Wojciech Adamczyk

Muckraker websites (American and European examples)

The goal of the article is to compare contemporary websites used by investigative reporters for organising their inquiries and propagating their outcomes. To achieve that goal, I compare the experiences of American and European muckrakers in conducting investigative activities through websites. I analysed 10 such projects in total, 3 from the USA and 7 from Europe. The discussed criteria include the modes of financing, the size of annual budgets, the modes of operation, and HR policies.

Dziedzictwo IRE: współczesny model samoorganizacji dziennikarzy śledczych na świecie

The article is an attempt to answer the question about the impact of the Investigative Reporters and Editors` organizational model on associations of investigative journalists emerging from decades across the world. The author discusses the development of investigative reporters organizations associating muckrakers in different countries. In particular, adopted forms of action and goals of these associations were discussed. The growing number and the global nature of this phenomenon leads to the institutionalization of investigative journalism in the world. There were described selected organizations in the article, particularly those which decided to adopt the model developed by the IRE. In relation to other journalists’ associations author points out the reasons for rejection formula developed by the muckrakers from USA.

„Gatemania” jako przykład tabloidyzacji śledztw dziennikarskich

The author of the paper analyzes the phenomenon of ‘gatemania’ in the mass media, paying particular attention to its influence on investigative journalism. Both the origins and evolution of this disturbing trend are discussed, beginning with William Lewis Safire. The author presents a broad range of definitions of the notion of ‘gatemania’, coined by the British journalist working for The Guardian, David Marsh. The paper enumerates a number of media scandals the media have referred to using the -gate suffix, ordering them by the three most frequent criteria. The relations between the stages of a classical model of muckraking and the components of a scandal are discussed, along with the elements that distinguish investigative journalism from tabloid-like journalism. In the opinion of the author, excessive use of the -gate suffix serves the purpose of the tabloidization of the message and is usually inadequate in relation to the event described; another reason for its use is to mislead readers, by implying that the articles are a result of investigative journalism.