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WHAT we now know as investigative journalism used to be known as
muckraking. Muckraking was a pejorative word adapted from Paul
Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress by United States President Theodore
Roosevelt and first applied to magazine articles exposing corruption
in business and government.
Today, muckraking takes the shape of watchdog
journalism, a special aspect of interpretive reporting, although
both are considered synonymous. Giving warning is the main task of a
watchdog. Although watchdogs may be trained to be attack dogs,
watchdog journalism basically warns against dangers to freedom,
property and other rights guaranteed in a democracy. This goes with
the contemporary definition of the function of journalism as
providing information for a free society.
However watchdogs trained as attack dogs could
be, and have been, employed by vested interests against journalists.
And the irony of it all is that they operate within media itself and
it takes a sharp sense to detect a watchdog from an attack dog.
Today, watchdog journalism is the major
preoccupation in the United States, our model in journalistic—and
media—activity. The Spring issue of the Nieman Reports of Harvard
University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism is dedicated to the
21st century journalists. And probably one of our achievements in
journalism is the fact that a Filipino journalist, Sheila S. Coronel,
is a director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at
the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Sheila was a co-founder of the Philippine Center
for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), which has become a unique and
major journalism institution. At first it was considered a “wire
agency” for investigative stories. The PCIJ was a challenge to
some editors who saw that major journalistic projects, usually those
that require a series of in-depth articles, should be one of the
tasks of a newspaper. Having to share “agency” stories was just
unimaginable at a time when exclusives and scoops still reigned as
the hallmarks of a top newspaper.
But when PCIJ articles used by client
publications won major prizes in the J.V.Ongpin Investigative
Journalism Awards, editors and publishers took notice. And instead
of looking at PCIJ as a competitor, accepted it as an ally. For the
publication shares in the glory won by a PCIJ report.
In her article in the Nieman Reports issue on
muckraking, Sheila writes:
“PCIJ’s initial stories were about places .
. . that have fallen off the news map and were rarely visited by
journalists. We sent reporters across the islands to investigative
logging and published a series linking the large-scale destruction
of forests not only to natural disasters but also to the power of
logging lords, many of whom had been elected to the freshly minted
Congress.
“As we racheted up the depth and breadth of
our reporting, we saw the impact of muckraking: Several members of
the Cabinet, a Supreme Court justice, and assorted bureaucrats
resigned because of PCIJ’s exposes. Investigations had been
initiated because of the wrongdoings we have uncovered.”
But the fattest cat of them all was the
systematic exposes of the corruption, drinking, and womanizing of
Joseph Estrada, President of the Philippines. As Sheila put it:
“Estrada a flamboyant former movie star . . .
was a scandal waiting to happen. He had five wives. He was also a
gambler with a taste for high-priced French wine. We heard he was
deeply corrupt as well and so formed a team to ferret out his
wealth.
“In the course of a year, we uncovered the
companies he and his wives had formed to set up businesses and found
the dozen or so fabulous mansions he was building for them. We found
he had acquired $40 million of real estate after just two years in
office and unmasked the dummy companies that fronted for the
purchases. We proved that there was no way Estrada could
legitimately account for his acquisitions.”
Estrada was charged with and convicted of
plunder. But before he could serve his term, which could mean his
being behind bars for life, he was pardoned by President Arroyo.
opinion@manilatimes.net
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