New PBS Series Looks at Local Newspaper Probes

By: E&P Staff A new half-hour program looking at investigative journalists will debut tomorrow night on PBS stations, called "AIR: America?s Investigative Reports." If its initial 12-week run is judged a success, it may get renewed.

It will focus on local papers and examine one or two recent probes every week -- and how they "got that story."

Will it help burnish the image of journalists today? ?If it has the effect of revealing the kinds of things that journalists do that are invisible, that is potentially very interesting and quite good,? Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, told The New York Times. ?If all that people see of journalism on television is reporters barking questions in press conferences or talk-show hosts on TV creating fictional characters of themselves, then there?s a lot of journalism in America that people aren?t seeing.?

The first episode explores The South Florida Sun-Sentinel?s award-winning probe of pre-Katrina abuses in the Federal Emergency Management Agency. An in-depth look at the series can be found at www.nytimes.com today.