Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue

Front Cover
Columbia University Press, 1998 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 233 pages

This book is the culmination of more than a decade of research and writing on the nature of investigative journalism as a form of social and moral inquiry. Focusing on the work of a number of award-winning investigative reporters, James S. Ettema and Theodore L. Glasser punctuate their analysis of news and journalism with interviews with these writers and excerpts from their stories.

Custodians of Conscience provides a powerful assessment and critique of the tensions and contradictions that characterize modern American journalism. It is a book that honors the rigor and importance of investigative journalism by showing how facts implicate values and by explaining why the future of news requires a deeper appreciation for the connection between human knowledge and human interest.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction The Reporters Craft as Moral Discourse
1
In Search of Skills Not Taught in Textbooks
17
The Paradox of the Disengaged Conscience
61
The Irony of IronyinJournalism
85
The Morality of Narrative Form
111
The Intimate Interdependence of Fact and Value
131
Journalistic Judgment and the Reporters Responsibility
155
The Values of News
183
Notes
203
Bibliography
219
Index
227
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases