ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the story of India’s investigative journalism by situating it in historical and contemporary contexts, with major examples that had impact, and dwells on reasons for its recent neutering to the extent that reporters’ instincts to probe an issue deeply have been virtually annihilated. It recalls three examples of investigative reporting before focusing on some reasons for the decline in recent years of what Protess et al. called ‘journalism of outrage’. The most-known examples of investigative journalism are from Indian Express, which describes itself as practicing ‘journalism of courage’. Its focus on anti-establishment reporting peaked from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s, when its publisher, Ramnath Goenka, allowed significant freedom to his editors: Arun Shourie, B. G. Verghese and S. Nihal Singh, who went on to acquire legendary status in Indian journalism.
