Assessing the Practice of Investigative Journalism on Broadcast Media in Tigray
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Date
2020-06
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AAU
Abstract
This research is conducted to investigate the practice of investigative journalism on broadcast media in Tigray. The study discussed legal protection, the practice of investigative reporting, professional investigative reporting standards, institutionalizing of investigative journalism, capacity building and challenges in the practice of investigative reporting. The research project is guided by fourth estate theory. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were applied. The data of questionnaire survey (193 respondents) was based on stratified sampling, the content analysis (53 semi investigative programs) and four case studies selected through snowball sampling while in-depth interview (27 interviewees) employed purposive sampling. Besides, the correlation between various variables of the practice of investigative journalism is computed by SPSS. The media institutions justified lack of budget and resources, limitations in human resource and defects in professional capacities of the journalists as reasons for compromising investigative reporting while most of the journalists described media partisanship as a main challenge. The media organizations and journalists coined their practice of critical reporting as ‘‘semi-investigative’’ reporting to mean exploring investigative issue with less depth, not fully researched agenda setting and limitations in follow-up reporting. The producers of semi-investigative programs are highly challenged by lack of information and harassment from externalities while discouragement through censoring and even ignoring their programs from dissemination by their editors and media managers took the lead intrusion in their daily practice. Therefore, the broadcast media in Tigray are expected to institutionalize and strategize investigative reporting so as to win the interest of the public.
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The broadcast media in Tigray