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Journalism & Media vocabulary · Story Types and Opinion

Investigative journalism

Meaning in journalism & media, with examples

nounCore term

In journalism & media, investigative journalism means: Journalism that spends weeks or months uncovering hidden information, often about wrongdoing, corruption or abuse of power, using documents, data and confidential sources.

In Turkish: araştırmacı gazetecilik, soruşturmacı gazetecilik

How it is used

Investigative reporters work in small teams or units, and their stories are often called investigations or exposés. The work is expensive and slow, and it often leads to legal checks before publication.

Example sentences

  1. The paper's investigative journalism team spent eight months on the care home story.

  2. Investigative journalism needs time, money and good lawyers.

Common collocations

  • investigative reporter
  • investigative unit
  • fund investigative journalism
  • cross-border investigation
  • sourceA person, document or organisation that gives a journalist information for a story; also the place where a piece of information comes from.
  • anonymous sourceA person who gives information to a journalist on the condition that their name is not published, usually because they could lose their job or be in danger.
  • public interestThe benefit of society as a whole, used to judge whether publishing information, especially private or secret information, is justified.
  • featureA longer article that explores a person, place, trend or issue in depth, often with description, background and human stories rather than only the latest facts.

More terms: Story Types and Opinion

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