| This dissertation examines a little-studied period in the history of investigative reporting in the United States -- the period between the Muckraking Era and the 1960s. An analysis of more than 4,000 Pulitzer Prize nominations -- the first study to go beyond prize winners and include the broader reportage covered in the thousands of rejected entries -- reveals the expose as an enduring practice and, more important, a significant factor in arrangements of local power during that time. This dissertation details journalistic investigations of government corruption, social problems, businesses, crime and subversion, among other subjects. The exposes were published in newspapers of every circulation size from every corner of the country. In addition to revealing wrongdoing or system failures, these stories and the prize materials related to them reveal the development of journalism as a professional practice in the twentieth century, and the role the prize establishment played in guiding that development. They also reveal a much more complex relationship between press and power than has been portrayed in either scholarly or journalistic accounts. Journalistic investigators during these decades often found themselves mounting challenges to official power, but just as frequently they ended up acting as virtual officials themselves. This research shows, finally, that investigative reporting has been a fundamentally conservative enterprise, but one that has helped to maintain status quo power structures through the frequent identifying and public shaming of those who abuse authority within those systems. |
