Mission Statement
To further Brandeis University’s mission by creating a community of journalists, students, and scholars that can serve as a public watchdog—seeking the truth, revealing injustices, and exposing abuses of power, while holding the powerful accountable, giving voice to the voiceless, and acting as a catalyst for social and political debate and reform.
About the Institute
The Elaine and Gerald Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, the nation’s first investigative reporting center based at a university, was launched in September 2004 to help fill the void in high-quality public interest and investigative journalism—and to counter the increasing corporate control of what Americans read, see, and hear.
Our goals:
- investigate significant social and political problems; and
- uncover corporate and government abuses of power.
Our work is focused largely on three projects:
Media criticism—holding the profession of journalism accountable for what is, and is not, reported—is another essential part of the Institute’s work.
By being housed within a university, the Institute is firmly placed within an academic tradition that honors freedom of inquiry—and that offers independence from the government influence and corporate control that too often undercut today’s media. Brandeis University, with its longstanding dedication to social justice, human rights, and the pursuit of truth wherever that might lead, is an ideal host.
Defining Investigative Reporting
Investigative journalism can be the most difficult and time-consuming form of journalism, and must meet the highest standards of proof and thoroughness. In their book "The Elements of Journalism," Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel write that “while all reporting involves some investigation, what we have come to understand as investigative journalism adds another dimension. It engages the public to come to judgment.” Another journalist calls it “reporting with a sense of outrage.”
The most basic form is “original investigative” journalism, in which reporters uncover and document “activities that have been previously unknown to the public,” using shoe-leather to track down hidden information. Another form is “interpretative investigative” reporting, which “often involves the same original enterprise skills, but usually deals with more complex subjects that require the reporters to synthesize and interpret the information to reveal new ways of looking at trends or situations.” Here, journalists add context, analysis, and explanation in order to show why the newly revealed information matters to public policy and practice.
Why This Work Is Important Now
Journalism is protected by the U.S. Constitution for a single reason: an unfettered media is essential for a healthy democracy. What you don’t know can hurt you—when it becomes bad medicine, dangerous products, unsafe or unfair working conditions, wrongful convictions, evaporated pensions, or skewed and harmful policies. Without oversight, human beings too often behave badly. When the facts are pursued with ruthless thoroughness, watchdog journalism helps keep American institutions accountable to all.
Unfortunately, the American media are gradually abdicating their roles as public watchdogs. The ongoing drive for higher media profits means that fewer and fewer resources are available for serious investigative journalism. Corporations do not want to invest in time-consuming, risky, expensive investigations—resulting in stories that may bring on lawsuits and other attacks—when the airwaves and columns can be filled much more cheaply and quickly by feel-good features, quick-hit consumer news, and tabloid entertainment.
Today, the media’s power to define and shape the globe is dramatically increasing... just as the media’s commitment of resources to difficult and time-consuming stories is diminishing. And so the Institute will help bolster the practice of investigative journalism, so vital to democracy, while helping students learn how to do investigative reporting and to appreciate how this reporting can make a direct and lasting impact on society.
Why We Engage Students in Investigative Reporting
For reporters, students, academics, and the citizenry at large, having an independent reporting center based at a university is important for three key reasons. First, the Institute’s research will move further and faster when students help dig, develop, pursue, reveal and substantiate. Second, when students see for themselves how urgent it is to question and analyze the official version of any policy or practice—and are involved in the hands-on efforts of those investigations—they develop as individuals, as professionals, and as citizens. And third, we can dig into current academic research and add its insights to public policy discussions.