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Who is the Real Target? Media Response to Controversial Investigative Reporting
Unformatted Document Text:  ICA-6-11300 1 Who is the Real Target? Media Response to Controversial Investigative Reporting Abstract This study examines elite print media reaction to two controversial investigative reports: ABC’s 1992 Primetime Live report on Food Lion supermarkets and NBC’s 1992 Dateline NBC story on General Motors’ trucks. The case studies and content analysis of print coverage of these controversies suggest that scholars should pay greater attention to how media response to investigative reporting can influence its ability to act as a watchdog on power and provide a diverse marketplace of ideas. In both cases, corporate targets of investigative reporting used litigation and public relations to divert media attention from muckrakers’ charges against targets to questions of newsgathering ethics. Ironically, we find that the more that news organizations under attack defend their right to muckrake, the more they risk the rest of the news media burying the disputed story under discussion of First Amendment rights and media ethics. In addition, the print response studied here did not offer much diversity of viewpoint on these controversies, privileging the views of corporate targets over victims and their advocates.

Authors: Raphael, Chad., Tokunaga, Lori. and Wai, Christina.
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ICA-6-11300
1
Who is the Real Target? Media Response to Controversial Investigative Reporting
Abstract
This study examines elite print media reaction to two controversial investigative reports:
ABC’s 1992 Primetime Live report on Food Lion supermarkets and NBC’s 1992 Dateline NBC
story on General Motors’ trucks. The case studies and content analysis of print coverage of these
controversies suggest that scholars should pay greater attention to how media response to
investigative reporting can influence its ability to act as a watchdog on power and provide a
diverse marketplace of ideas. In both cases, corporate targets of investigative reporting used
litigation and public relations to divert media attention from muckrakers’ charges against targets
to questions of newsgathering ethics. Ironically, we find that the more that news organizations
under attack defend their right to muckrake, the more they risk the rest of the news media
burying the disputed story under discussion of First Amendment rights and media ethics. In
addition, the print response studied here did not offer much diversity of viewpoint on these
controversies, privileging the views of corporate targets over victims and their advocates.


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