Who are the gatekeepers? How effective is investigative reporting in informing the public?

One gatekeeper of the news is the government. The government is able to control which information is released to the public and which information should be withheld. Investigative reporting is effective to an extent. Investigative reporters are driven to dig deeper and find the truth regardless of how big or small the story is. Investigative reporting often does reveal truths about people, events or places that the public wouldn’t have necessarily known. Although investigative reporting is effective most of the time, the government and law enforcement is still in control of the majority of information released to the press.

Another gatekeeper of the news is the medium in which the news in being reported. On television the news is often reported in a fairly unbiased manner, however some news channels have the reputation for being more liberal or more conservative. Although there is bias in broadcast journalism, there is a level of professionalism and education that is still maintained. However, on the internet there is far more room for bias news to be reported. Blogs and other internet news outlets are notorious for swaying to the left or to the right, heavily, as opposed to publications.