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Department of Communication, Language and Literature
Lit 504 Marking Scheme—Trimester 1—2014
College of Humanities and Education
School Of Education
Lautoka
P.O. Box 5529, Lautoka FIJI. Telephone: 6662833 Facsimile 6666937
Website: www.fnu.ac.fj
TRIMESTER 1 EXAMINATION 2014
LIT 504: APPROACH TO LITERARY STUDIES
(3 HOURS)
(An extra ten minutes will be given for reading)
I.D
__________________________________
DISCIPLINE
_________________________________
INSTRUCTIONS:
SECTION
QUESTIONS
TIME
ALLOCATION
MARKS
A
LITERARY ANALYSIS
30 min.
15
B
Answer any five questions
FICTION, LITERARY THEORY AND WRITING CRAFT
30 min.
15
30 min.
15
D
Answer any five questions
DRAMA AND POETRY ANALYSIS
Answer any five questions
CREATIVE WRITING AND PRESCRIBED BOOKS
30 min.
20
E
Answer one question only
ESSAY
60 min.
35
C
Answer one question only
TOTAL
3 hours
100
-All Sections are compulsory. Note the choices in all sections.
-Answer all sections in the Answer Booklet provided.
Section A
Literary Analysis
(15 marks)
Questions
Each question carries three marks.
Write about thirty words on any five of the following:
1) Literary criticism
2) The dramatic reversal
3) Literature (definition)
4) The difference between literature and literariness
5) The Gothic novel
6) Genre fiction
7) Fable
Section B
Fiction, literary theory and writing craft
Questions
Each question carries three marks.
Write about thirty words on any five of the following:
1) The Modernist reaction to realistic fiction
2) Post-colonial studies
3) Point of view
4) The epistolary novel
5) Five types of characters
6) Crime fiction
7) The stream of consciousness
(15 marks)
8) Investigative journalism
SECTION C
Drama and poetry analysis
(15 MARKS)
QUESTIONS
Each question carries three marks.
Write about thirty words on any five of the following:
1) The difference between theatre and drama
2) The theory of conflict
3) The structure of the modern play
4) Concrete goals and active goals
5) Features of the epic theatre
6) Alliteration
7) Symbolism
8) The structure of the modern play
9) Surrealism
10) The theatre of alienation
SECTION D
Creative writing and prescribed books
QUESTION
This question carries 20 marks.
(15 MARKS)
1) Write a story about a person you like (not more than 300 words), giving a character sketch that
includes the five ingredients of characterization.
2) Write a book review (not more than 300 words) on any of the following books: (a) Emily
Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, (b) James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, (c) Truman
Capote’s In Cold Blood, and (d) V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street.
SECTION E
Essay
(35MARKS)
QUESTION
This question carries 35 marks.
Choose one of the following and write an essay between 550 and 600 words:
1) The difference between Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre and Konstantin Stanislavsky’s realistic
theatre
2) Investigative journalism as a literary genre
SOLUTIONS
Department of Communication, Language and Literature
Lit 504 Marking Scheme—Trimester 1—2014
College of Humanities and Education
School Of Education
Lautoka
P.O. Box 5529, Lautoka FIJI. Telephone: 6662833 Facsimile 6666937
Website: www.fnu.ac.fj
TRIMESTER 1 EXAMINATION 2014
LIT 504: APPROACH TO LITERARY STUDIES
(3 HOURS)
(An extra ten minutes will be given for reading)
I.D
__________________________________
DISCIPLINE
_________________________________
INSTRUCTIONS:
SECTION
QUESTIONS
TIME
ALLOCATION
MARKS
A
LITERARY ANALYSIS
30 min.
15
B
Answer any five questions
FICTION, LITERARY THEORY AND WRITING CRAFT
30 min.
15
30 min.
15
D
Answer any five questions
DRAMA AND POETRY ANALYSIS
Answer any five questions
CREATIVE WRITING AND PRESCRIBED BOOKS
30 min.
