WSMV Channel 4 News chief investigative reporter and anchor Jeremy Finley says investigative journalism is outrage.
“That’s what investigative journalism is all about,” Finley said at this month’s edition of Media Masters Tuesday evening to a crowd of communication and journalism students at the Ezell Center.
“It is outrage on a lot of different platforms,” Finley said. “When I come on the air with a story, that’s what I’m bringing. I’m bringing outrage of some kind.”
To Finley, investigative journalism involves digging deeper than just reporting on a story.
“I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t just want to cover, I wanted to uncover. That’s the difference between general assignment and investigative.”
Uncover, he did. Over the course of his career, Finley has exposed corruption, crime, how taxpayer dollars are being used, what public officials are doing and many scams that are out in the nation.
Finley discussed an unusual case involving prison inmates updating Facebook pages from behind bars. The inmates had smuggled cellphones into their cells, and were using social media to show the public their life behind bars.
Finley and his team did an investigative piece on the issue, which led to 15 more investigative stories on the smuggling activities of prison wardens and inmates.
The story also led the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to investigate the state prisons.
Finley said that although investigative journalism has given him a lot of experience, some of his most memorable experiences came before he stepped into that field. Finley recalled helicopter rides, cave expeditions and covering the Summer Olympics in Greece.
Besides investigating, Finley also anchors the station’s four o’clock news broadcast. He says, this way, he gets the best of both worlds.
“What I like to say is I get to read the paper for an hour,” Finley said. “Not everyone gets to do that, but I get to do that by anchoring the news everyday.”
Photo credit: Erin Turner