The Investigative DNA

Abstract

Building off previous literature on journalistic roles, this study showed that local television investigative reporters were more adversarial and placed greater value on audience appeal compared to other journalists. A factor analysis of survey responses (N = 165) revealed five functions describing investigative journalists’ perceived roles: adversarial, interpretive, entertainer, traditionalist, and mobilizer. Using Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchical model, individual- and organization-level variables were used as predictors in multivariate regression analyses. These analyses indicated that investigative journalists at stations owned by publicly traded companies were significantly more likely to subscribe to traditional news values. Other significant predictors of investigative role included ethnicity, amount of investigative work, market size, and an organization’s emphasis on quality journalism.