Factors that make journalists change hypotheses during investigations
Abstract
Journalists always go into investigative reporting with hypotheses, but few researchers have studied how journalists change their hypotheses when working on investigative stories. This research, through in-depth interviews with 14 journalists, found out that journalists changed their hypotheses because of additional information that they got from human sources, data and documents. This research also found that the original hypotheses usually came from wrong or unprovable tips, previous news stories on the same topic, editors' guidance, social movement, previous reporting experience, personal experience, and journalists' passion in revealing the hidden truth. In the end, to avoid having the wrong or unprovable hypotheses, this research suggests journalists being very cautious when trying to apply past experience to the new story ideas, carefully treating editors' guidance and tips, especially tips not coming from the insiders, and being reserved when trying to apply the social and journalistic conventions.
Degree
M.A.
Thesis Department
Rights
OpenAccess.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.