressions. Second, news of crime presents the state--chiefly thepolice and the courts--asthe guardian of moral order. And these limitationsserve well to distinguish crime news from thekind of moral disordernews thatrequires a more aggressive, a more overtly adversarialpress; they serve well, that is, to distinguish crimenews from the genre of moral disordernews thatrequires "investigative reporting." Unlike crime news, the news produced by investigative re- portersisnot as a rule limited to illegal conduct; rather, investigative reporters deal more broadly withillegitimate conduct. And in contiast to policebeat reporters, investigative reporters do not ordinarily present the state and itsagencies as theguardians of moral order; instead, investigative reporters are likely to cast themselves--or,more modestly, "the press"--in that role. Accordingly, there are three basicdistinctions be- tweenthe daily beat reporter who writes aboutcrimeandthe invest!.gative reporter vho exposes wrongdoing: (1) the iLvesti- gative reportsr deals with a broaderconception of immoralityand consequently confronts a greater variety of definitionsof moral transgression; (2) daily reporters are essentially reactive in

21 that they report violations of morality that are alreadya matter of public record, whereas investigativereporters are basically

proactive in that their storiesbring to light heretoforeunknown instances of wrongdoing; and (3) daily reports of crimetend to presuppose the success of the state inmaintaining, or at least controlling, moral order, but reports from investigativejour- nalists tend to pointto a fundamental failurein the maintenance of moral order.

As we have pointed outelsewhere, these and other differ- ences between daily reporting and investigative reportingrequire daily reporters andinvestigative reporters tooperate with some- what different epistemologies. Whereas the objectivism ofdaily journalism rest on what Fishman (1980) calls"bureaucratically credible" facts that are immediately and uncriticallyaccepted as

legitimate knowledge claims,the knowledge claims of theinvestigative reporter are firmlygrounded inan elaborate, though imprecise, process that yieldsa degree of certainty about the convergence of facts into a truthfulstory (Ettema andGlasser, 1985). Here we focus on another aspectof theinvestigative reporter's epistemology: if the investigativereporter's goal is to expoSe wrongdoing, how doss he or she knowwhatconstitutes wrong conduct? That is, as an epistemologicaldilemma, how does the investigative reporter deal with thequestion of morality? We begin with the connection between news judgment andmoral judgment. Are they distinguishable? If so, Low? To examine thisquestion, we turn to a handful ofaward-winning investigative reporters whose storieswe have studied and withwhom we have conducted indepth interviews. We concentratenere onfour 20 22 of those reporters: Loretta Tofani of theWasLA.Itgton Post, who won aPulitzerin 1983 for a story onrapes inthe Prince George's County (Maryland) DetentionCenter; Jeffrey Marx of the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader,who with Michael Yorkwon the 1986 Pulitzer in investigative journalismfor theirreporton corruption in the University ofKentucky athleticprogram; Wil- liam Marimow of the PhiladelphiaInquirer, who won a Pulitzer in 1985 foi his investigation of out-of-control police dogs;and Pam 8ekman of WBBK-TV in Chicago, who won an InvestigativeEditors and Reporters (IRE) award for a four-part mini-documentaryseries on how the Chicago policeunderreported crime.

News Judgment or MoralJudgmant?

Among the investigativereporters we interviewed, the dis- tinction between news judgment and moral judgmenttends to blur. And it blurs due in largemeasure to the kind ofwrongdoing on whichtheir investigations are likely to focus--conductso bla- tantly and obviouslywrong that no one, they believe, , can rea- sonablychallenge their moral claims. That is, investigative journalism operates within what Hallin (1984) callsa "sphereof consensus," where there is littleor no disagreementconcerning what constitutes a controversial claim. Zekman illustrates when sheexplains that the subjects shepicks for herinvestigative stories are "pretty clearcut": I mean, I haven't exactly picked real grayareas. With most investigative stories,I think it should be black or white. pretty There are some stories thatobviously get into shades ofgray, but if you're going to getup and accuse people of crime,or of wrongdoing, it better be pretty black or white.

