Investigative Reporting Outlook Not Bright

A Q&A with Byron Harris of Belo's WFAA (Dallas, TX). He is one of broadcasting's pre-eminent investigative reporters, having earned all of broadcast journalism's most prestigious awards, including this year a Peabody and a Murrow for an on-going expose of for-profit career schools.

Belo is one of the handful of station groups that is bucking the trend, he says in this interview. Instead of marginalizing investigative reporting as most groups are doing, he says, Belo is nurturing it, convinced that it sets its stations apart and above its competitors. In most places, investigative reporting is a victim of broadcasters' obsession with the bottom line, and the merging of news operations within markets is only making matters worse, he says. The situation has left him pessimistic about the future of his corner of broadcasting. "The reality is investigative reporting has been disappearing and it will continue to disappear regardless of whether stations consolidate or not."