Investigative journalism never provides an instant story. It goes through recognized
stages of planning and reporting, and has to work to accepted standards of
accuracy and evidence. And this could take weeks and months to write and
research.
A
successful investigative journalist must be curious have an inquiring mind and
be very meticulous enough so as to unearth the truth. They are also initiative,
flexible, and fair with strong ethics. In the quest to getting to the root of
an issue to ascertain the precision also requires taking ethics into serious
consideration. Since investigative reporting often takes time and carries legal
risk, it is prudent to carefully plan, verify information, being very critical
about checking and rechecking facts in order to minimize harm.
As
far as investigative journalism is concerned, several methods have been
propounded to unravel the truth about issues. They include surveillance,
survey, interview, and documentary. Depending on the case in focus, any of the
methods could be used. However, considering food inspection, all the methods
could be applied to unravel truth.
Food
inspection is done to ensure that best practices are employed in terms of
cooking and food preservation as well as to save the public from food poisoning.
Therefore
taking up the challenge to investigate into such activities is very crucial to
public health. An investigative journalist who wants to unravel how food inspection
is done could for instance get an undercover job as a food inspector. This way
they could critically observe the activity of inspectors and have easy access
to any food inspection document for evaluation as well. The reporter having
secure the undercover job, could also have access to any restaurant of their
choice and have the opportunity to do a thorough observations of procedures and
conditions under which food is prepared. Where procedures contradicts known
processes or defined procedures, find out what influences the lack of
compliance.
Where
it is observed that inspectors are not skipping inspections yet food is not
prepared under hygienic conditions, the journalist could probe into who usually
inspects the restaurant in question. Is it the case that the inspector has no
idea about what to inspect? Or his palm is greased so that operators could have
the lee-way to put the publics’ health into jeopardy. Being and insider could
also help the investigative journalist to easily lay hands on documents or
demand for documents which has records on the health condition of workers. This
will ascertain if cooks are void of communicable diseases and in fact the last
time workers underwent screening.
Note however that getting an undercover job as
a food inspector might be difficult. In this case one could observe from a
distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or
low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents
The investigative journalist could administer survey to investigate
the problem. Survey involves sampling and it could be probability and non-probability
sampling methods.
The investigative journalist uses probability sampling when conducting a
general investigation about restaurant operations. In this case the
investigator randomly selects any restaurant from sampled ones and use
questionnaire to measure the attitude of restaurant operators. However, if investigation is based on a tip
off the investigator would have to conduct a purposive sampling.
Once the sampled
restaurants are contacted survey
data collection is done, the investigator could compare data and experience with what the relevant
legislation set out, and note the failures in compliance.
Surveying a sampled
population (restaurant) would reduce the amount of work that it would take to
survey the entire target population.
Interviews are the
most common tools of journalism and investigative journalist could apply that.
As is it explained by Silverman, 1997:13, interview is a purposive conversation
to elicit response, information or answers to an issue. It could be structured,
standardized, semi-formal guided conversations and free-flowing informational
exchanges. All interviews are interactive.
In the situation
where the investigator is conducting a general investigation, they could pose
as customers of a restaurant and try to engage cooks and waiters to fish for
information
But if it is based on
tip off, they could endeavor to have an undercover job as cooks, to help them interrogate
their supposedly co-workers to find out why something is not done well. They
could use the opportunity to interview experts on the field to have enough idea
about what is expected of restaurant operators.
He uses his powers of observation
to take graphic descriptive notes and paints word-pictures of what he observed.
Investigative journalism should however beware of axe grinders
in this case.
Documentary
evidences are very vital in investigative journalism. The investigator must find out whether or not there are open sources –
public documents, news reports, and so on – that can serve to verify or
elucidate parts of their hypothesis. If so, consult them first in order to have
a better understanding of the story before speaking to people.
Incident reports: Agencies like the Food and Drugs Board, the
Environmental Protection Agencies, and the Standards Board have laid down rules
and regulations that restaurant operators are supposed to follow. But employees
make “mistakes.” The occasions when such errors or mishaps occur, require an
official report will be spelled out in the agency’s manual or legal codes.
Demand those reports.
Inspection reports: should a disaster occur, find out inspectors
responsible for inspecting the facility. Look for reports and their authors. But
if there’s no report, that’s a story: Why wasn’t the agency watching? If there
is, and it predicts a disaster, why was nothing done to prevent it?
The reporter could also tracked
previous reports of attempts by political organizations to get government
action, and incorporate that information into his final story too.
In the nutshell, an investigative
reporter could have to use all the tools above to unearth truth.
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