21.

4a Similarly, Tofani distinguishesbetween enterprise stories where "there is a real gray area thatcomes out" andinvestigative stories where "it's clearto me there isa wrong." Although for Tofani it is not always initially clear that she isworking on an investigative - -as.opposed to an enterprise--story,her jail rape series began with a "gut sense"of wrongdoing:

I was sitting in the courtroomand I see a young and his lawyer. man The lawyer is telling thejudgethat herclient, who can't be over ISyears old, has been gang raped in the county jail. Well, looking at that kid, I felt really awfulI mean, I was disturbed about it This is the first timeI had ever seen ayoung man who had been gang raped and,although I knew, theoreti- cally, that men get raped injail...it was the time first I was ever really confrontedwith it and itdid really bother me. So I talked to the judgeand found out it happened all the time. Then I ended up talkingto found other...I otherrape victims andtalked tothem. In talking to them, tPie stories came out ofhow they were brutalized- -I mean, not just physically...emotionally. They're still notover it. And, I guess, just visual- izing what happened--you know, they're in a jail cell, they've been pickedup for shop-lifting, they're put in witha bunch of murderers, they're screaming andno guard comes to theirrescue. And they have toendure thehumiliation of beinggang raped.... How can you find that not wrong? When asked if she could imagine others not sharing hersense of outrage, she acknowledgedthat

...maybethere would besome really highly insensitive people in the world who wouldnot view that aswrong, whowould say "Look, the guy was in jail and you what do expect when you go to jail." In fact, I encoun- tered peoplealong the way who said thatto me--you know, even judges--andthat did make me stop and think. I realized there was anotherpoint of view outthere. But I just didn't see it thatway. That [gang wasjust rape] like one of the worstpossibleexperiences that a human being couldgo through.

For Marimow, knowing what iswrong is at best a necessary-- but certainly not a sufficient--conditionfor an investigative story. Morality may be a thresholdquestion, but the "ultimate" 22

f)4 and"fundamental', question is thatof importance and newsworthi- ness. Like Zekman and Tofani, Marimow describes hisjudgment less in terms of why he regardscertain conduct aswrong and more interms of why he regards certain wrongful conduct asnewswor- thy:

. . it seems to me that the right andwrong may be a threshold question but nota fundamental question. The fundamental question . . . the ultimate question is, is this important? Is this newsworthy?Not whether it's right or wrong. That's ancillary andimportant, but not the ultimate judgment. I mean, clearly, it'swrong if youlie about yourage on yourdriver's That's license. lying: that's not good, (and) that's amoral judgment that I make. Gary Hart did it, for whatever reason. Is that newsworthy?Not in my opinion.

Marimow elaborates withreference to his prize-winningstory on the Philadelphia police department's K-9 unit, whosedogs were apparently out of control:

. . let'sgo to the canine cases. Are these attacks warranted? Yes or no?No, they look questionable. Is thereastandard by which IcanS gage whether they're justifiable, questionableor really unwarranted?Not a real clear one, butyou can get a sense of it. it newsworthy? . . Is Well, in my opinion, ifpeople sworn to uphold thelaw are alleged to beviolating people's civilrights over andover again, that's Why is important. it important? It's importantbecausethese people are entrusted withgreat power and authority these dogs and are capable of inflictinggreatphysical, psychological harm. And the city must knowabout (it] because there're dozens ofcivil suits being filedand nothing . . . yet, nothing happening. The officers go back to the street timeand time again. So I forme, think, the ultimate questionbecomes a questionof importance and not rightor wrong. But perhaps the most striking illustration of thepower and primacyofnews judgment is JeffreyMarx and his storyabout corruption at the University of Kentucky. The first fourpara- graphs of his story, co-authored with MichaelYork, sInmarize the moral transgressions:

