Chapter 7: The Importance of Inquiry

Ch 7: Leo Bowman and Stephen McIwaine

A challenge for journalists is where information provided by news media begins and ends: what impacts, what expectations, what public responsibilities are created or ignored in converting events and processes into words and pictures.

Journalism practice must change to to accommodate this new uncertainty - just as it has adapted to the new communications systems that were the hallmark of the economic and social change of the past.

SETTING UP THE ENQUIRY:

In seeking to indicate that all good journalism requires ongoing investigation, Mencher, Itule and Anderson identify several phases of story development:
- each stage requires a different focus from journalists seeking to provide a truly comprehensive coverage.

THE THREE STAGES OF ENQUIRY:

- Level1: Reactive Reporting. Journalists rely on people to tell them or show them things; they need people in authority to or with special knowledge to supply them with information that enables them to tell the audience what is happening. Reactive reporting concentrates on information that originates from the sources and may be controlled by the source. * This level is good enough for the time being - it supplies those readers with information they only really want.

- Level2: Analytical Reporting. A need to go beyond reactive accounts and dig deeper. Journalists here are looking for the answers to how and why? This stage involves the role of institutions and authorities.

- Level3: Reflective Reporting. This looks at more deep seated social trends that might have set the stage for a particular news event. In goes beyond institutional accounts to include broad patterns and trends.

SATISFYING THE CRITICS:
Reporters are open to criticism if they:
1. treat initial reactive reports as if they were an end in themselves.
2. their enquiries become routine and their stories standard.
3. they construct a neat orderly reporting technique that imposes order on chaos
4. they do not pursue incompatible or varying accounts.

CONCLUSION:
Changes in technology and audience appear to be dictating a more accountable and more relevant form of journalism practice.
The three level enquiry helps journalists to seek and explore new stories which is a simple and sound technique for all journalists no matter the time they have been in the profession.