So what is it really like?
"It's not like the movies at all. I've never gotten free designer shoes or turned up in a magazine photo shoot, like Carrie Bradshaw. I've never slept with a source or been shoved onto a train platform, like House of Cards. Yeah, every now and then I go on TV, but 90 percent of time what I'm doing probably seems really boring" - a quote from Diana Moskovitz, an investigative reporter who wrote the article "14 Things I wish I Knew Before Becoming an Investigative Reporter". Remember, investigative journalism can be boring, gruesome, and frustrating, but it can also be rewarding, exciting, and unique.
WATCH: Here's a video I found really interesting! Carol Marin is an investigative reporter who shared her stories about investigating crime.
READ: Confessions of an Investigative Reporter by Matthew Schwartz. Matthew Schwartz was ordered to lie on TV. He's been arrested, had a baseball bat swung at his head, and much more. His book reveals all the exciting truthes about being an investigative journalist.
Famous Investigative Journalists
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are the most famous double-act in journalism. They broke the Watergate scandal in 1972, a scandal involving President Richard Nixon, and eventually led to his resignation in 1974.
Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for his reporting work for The Color of Money, articles he wrote about the discrimination low-income Black families faced from their mortgage lenders. He's also worked on stories such as Long Island Divided, multiple stories involving the Obama administration. He then worked on the most popular story on NBCNews.com, about Huguette Clark, a reclusive painter and heiress.
Seymour Hersh is an investigative journalist who worked for the New York Times from 1972-1975, and then in 1979. He would often write about the military, intelligence, foreign policy, and other difficult topics to investigate.