2 5 For years, ordinary fans haverewarded University Kentucky basketball of players with a loyality that is nationallyknown. What is less known isthat a small group of boosters has been giving the playerssomething extra: a steady stream of cash. The cash has come invarious amounts--as $20 little as and as muchas $4,000 or more--and it often. hascome UK players havereceived what they call"hundred- dollar handshakes" inthe Rupp Arena locker games. They have visited room after boosters to the offices andhomes of receive gifts ofup to $500 at atime. They havesold their freeseason tickets each or more, and for$1,000 they have pocketedexcessive payments for publicappearances and speeches. The payments and the other benefits directlyviolated rules of the NationalCollegiate Athletic tion. Associa- In the letter accompanying their submission tothePulitzer Board, Marx'seditors described the story as beingaboutthe "darkside of the UK [basketball] tradition"; and, quoting the New York Times, they said it delineated "the sordidunderside of collegesports." There was apparently no doubt in theeditors' minds that what Marx and York haddocumented was notonly wrong but wrong enoughto be newsworthy. And the PulitzerBoard agreed when it awardedMarx and York the 1986 Pulitzer Prizeforinves- tigative reporting.

For Marx, however, violating theNCAA rules did notamount toa moral transgression serious enough tojustify its treatment as a major, investigative story. Indeed, when askedwhat made it agood investigativestory, a question we posedto all there- porters we interviewed,Marx responded:

I'm not evensure it was a good I felt "investigative" story. like it wasan excellent sports storythat we had to do some goodreporting to get. I'mstill wondering In my own mind, how we ended winninga prizelike that for investigativereporting.

n6 Unlike Beknan, Tofani, and Marimow, who were integrally

involved in judging the newsworthinessof their respective sto-

ries, Marx was assignedwithoutconsultation--to his story. And as it turned out, Marx did not share his editors'sense of news.

Although he acknowledged thatviolating the NCAA ruleswas wrong, he was not convinced that the rules themselves werea reasonable standard,

I personally don't think there'snecessarily something wrong with paying oollegeathletes. It is breaking the rules. That's what makes itwrong. But forgetting the rules for a ninute . . . I'm not sure there's something wrong withthat (paying athletesl. But if you go that and say thatonce you acknowledge that the :TB:demist and that you're goingto follow them, then that can be considered wrongdoing.

Marx, then, faced a "personalbattle," as he put it--trying, on the one band, to presentthe MCAA violationsas "this terrible thine and realising, on th other hand, that he did not really "see that such wrong." Concequently, Marx did not experiencethe °righteous indignation" that presumably notivates the investigative reporter. Or as he expressed it inmore colloquial terms, "I didn't have that motivation of really being pissed offabout what was going on as I have in a couple of otherstories I did."

Thus what Jeff Marx andhis story illustrate ishowutterly irrelevantan individual reporter's valuescan be, unlessof course those values happen to coincidewith the values that have close to define news. And this, in turn, underscoresthe power of professionalism: once the story Ins assigned, itbecame inappro- priate to consider its moraldimensions. The question could not be whether tbs PCAA's ruleswere right or wrong. The only relevant question wee how wouldthe newspaper demonstiatethe impro- 25 27 priety and, by so doing, show the community how its moralorder had been disturbed. Gans, then, is essertially correctwhen he observesthatin moral disorder stories"the -ralues being violated are never made explicit, and that they are being violated is not discussed" (1979:56).

Taken together, the experiences of Zekman,Tofani, Marimow, and Marx suggest that whoever has thepower to define newshas the power to define moraldisorder. To be sure, news judgment-- historically and culturally--implies moral judgment, especially for the investigative reporterwhose stories almost alwaysfocus on wrongdoing. But since the moral judgmentis deeplyembedded in the structure ofnews, questions of moralitygo largely unno- ticed. Thus news judgment supersedes moral judgmentin such a way that the former encompasses, and thereby conceals, the lat- ter. Marimow demonstrates thisquite well when he observesthat reportersand editors "do actas judges and juries about what's

newsworthy, but I think that stems notso much from right and wrong but important or unimportant."But nothing betterillus- trates this than Marx'spersonal dilemma. Personally, he did not find the NCAA violations to beof great moralconsequence; but professionally, he was facedwith the inescapable logicof news-- it is newsworthy, thereforeit is wrong.