20
E
Answer one question only
ESSAY
60 min.
35
3 hours
100
C
Answer one question only
TOTAL
Section A—Literary Analysis
Solution
1) Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism
is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals.
Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always
been, theorists.
Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary
theory, or conversely from book reviewing, is a matter of some controversy. For example, the Johns
Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction between literary theory and
literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept.
2) The dramatic reversal
The dramatic reversal [where the history of literature has become a part of the history of criticism],
which occurred gradually over the course of the twentieth century, means that the history of
criticism and theory increasingly provides the general framework for studying literature and culture.
Some literary scholars and writers deplore the shift toward “theory,” regarding it as a turn away
from literature and its central concerns.
3) Literature (definition)
“What is literature?”—can be, and regularly is, answered by associating literature with such key
terms as representation, expression, knowledge, poetic or rhetorical language, genre, text, or
discourse.
In our ordinary understanding, literature represents life; it holds up, as it were, a mirror of nature
and is thus “mimetic.”
The expressive theory of literature, which regards literature as stemming from the author’s inner
being, similarly depends on a notion of mirroring, though here literature reflects the inner soul
rather than the external world of the writer.
4) The difference between literature and literariness
Modern theorists often insist that the language of literature, unlike those of newspapers and
science, foregrounds poetic effects (particularly tropes and figures) that range from alliteration,
assonance, metaphor, and paradox to rhythm and rhyme.
In this “formalist theory” of literature or poetics, neither depiction of external or internal reality nor
knowledge about existence or refined emotion distinguishes literature from ordinary and scientific
discourse: instead “literariness (or “poeticity” renders literature distinctive and special.
By emphasizing the literariness of literature, they [writers] would accord it a distinctive and elevated
aesthetic status over competing domains and fields, ensuring its survival and dignity in challenging
times.
Such a formalist theory of literature prevailed in the early and mid-twentieth century among AngloAmerican New Critics and Slavic formalists.
5) The Gothic novel
The Gothic novel , or “Gothic romance,” is a type of prose fiction which was inaugurated by Horace
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764)—the subtitle refers to its setting in the
middle ages—and flourished through the early nineteenth century.
Following Walpole’s example, authors of such novels set their stories in the medieval period , often
in gloomy castle furnished with dungeons, subterranean passages, and sliding panels, focused on
the sufferings imposed on an innocent heroine by a cruel and lustful villain, and made bountiful use
of ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and other sensational and supernatural occurrences (which
in a number of novels turned out to have natural explanations)
6) Genre fiction
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is plot-driven fictional works written with the intent of
fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that
genre. Genre fiction is generally distinguished from literary fiction.
Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee defines genre conventions as the "specific settings, roles,
events, and values that define individual genres and their subgenres."
7) Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures,
plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities
such as verbal communication), and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a
"moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly in a pithy maxim.
Section B—Fiction, literary theory, and writing craft
1) The Modernist reaction to realistic fiction
Realistic Victorian fiction had aimed to portray reality through a plausible and interesting story. The
story involved credible and lifelike characters who spoke naturalistic dialogue in carefully
described settings.
In the first two decades of the 20th century the reaction against the realistic tradition of Victorian
fiction, which had already started at the end of the previous century, became more apparent and
writers shifted their interest to the problem of representing individual consciousness.
This emphasis on the individual after the war became part of a general movement in literature
usually referred as Modernism. Modernist novels set out to challenge the traditional conventions
of fiction. They were mostly concerned with the search for techniques to portray the complexity of
the inner life of the individual.
2) Post-colonial studies
Post-colonial study (studies) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the global impact of European
colonialism from its beginnings in the fifteenth century to the present. Broadly speaking, it aims to
describe the mechanisms of colonial power, to recover excluded or marginalized “subaltern”
[subordinate] voices, and to theorize the complexities of colonial, neocolonial, and post-colonial
identity; national belonging; and globalization.
