Reviewing the coverage of this year's White House scandals set me to thinking about the state of investigative reporting in America. These days investigative reporting has largely given way to and is confused with reports of investigations. No matter that prosecutors (special and not) and their targets have made selective leaks a part of their strategy. Ditto the public relations gurus who are so effective at leaking on behalf of their corporate and celebrity clients. We in the media are too often happy accepting credit for disclosing that which has been dumped in our laps.
The stories that result may be legitimate, but in too many cases relevance and importance take a backseat to titillation. The more trivial the item, it seems, the more shrill the reporting, in print and over the air. It is sometimes hard to distinguish the evening news from Hard Copy. No wonder the National Enquirer is up for sale. Circulation and profits have been falling, in part because the rest of the media have become so competitive on stories that in years past none would touch. It is not surprising that many Americans view the media with increased distrust and disgust.
TIME strives for its share of scoops, taking news tips wherever we might find them--and working through many other sources to confirm them and add context. Most weeks I am happy with the results, although we also have some scalps on our belt (this summer's infamous Tailwind story immediately comes to mind) that I wish weren't there. But along with the scoops and the stories of the week, we have devoted substantial resources to special reports that take you behind the headlines so you can understand how our society really works.
Our founder, Henry Luce, urged us through his life and in his will to practice journalism "in the public interest as well as in the interest of [our] shareholders." In recent weeks we have printed two special reports, one about a week in the life of a hospital and another on how to educate your child, that were specially crafted to help fulfill Luce's pledge. Neither has anything in common with the "Gotcha!" journalism so prevalent today, but both will endure as important investigative reports.
This week we take our commitment to public-service journalism to a new level by publishing the first of a series by Don Barlett and Jim Steele on the folly of corporate welfare. Barlett and Steele came to Time Inc. 18 months ago from the Philadelphia Inquirer, where, over 26 years, they earned their reputations as America's finest investigative reporters. Along the way they garnered almost every major journalistic prize, including two Pulitzers--for stories on auditing practices of the IRS and special tax breaks engineered by Congress--two Loeb awards for business reporting and four George Polk awards.
Although their reporting always makes a point, it doesn't reflect a point of view so much as conclusions gained from extraordinary digging. This series has included interviews with several hundred people in 24 states. "If you ask Don and Jim the sources for a point, be prepared for memos that tell you more than you ever want to know," says Steve Lovelady, the Time Inc. editor-at-large who worked on this project and who, as the Inquirer's managing editor before that, worked with Don and Jim on half a dozen other major series.