Dak’s Take: Investigative journalism is leaving television behind

The media industry loves to talk about the death of things. The death of cable. The death of appointment viewing. The death of the 30-second spot.

But we’re not talking enough about what’s actually dying: long-form investigative journalism on television.

Not the three-minute package that leads the evening news. Not the “exclusive investigation” that’s really just a press release with b-roll. I’m talking about the kind of work that takes months, requires lawyers, and makes advertisers nervous.

The shrinking landscape

Look around at local stations, cable news channels, national networks. What’s left?

CBS News and “60 Minutes” remain the gold standard, though even that institution faces questions about its future under new ownership of David Ellison and Skydance Media. ABC News’ “Nightline” remains hidden on the schedule. NBC, meanwhile, took a swing with “Rock Center” and struck out. And “Frontline,” well, one can hope it survives, given the impending exodus of funding and member stations on PBS.

The networks occasionally roll out a special edition of “20/20” or “Dateline” that digs deep. But these are increasingly rare. The economics don’t work. The patience required doesn’t exist. And the audiences, we’re told, aren’t there.

So the work has largely moved elsewhere.

Some of it lands at local, digital-first, nonprofit newsrooms doing important work in their communities. The Institute for Nonprofit News reported that its nearly 400 member outlets produced about 230,000 stories in 2024, with 27% focused specifically on investigative journalism and 53% covering government as a primary beat. These organizations are filling gaps left by shrinking metro dailies and retreating networks.

Advertisement

But these newsrooms, noble as their missions are, typically lack the resources for video production at scale. They’re writing 4,000-word investigations that, let’s be honest, most people aren’t going to read.

YouTube as a source of truth?

This brings us to YouTube, which has become an unlikely home for investigative work.

Creators like Johnny Harris produce visually sophisticated pieces that rack up millions of views. Organizations like More Perfect Union are breaking stories that resonate. The work reaches audiences where they actually are.

But YouTube investigations operate without the infrastructure that makes traditional journalism trustworthy… for better and worse.

There’s no standards and practices department. No layers of editors. No legal team reviewing every claim. This streamlined approach allows creators to move faster and take risks that networks won’t. It also means mistakes happen.

Harris faced criticism over sourcing in his videos. These things happen when you’re operating without the safety net of institutional journalism.

Then there’s the lens through which these stories get told. More Perfect Union doesn’t hide its progressive perspective. That’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s different. Traditional newsrooms, whatever their actual biases, at least maintain the pretense of objectivity. YouTube creators are explicitly point-of-view driven. That’s part of their appeal.

Whether you’re watching content filtered through political ideology, religious beliefs or sports fandom, everything on YouTube comes with a perspective. It’s not a newsroom. It’s an individual or a small team operating with their own worldview front and center.

Does that make the journalism less valid? Not necessarily. But it does make it different.

The format still works, so now what?

What makes this shift away from video particularly frustrating is investigative journalism is inherently visual. The confrontation. The hidden camera. The moment someone realizes they’ve been caught. Maps, satellite imagery, document reveals. This content works on television. It works on YouTube. It works in video.

Just watch how “Last Week Tonight” or “The Daily Show” handle investigative stories. They take reporting from local publications, add visuals, create explainers, inject humor and turn dense investigations into digestible segments. The audience responds (and the clips rack up the views on YouTube).

Yet public appetite for this watchdog function remains strong, even if it’s divided along partisan lines. Pew Research Center data found that 52% of Democrats say the people they get news from should definitely keep an eye on powerful people, compared with 31% of Republicans. 

Advertisement

The partisan gap exists, but the desire for accountability journalism hasn’t disappeared. People from both parties agree that newsrooms should correct false statements from public figures (73% of Dems and 52% of Republicans).

Investigative journalism works. The demand exists. What’s missing is the institutional commitment.

You could look at this shift as democratization. Digital platforms allow diverse voices to hold power accountable without answering to corporate interests or advertising concerns.

Or you could see it as a trade-off. Decades of institutional knowledge, legal protections and editorial standards exchanged for viral videos that may or may not get the story right.

The truth is messier than either narrative.

NBC could decide to invest seriously in this space again. A deep-pocketed streamer could see opportunity in premium investigative programming. Someone could figure out the business model that makes this work economically.

But right now?

We’re in an awkward transition. The old model is fading. The new model is still figuring itself out. And “60 Minutes,” now 57 years old, continues to stand alone as the last program of its kind reaching a mass audience on linear television.

The question isn’t whether investigative journalism survives. It will, in some form. The question is whether it survives as something the average viewer encounters regularly, backed by resources and institutional support, or whether it becomes something you have to seek out, produced by individuals and small teams working without the safety rails that traditional journalism provided.

That’s not a question anyone has answered yet.

Advertisement

Dak DillonDak Dillon is the Editor in Chief of NCS, where he has been covering broadcast technology, engineering and production for over 15 years. With practical industry experience, Dak's broadcast work has earned a Promax Gold Award and multiple regional Emmy nominations.

A journalism graduate from the Missouri School of Journalism, Dak has also been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Foundation.