3) Point of view
Sherri Szeman, in her Mastering Point of View, defines point of view to show its difference from
voice. She feels that point of view is not determined by the main character (whether you call him
protagonist or antagonist, viewpoint character, focal character, or implied character). But point of
view is “how the novel is written . . . how the book is written, not who or what it is about. When the
author describes different characters or settings but does not change how he is writing about them,
then he is changing focus but maintaining the same point of view. You can change the direction the
camera is pointing—focus—or you can switch from black-and-white to color film—perspective—but
to change point of view is to change the camera from a video camera to an 8mm camera. Changing
point of view changes the author’s experience of the novel as well as the reader’s . . . when the
author gives different versions of the same events, perhaps all written in the first person point of
view, for example, he is giving us perspective but not changing point of view.”
4) The epistolary novel
The epistolary novel employs a unique point of view: that is, they're written in the form of letters
(or, nowadays, it could be e-mails) between characters. All the action happens off-stage, as it were,
and the reader only hears about it afterwards as it's relayed in the correspondence.
The letter can be to the person involved in the action, or to a third person.
An example of the first might be:
Dear Gary,
Thanks so much for a wonderful time last night. It was so wonderful to see you - I was so excited
waiting for you! How clever of you to think of bringing me to the ballet, I really enjoyed it. And when
you kissed me afterwards ... I thought my heart would melt.
5) Five types of characters
Steven Schoen, in his The Truth about Fiction, outlines and explains the four concepts—primary,
secondary, tertiary, and incidental. He posits that a character is primary when the vein of a story
instantiates the central character (protagonist), who becomes a major character with a major goal.
The secondary character evolves as the antagonist with whom the major character interacts with in
major ways. The tertiary incorporates key characters the protagonist deals with on his way to his
goal. The incidental character retracts in the background and stays there.
The fifth character is the cultural character that represents various groups, ideas, and institutions of
a particular society, and may change from culture to culture.
6) Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their
motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction
or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred. It has several sub-genres,
including detective fictive fiction (such as the whodunit, legal thriller, courtroom drama, and hardboiled fiction.
In this genre, four words are very important: “suspense,” “speed,” “thrill,” and “variation.” The
writer, to hook his reader to the story, has to employ these four elements and to write short, simple
sentences devoid of complex poetic devices and difficult words
7) The stream of consciousness
Stream of Consciousness was a phrase used by William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890)
to describe the unbroken flow of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings in the waking mind; it has since
been adopted to describe a narrative method in modern fiction.
Long passages of introspection, describing in detail what passes through a character’s awareness,
are found in novelists from Samuel Richardson to Henry James; the long chapter 42 of James’
Portrait of a Lady, for example, is entirely given over to the narrator’s description of the process of
Isabel’s memories, thoughts, and feelings.
Section C—Drama and poetry analysis
1) The difference between theatre and drama
Theatre derives from the Greek word “theatron,” and theatron means “a place for seeing.” “Place”
then means the structure for performance. But theatre is not simply a place, and it isn’t only for
seeing.
Theatre is a place for pretending, to make-believe, to dress-up games etc. Theater is “play.” . . . But
yet in its largest sense, theater is the human arena for our understanding of the human condition.
It reveals human truth by showing that truth onstage. It is a place for giving a spotlight on actions,
shapes, sounds, and meaning of existence. In theatre, audiences gather to witness thoughts and
emotions, shapes and sounds.
Drama comes from the Greek dran, to do, to act. In his Poetics, Aristotle, defined drama as “an
imitation of action.” Written drama– processed into performed drama—is the reproduction of
people performing actions: people doing.
So, the terms drama and theater are not interchangeable; [that is], not the same. Drama consists of
characters in conflict and in action. Theatre is both the arena for the action and the sensory
experience of that action. In other words theatre is the container, drama the content.
2) The structure of the modern play
Act I—Establish the Problem: (i) show the ordinary world of the protagonist in the Exposition, (ii)
introduce the Inciting Incident/ Point of Attack that disrupts the ordinary world of the protagonist,
(iii) and make the stakes clear and compelling should the protagonist fail.