From Moral Claims to EmpiricalClaims Because investigative reporters, like otherjournalists, need to maintain their moralneutrality, the moralclaims on which their stories are baseld cannot be made explicitandtheir

(18 sense of wrongdoing cannot be assessed. Rather, professionalism in journalism requires that thereporter document the wrongdoing and provide the transgressor withan opportunitytodenythe transgression. But documenting the transgressionrequires something more than establishingit existence. Reporters also need to establish why the wrongfulconduct is wrong. Documenting thetransgression is largelya matter of gathering evidence and assessingits quality (Ettema andGlasser, 1985). But establishingthat the transgression is in facta transgressionrequires an additionalprocess--transforming moral claims intoempirical claims sothat, ultimately, the moral standards used to convey wrongdoingappear to be as empirically unambiguous as the evidenceused to document thetransgression's very existence. By definition, this process of reification involves the "naturalization" of moral claims; moralitybecomes not a judgment but a fact, and facts can be objectively reported. The investigative reporterswe studied accomplishthis through their appeal to various moralauthorities; this, in turn, involves four broadly distinguishablestrategies: 1. citing the law 2. citing codes of conduct 3. citing experts 4. appealing to commonsense

These strategies, like the strategies identifiedby Tuchman (1972) in her study of the conventionsof objective reporting, serve to insulate reporters fromthe charge of bias. By citing moral authorities and byuncritically accepting the authorities' senseof right and wrong, investigative reporterscan maintain their allegiance to the ethicof objectivity and at thesame time

27 29 dealwith the kind of moral deviance theyregard as newsworthy.

Marimowillustratesthis process through theuse of experts,

individuals who could be usedto establish why thehandlingof the K-9 unit was clearlywrong:

If you look at the K-9 story, you'llsee I like to have something to measureconduct by. . . . After the questions wereraised about the necessity for these attacks, I said, "Well, what specifically dotheguide- linessay?" I found a deposition given by Morton B. Solomon, former police commissioner of Philadelphiain which he equated theuse of dogs to the use ofdeadly force. You can use them when the police officer'slife is in mortal danger, when another citizen's life is in mortal danger . . . or to apprehend a fleeing felon. Thatwas what the police commissionersaid was the appropriate use of dogs. I wasn't satisfied with that. Iwent out and found the head ofthe New YorkTransit Aughority's K-9 unit and hesaid, "No, Solomon's wrong. Dogsare like blackjacksor nightsticks--another law enforcementtool." So through those two people Iwas able to establish parameters.

For the story that appearedin the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mailimow used the stricter standardset by the former police commissioner:

A three-month Inquirer investigationhas found that a hard core of errant K-9 policeofficers and their dogs is out of control. Furthermore, the police department hasmadenoattempttohold these men ortheir colleaguesto any sort of written guidelinesorstan- dard procedures spelling outwhen to attack and when to hold back. Nor has the department shownanyinterest in monitoringthe performance of its125-member 1(-9 unit or trying to keep track of unjustifiedattacks by dogs. . . . Former police commissioner Morton B.Solomon, in a depositiontaken in February 1982, stated thatthere were only three circumstance in whichhe believed a dog shouldbecommanded to attack--protectanofficer's life, to protect another person'slife or to apprehend a fleeing felon. But these are only Solomon's beliefs, not the rules that actuallygovern the officer anddog on the street.

