Reporting on the Rio Grande

By Raul Garcia Jr. / Oct. 16, 2011

Newspapers have seen the decline in investigative reporting. Already newspapers across the country have put their paper to bed indefinitely like in Colorado's Rocky Mountain News or Philadelphia’s Inquirer and the New York Times has recently announced the downsizing of close to 2,000 jobs at the Times.

Is investigative journalism dead, Why aren't daily newspapers or weekly and monthly publications not investigating or challenging power through the press?

In 2006 esteemed author and journalist, Bob Woodward visited the Rio Grande Valley's University of Texas - Pan American to talk about Bush and the War on Iraq. He was one of the reporters that broke the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon. One blogger said I wonder what Woodward might find if he started digging in the Rio Grande Valley. The blogger went on to say that local media does not pay to uncover anything important as Watergate.

My project will work to report on investigative work to address the need for investigative journalism in the Rio Grande Valley. My research will consist of looking at the current publications and reviewing their editorial content for investigative reports for sixteen weeks.