Act II--Complicate the Problem: (i) the conflict grows deeper and broader with Confrontations, (ii)
and the initial response by the protagonist proves inadequate.
Act III--Resolve the Problem: Events reach their inevitable Climax and Resolution. The protagonist
will win in the Climax or a revelation will be made.
3) Concrete goals and active goals
Concrete goals are always better than abstract ones. What are some of the things characters in
great plays want? Sex, money, power, love, a jewel, a key, an answer, a job, fortune, a crown,
revenge, truth, justice. Which of these are abstract goals? Which are concrete? Abstract goals
are not tangible, they cannot be material. They are concepts. They are important and worthy of
a character’s desire, but they have no stage presence. Concrete wants/needs/desires/ goals are
tangible. You can hold them in your hand, touch them, feel them, see them.
But you argue, isn’t the pursuit of justice a greater goal than finding a bag of money? Not in
drama. Drama takes place in the land of the concrete.
Active goals are better than reactive goals. If your character’s primary goal is to escape, to run
away, you have a real goal. . . . But if your character is running away from something, he must
also be running toward something. Running away is reactive. Running toward is active. That’s
why movie heroes on the run from the law (reactive goal) are also trying to prove their
innocence and find the real culprit (active goal)
4) Features of the epic theatre
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the
theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir
Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht.
Although many of the concepts and practices involved in Brechtian epic theatre had been
around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed the style, and popularized it.
Epic theatre incorporates a mode of acting that utilizes what he (Brecht) calls gestus.
The epic form describes both a type of written drama and a methodological approach to the
production of plays: "Its qualities of clear description and reporting and its use of choruses and
projections as a means of commentary earned it the name 'epic'." Brecht later preferred the
term “dialectical theatre.”
5) Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of speech sound in a sequence of words; the term is usually applied
only to consonants and when the recurrent sound occurs in a conspicuous position at the
beginning either of a word or of a stressed syllable within a word.
6) Symbolism
In the modern theatre, a number of movements, with radical dissimilarities, share a rejection
of realism and a desire to create a theatre outside its narrow confines.
The first of these antirealist movements, symbolism, which began in Paris in the 1880s as a
joint venture of artists, playwrights, essayists, critics, sculptors, and poets, moved beyond
the surface of realism in order to explore inner realities that cannot be literally perceived.
Using images and metaphors, the symbolists hoped to restore traditional aesthetic values of
poetry, imagery, novelty, fantasy, extravagance, profundity, audacity, charm, and
superhuman magnitude.
“Symbolic” characters, therefore, would not represent real human beings, but would
symbolize philosophical ideals of warring internal forces in the human (or artist’s) soul.
.
7) Surrealism
Surrealism (“super-realism”) was launched as a concerted artistic movement in France by Andre
Brenton’s Manifesto on Surrealism (1924).
The expressed aim was a revolt against all restraints on free creativity; included among the
restraints to be violated were logical reason, standard morality, social and artistic conventions
and norms, and any control over the artistic process by forethought and intention.
To ensure the unhampered operation of the “deep mind” which they regarded as the only
source of valid knowledge as well as art, surrealists turned to automatic writing (delivered over
entirely to the promptings of the unconscious mind), and to exploiting the materials of dreams,
of states of mind between sleeping and waking, and of natural or artificially induced
hallucinations.
8) The theatre of alienation
The theatre of alienation is one of the two main lines of the contemporary stylized theatre [the
theatre of the absurd is the other].
The guiding genius of the theatre of alienation is Bertolt Brecht . . . Brecht deplored the use of
sentimentality and the notion of audience empathy for characters and attempted instead to
create a performance style that was openly “didactic” [designed or intended to teach]: the
actors were asked to alienate, or distance themselves, from the characters they played—to
“demonstrate” (show) characters rather than to embody characters in a realistic manner.
In Brecht’s view the ideal actor was one who could establish toward his or her character a
critical objectivity that would make clear the character’s social function and political
commitment.