Zekman's story serves well toillustrate the use of codes of conduct toestablish the basis for themoral transgressionshe

30 reported. The FBI and its standards forreporting crimebecame Zekman's moral authority. Quoting from her story:

. . . Chicagohasa secret weapon for making serious crimes disappear. Here's how it works: the police say the victim's complaint isunfounded--ineffect, that thecrimenever happened. The policerubberstamped that conclusion onmore than 9,000 robbery cases last year--one out of every three. By comparison, New York, Los Angeles and St. Louis unfounded fewer thanone out ofa hundred. We wondered why Chicago issooutof line when it's supposedto follow the same FBI guide- lines as all other cities. But Zekman went beyond theFBI standardandincluded a section in her story called "whyyou should care,"whichbas- ically outlinedthe undesirableconsequences of the police department's method of reportingcrime. She explains:

. . . there was a section on killing crime--we call it the "why [you] shouldcare" section and we sort of laid it out--here's why this affectsyou, here'swhyyou should care about [it]. And it's not necessarilya law that's been brokenor a professional ethical considera- tionthat's laid down in some statementof ethicsby some professional organization. We showed peoplehow it affectsmanpower; [how] it affectsmanpower deploy- ment in their community. . . . Tofani, in contrast, found it difficult to locateappro- priate standards. The only experts she couldfind were what she called "self-styled experts" whoseemed to be "onMars." They were not, therefore, acceptable as moral authorities. Accord- ingly, Tofani, like Zekman, appealed to common sense by citing what she viewed as obviouslyundesirable consequences, as this excerpt from her story illustrates:

It is not known whetherthe rape problems in the Prince George'sCounty jail are moreor less serious than in otherjails throughout thecountry. Few peoplehave studiedtheproblemof jail rapes; those whohave studied it tend to producemore theoriesthan facts. Perhaps as a result, the problem of jail rape is nota public issue; only rarely is iteven a topic of discus-

29 31 sion at conventions for jail officials, accordingto penologists. Yet it is a problem withserious consequences. Men who were raped in the county jail say theexperi- ences leftthem shocked, disoriented and unableto concentrateon their updoming trials. Of 15victims who were interviewed, three were later treated in men- tal institutions....

Thus the investigative reporters we interviewed dealwith moralitynot as a question of values but as a fundamentally empirical construct. The moral claims they use in their stories become little more than standards of compliance. The natureof the standards and the grounds for complianceare largely irrele- vant questions. Because standards of compliance are taken to be authoritative and are presented uncritically, a lack ofcompli- ancebecomes prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. Although Marx foundthe NCAA rules to be not very useful and compliancewith them not very important, once those rulesbecame moral authority, their violation was necessarilywrong: "What was wrong was that they were breaking rules consistentlyand with really a reckless disregard for the rules. They didn't care what the rules were."

The Press and Morality

That investigative reporters do not make moraljudgments, as the reporters we interviewed insist, is quite true ifnews is viewedat the level of its surface content. Investigative reporters claimto be morally disengaged bytransforming moral claims into empirical claims. But the empirical claims on which investigativereporters base their knowledge of right andwrong are themselves a bias--a bias detectable, however, onlywhen news is viewed at the level of its deepstructure.

30 32 Thetradition of an adversaryor watchdog pressand the practices of investigative journalism do notrepresent an "adversary culture" (cf. Trilling, 1965) And hencea threat to enduring values, asMoynihan (1971) would have us believe. On the con- trary, when thepress casts itself in the role of guardian ofthe moral order itpreserves, not challenges, dominant values. In- vestigativereporters tend to use themostauthoritative, and thusleast controversial, sources for establishingwrongdoing. Moreover, they tend to focus their storiesto only the most obvious instancesof wrongdoing. The history andconventions of investigative journalism thus suggest tous a fundamentallycon- servative role forthe press.

