Once a journalist has decided on a topic, the information-gathering phase begins. The author of the American textbook on news writing, Melvin Mencher, distinguishes three levels of information – official, spontaneous and investigative. If we compare it to mining, the official level of information is what is on the surface, the spontaneous level is what lies shallow underground, and the investigative level is those deposits for which you have to go deep underground.
The information on the surface is press releases and all kinds of staged events (press conferences, rallies, ceremonies). The peculiarity of official-level information is that it is, if not completely, then to a large extent prepared by the public relations specialists of the relevant structures, and therefore one cannot rely on this information. Even if it does not contain straightforward lies, a part of the truth, which would be unpleasant for the speaker, is always withheld, and it is impossible to get a correct idea about anything on the basis of official information alone. Some journalists, however, have to deal mostly with official-level information. These are, for example, presidential pool correspondents, government correspondents, parliamentary correspondents.
Information at the spontaneous level is events taking place by themselves, life as it is. This level of information includes all kinds of experiments from the “tried-and-true” series, such as a journalist trying to sell something, buy it or get a loan. Or after an official announces that the houses of all disaster victims have been repaired, the journalist goes to the village and checks to see if and how the houses have been repaired. Spontaneous level information can complement official level information when the journalist finds out how things really are in the field. Sometimes the official level of information turns into spontaneous information, for example, when at a press conference a distraught newsmaker starts saying things he didn’t plan to say.
Investigative level information is information about the causes of what is happening, and it is information that someone is trying to hide. For example, a journalist who finds out that the houses of disaster victims have not been repaired begins to find out where the money allocated from the budget for such repairs has disappeared. Or a journalist who learns that a dangerous criminal has been detained and immediately released from custody, tries to find out who made that decision and why. Investigative level information is relatively rare in the media. Firstly, it is due to the difficulty of obtaining it, because investigations require both a highly qualified journalist and the courage of the journalist and editor to publish an article, which would be an accusation against corrupt officials, unscrupulous businessmen and representatives of the criminal world. Secondly, investigations are very time-consuming compared to gathering official and even spontaneous information, so not every publication can afford to engage in investigative journalism for economic reasons. After all, while an article based on information of the first two levels may be written by a journalist on a daily or, at most, weekly basis, an investigation may take up to several months. Accordingly, such an article will cost the editorial office 10-30 times more than an ordinary material.
In journalism, there are three ways of obtaining information: observation, work with sources, and analysis of existing information.
Observation is either external or included. In the first case, the journalist is not involved in the event; in the second case, he or she is. For example, when a journalist observes what is happening at a rally, it is external observation; when he or she goes on an expedition as a participant, it is included.
Observation can also be open or covert. In the first case, the journalist reveals his/her professional affiliation and those around him/her know that he/she is a journalist. In the second case, others do not know this. This type of observation is sometimes called the “mask method” or the “change of profession method,” in which the journalist, as a rule, comes into contact with these people in some other capacity to expose someone’s abuses, such as trying to sell his or her harvest at the market in the guise of a farmer, trying to find work at a capital construction site in the guise of a guest worker, or trying to obtain a license to engage in a certain type of business in the guise of an entrepreneur.