Section D—Creative writing and prescribed books
1) Write a story about a person you like (not more than 300 words), giving a character sketch
that includes the five ingredients of characterization.
The candidate has to write a story that shows that character’s physical, social, and psychological
dimensions. The story must have a beginning, middle, and end.
2) Write a book review (not more than 300 words) on any of the following books: (a) Emily
Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, (b) James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, (c) Truman
Capote’s In Cold Blood, and (d) V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street.
The candidate has to review one of the prescribed books, telling about (a) plot, (b)
characterization, (c) theme, (d) setting, (e) point of view, (f) atmosphere, (genre), (g) period, and
(h) Literary theoretical approach.
The candidate should choose only from the above that is relevant.
Section E—Essay
1) The difference between Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre and Konstantin Stanislavsky’s realistic
theatre
Introduction
The main types of theatre are (a) drama, (b) musical, (c) tragedy) (d) comedy, and (e)
improvisation.
Drama: Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. It derives from the
Greek word “dran,” meaning “to do.” A modern example is Long Day’s Journey into Night by
Eugene O’Neill (1956).
Musical: Music and theatre have had a close relationship since ancient times—Athenian
tragedy, for example, was a form of dance drama that employed a chorus. Modern musical
theatre is a form of theatre that also combines music, spoken dialogue, and dance.
Tragedy: Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes in its audience an
accompanying catharsis or pleasure in the viewing.
Comedy: Theatre productions that use humour as a vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies.
This may include a modern farce such as Boeing Boeing or a classical play such as As You Like It.
Theatre expressing bleak, controversial or taboo subject matter in a deliberately humorous way,
is referred to as black comedy.
Improvisation: Improvisation is a state of being and creating action without pre-planning. This
can be when an individual or group is acting, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments ,
talking, creating artworks, problem solving, or reacting in the moment and in response to the
stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of
new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act.
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the
theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir
Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht.
Although many of the concepts and practices involved in Brechtian epic theatre had been
around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed the style, and popularized it.
Epic theatre incorporates a mode of acting that utilizes what he calls gestus.
The epic form describes both a type of written drama and a methodological approach to the
production of plays: "Its qualities of clear description and reporting and its use of choruses and
projections as a means of commentary earned it the name 'epic'." Brecht later preferred the
term “dialectical theatre.”
Body
The complex of staging and playwriting used by Bertolt Brecht came to be called epic theatre.
“Epic” captured many of the qualities that Brecht prized: the mixing of narrative and dramatic
episodes, the telescoping of time and place, and the spanning of years and countries (similar to
epic poetry). (Cameron 353)
Brecht (10 February 1898– 14 August 1956) was a German poet, playwright, theatre director,
and Marxist.
Contrary to Brecht, Konstantin Stanislavsky, a Russian actor, producer and theoretician, believes
in the realistic theatre (where actors have to become the characters) and method acting.
The method [acting] requires that an actor utilize, among other things, his emotional memory
[and sense memory] (i.e., his recall of past experiences and emotions).
The actor’s entrance onto the stage is considered to be not a beginning of the action or of his
life as the character but a continuation of the set of preceding circumstances.
The actor has trained his concentration and his senses so that he may respond freely to the
total stage environment. Through empathic observation of people in many different situations,
he attempts to develop a wide emotional range so that his onstage actions and reactions appear
as if they were a part of the real world rather than a make-believe one. (Stanislavsky Method)
In attempting to repudiate the ‘magic’ of the theatre, Brecht demanded that it be made to seem
nothing more than a place for workers to present a meaningful ‘parable” of life, and he in no
way wished to disguise the fact that the stage personnel—actors and stagehands—were merely
workers doing their jobs.
In every way possible, Brecht attempted to prevent the audience from becoming swept up in an
emotional, sentimental bath of feelings: his goal was to keep the audience “alienated” or
“distanced” from the literal events depicted by the play so that they would concentrate on the
larger social and political issues the play generated and reflected.
