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Journalism & Media
How News Gets Made
The craft, structure and rules behind a published story.
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The "five Ws" of reporting are who, what, when, where and what else?
Scoops That Changed Things
Reporting rarely changes anything on its own. These ten pieces of work are the exceptions people still cite.
About this topic
Investigative reporting is slow, expensive and usually inconclusive, which is why the cases that worked are quoted so often. Some worked because a document escaped: the Pentagon Papers, the Mossack Fonseca files. Some worked because a reporter went somewhere nobody else would, as Nellie Bly did when she had herself committed to an asylum in 1887. Some worked because someone kept counting when everyone else looked away, which is what Ida B. Wells did with lynching records in the 1890s. What they share is a fight over publication as much as a fight to find out. Zola went to court and then into exile. The Sunday Times took its thalidomide reporting through the House of Lords and on to Strasbourg. The Washington Post published while the White House questioned its ownership of broadcast licences. The reporting is only half of each story; the other half is whether it could be printed.
Questions & answers
Scoops That Changed Things: all 10 questions and answers
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1Which newspaper's reporting on the Watergate break-in led to President Nixon's resignation?
- A The New York Times
- B The Chicago Tribune
- C The Los Angeles Times
- D The Washington Post Correct
Answer: D. The Washington Post
Why: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein wrote the reports through 1972 and 1973. Their most important source, known as Deep Throat, was revealed in 2005 to be the FBI official Mark Felt.
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2The Pentagon Papers revealed what?
- A Wiretapping of foreign embassies
- B A plan to close domestic military bases
- C A secret government history of American decision-making in Vietnam Correct
- D Cost overruns in the space programme
Answer: C. A secret government history of American decision-making in Vietnam
Why: Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study, leaked it in 1971. The Supreme Court refused to block publication, in a landmark ruling against prior restraint.
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3Emile Zola's open letter "J'accuse" intervened in which affair?
- A The Boulanger crisis
- B The Dreyfus case in France Correct
- C The Panama Canal bribery scandal
- D The trials after the Paris Commune
Answer: B. The Dreyfus case in France
Why: It ran across the front page of L'Aurore in January 1898. Zola was convicted of criminal libel and fled to England to avoid prison.
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4How did the reporter Nellie Bly investigate a New York mental asylum in 1887?
- A She had herself committed to it under a false identity Correct
- B She interviewed released patients over several years
- C She obtained its records through the courts
- D She worked there as a nurse for a year
Answer: A. She had herself committed to it under a false identity
Why: She spent ten days inside the Blackwell's Island asylum, and her account for the New York World forced a grand jury inquiry. She later travelled around the world in seventy-two days as a stunt for the same paper.
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5Ida B. Wells is best known for investigative writing about what?
- A Child labour in textile mills
- B Conditions in meatpacking plants
- C Corruption in New York city government
- D Lynching in the American South Correct
Answer: D. Lynching in the American South
Why: She compiled case-by-case evidence showing that accusations of assault were usually pretexts. Her Memphis newspaper office was destroyed by a mob in 1892 and she continued the work from the North.
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6The term "muckraker" was applied to which group?
- A Cartoonists who caricatured politicians
- B Publishers of cheap sensational fiction
- C Early twentieth-century American magazine reporters exposing corruption Correct
- D Union organisers in the coal fields
Answer: C. Early twentieth-century American magazine reporters exposing corruption
Why: Theodore Roosevelt used it in a 1906 speech and meant it as a rebuke. Ida Tarbell's nineteen-part investigation of Standard Oil is the best-known work of the group.
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7Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle led directly to what?
- A New restrictions on immigration
- B Federal food inspection laws in the United States Correct
- C A national ban on child labour
- D The founding of the FBI
Answer: B. Federal food inspection laws in the United States
Why: He had written it to expose conditions for immigrant workers, and later said he had aimed at the public's heart and hit its stomach instead. The Pure Food and Drug Act followed in 1906.
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8The Boston Globe's Spotlight team won a Pulitzer for investigating what?
- A The covering up of abuse by Catholic clergy Correct
- B Fraud in city construction contracts
- C Police misconduct in drug prosecutions
- D Mismanagement of school funds
Answer: A. The covering up of abuse by Catholic clergy
Why: The 2002 reporting showed that accused priests had been moved between parishes rather than removed. A film named after the team dramatised the work in 2015.
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9The Panama Papers were based on documents leaked from what kind of organisation?
- A A Swiss private bank
- B A shipping registry
- C A national tax authority
- D A law firm that set up offshore companies Correct
Answer: D. A law firm that set up offshore companies
Why: More than eleven million files came from Mossack Fonseca in Panama City. Around four hundred journalists in dozens of countries worked through them together before publishing in 2016.
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10The Sunday Times investigation into thalidomide concerned what?
- A Unsafe car fuel tanks
- B Asbestos used in school buildings
- C A drug that caused birth defects and the compensation owed to families Correct
- D Contaminated blood supplies
Answer: C. A drug that caused birth defects and the compensation owed to families
Why: The paper fought a long battle to publish, losing in the House of Lords and later winning at the European Court of Human Rights. The judgment led Parliament to narrow the English law of contempt.
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