But in contrastto Gans (1979) who depicts thisconservative role as one that "reinforces" and"relegitimates" thestatus quo, weare inclined to present the press ina far more active role. Rather than Gans'"reflection of consensus" role for thepress, which is entirelyconsistent with the effects tradition inmass communicationresearch and thus a plausible positionfor a mainstream AmericanSociologist to take, we findmorecompelling Hall's (1982) "production of consensus"argument. FromBall's perspective, the press actively fashions and simultaneouslyle- gitimates the very consensus it ostensiblyonly conveys. The press, therefore, is an active player indefining moral order. By selectingthe moral standards it uses todefinemoral disorder news,the press in general, and investigativejournalism inparticular, is quite active--notmerey reactive--in the role it plays in determining what themoral order is andwhen it needs the kind of surveillance only the presscanprovide. This, of 31 33 course, is a considerable moral judgment on the part of the press andan ideological orientation of nosmallconsequence. But becausethe press selects from among a limited range of dominant moral standards, accepts these standards uncritically, and presents them "objectively," the press can evade responsibility for its contributionto defining and legitimating what usually appears to be an "independent" moral order.

The ideological consequences of investigative journalism are best understood in terms of the lack of a connection betweeen the press and discussions of morality. The tradition of awatchdog pressand the practices of investigative journalism function to

subvertdiscussion about moral issues --especially the moral issues surrounding the moral standards journalists use to determine moraldisorder news. Consequently, the press not only legiti- mates the prevailing moral order but undermines itsrationality

by preempting critical attention to it. Callahan speaks tothe same issue inhis assessment of the relationship between the press and Congress:

. . . the norm of objectivity makes journalists reluc- tanttocoverethical issues untilthey become so tangiblethattheyare part ofthe publicrecord. Journalists are reluctant to raise ethical issues or to analyzethemon their own. For the most partthey approach ethical issues only indirectly, through quotes elicited from others. As a result, legislative ethics is molded by journalistic practice into theformof chargesand countercharges, accusations anddenials. This distorts the process of moral dialogue and reflection in the legislative setting and leads to a preoccu- pation with what former Congressman Richard Preyer call "scandal ethics" (1985: 19).

In sum, the journalists We have examined here can deny their

moralclaims--and thereby deny the moral basis of a watchdogor

34 adversary press--because morality is embedded in thestructure of news as a form of discourse. And what defines the press'moral charge is not the values of individual journalistswe interviewed but the values that have come to definenews-as-discourse. These values become evident only ina historical and cultural treatment ofnews; they do not become apparent by examiningnews at the level of its surface meaning.

33 1 The literature on investigativejournalism includes several profiles of personalities, projects, and organizations (Downie, 1976; Dygert, 1976; Behrens, 1977; Weir & Noyes, 1983; Law- ler, 1984; Patterson & Russell, 1986) as well as a varietyof "how to" books (Anderson &Benjaminson, 1976; Bolch & Miller, 1978; Mollenhoff, 1981; Ullmann & Honeymoon, 1983).

2 Seealso Dygert (1976), whose book The New Muckrakers is subtitled "Folk Heroesof a New Era"; and Bolchand Miller (1978: 1-12), whoseintroductorychapter is called"The New American Hero."

3 For other critiques of the idea of an adversarypress, see Pool (1973) and Bethell(1977).

4 For a discussion of the values embedded inthe news story's structure, see Hallet al. (1978).

5For a discussion of objectivityas the dominant--andthus "normal"--journalistic paradigm, see Hackett (1984). For a re- lated discussion,see Hall (1982).

6 See Katz (1987) for an interesting account ofthesymbolic value of crime news "in articulating the normativelyunexpected," where the public's appetitefor newsabout crime, especially violent crime, is "understoodas serving readers, interests in re-creating daily theirmoral sensibilities throughshockand impulses of outrage" (67).

34 36 7 According to Schiller (198.0, the National Police Gazette, a 5-cent weekly published during themid-1800s, is a "fair index oftendencies in mainstreamcommercialjournalism"; for it

"merely raisedthetactic of exposure ofcivil and criminal corruption to a new level ofprominence" (125).

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