Brecht’s theories were to have a staggering effect on the modern theatre.
In his wholesale renunciation of Aristotelian catharsis, which depends on audience empathy
with a noble character, and his denial of Stanislavsky’s basic principles concerning the aims of
acting, Brecht provided a new dramaturgy that encouraged playwrights, directors, and designers
to tackle social issues directly rather than through the implications of contrived dramatic
situations.
Combining the technologies and aesthetics of other media—the lecture hall, the slide show, the
public meeting, the cinema, the cabaret, the rehearsal—Brecht fashioned a vastly expanded
arena of dialectics: his social arguments that sought to engender truth through the
confrontation of conflicting interests.
Conclusion
2) Investigative journalism as a literary genre
Introduction
Investigative journalism is the process of researching and telling a story, usually one that someone
else is trying to hide. As writers who investigate and report information with the purpose of
facilitating change, investigative reporters are behind many of the reforms that we see today.
The Internet has led to an easy flow of knowledge, and the successful investigative journalist must
know how to use the media to take advantage of the knowledge and well-documented resources
that are widely available.
Good investigative and research skills, determination, and a keen sense of skepticism are all
important qualities to have. Courses in investigative reporting, journalism and the law, writing,
ethics, and research techniques can help to hone these critical skills.
Body
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their
motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science
fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred. It has several subgenres, including detective fictive fiction (such as the whodunit, legal thriller, courtroom drama,
and hard-boiled fiction. (Non-fiction novel)
In this genre, four words are very important: “suspense,” “speed,” “thrill,” and “variation.” The
writer, to hook his reader to the story, has to employ these four elements and to write short,
simple sentences devoid of complex poetic devices and difficult words.
Here, he/she writes as if she is writing a journalistic piece for a newspaper or magazine that
would draw a wide audience, taking into consideration that some of his/her readers are not
familiar with the higher devices of the English language. Among a hundred popular crime fiction
writers are Agatha Christie, Fredrick Forsyth, Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Alistair Maclean,
and Dorothy L. Sayers
Many fundamental techniques of investigative reporting involve actions some would label
dishonest, fraudulent, immoral, and perhaps even illegal. Since investigative reporting aims at
bringing corruption, hypocrisy, and lawbreaking to public attention, it is reasonable to expect
the news gathering profession is to act as ethically as possible.
And if all information a reporter ever needed for investigations are on file, in legally available
public records, there would be no problem: reporters could be completely candid in dealing with
people under investigation. But the major fact of investigative reporting is that people will go to
great lengths to conceal damaging evidence.
Modern investigative journalism burst upon America’s collective consciousness in 1974 when All
the President’s Men, by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward hit the
bookstore shelves. The book described their dramatic exploits digging into the corruption of the
Watergate.
Two years later the book served as the basis for a sensationalistic, blockbuster movie starring
Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in the lead roles. In August 1974, Richard Nixon became the
first American president to resign the office, driven out by a constitutional crisis that had swirled
around his administration for two years.
[With respect to the Watergate], some in the media claimed the press had brought him [Nixon]
down, though they overstated journalism’s role in the ordeal that had gripped the nation.
Nevertheless it was true that Washington’s journalist—Bernstein and Woodward especially—
had relentlessly dug into the story revealing illegal payoffs, dirty tricks, death threats, and other
political intrigues, the reporting which kept public pressure on Congress and other Washington
institutions to eventually drive Richard Nixon from the White House.
The most important job of the journalist is to seek the truth. As Pulitzer Prize winner Walter
Lippmann said in his collection of essays, Liberty and the News, “There can be no higher law in
journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil.”
Investigative journalists (often referred to as Muckrackers, a term coined during the election
campaign for Theodore Roosevelt) have a long-standing tradition in the United States of holding
those in power accountable. Whether investigating the wrongful conviction of a death-row
inmate, or exposing a financial giant for misuse of investors’ funds, investigative journalism is
critical for the upholding of a true and just democracy.
Conclusion