Investigative Classics: A Weekly Sampler From the Archives
Investigative Classics
A weekly feature on noteworthy past examples of in-depth reporting.
This Week:
The Art of the Curl Was Not Smooth as Ice, Saturday Night, 1999
Previous Weeks:
Ominous Prelude to H.W. Bush's Kuwait Glory, Washington Post, 1990
Murder Most Guatemalan, New Yorker, 2011
Abortion Mills Didn't Start With Gosnell, Chicago Sun-Times, 1978
Jack Ruby, Seizing History's Freeze-Frame 1975, Texas Monthly, 1975
The Legacy of 'Landslide Lyndon,' 1948, New Yorker, 1948
It's Déjà Vu All Over Again for Immigration. Consider 1907, San Francisco Call, 1907
Medicaid Fraud Is Always With Us (C. 1973), New York Daily News, 1973
Road Trip! To a Real 'Animal House', Texas Monthly, 1991
Dave Anderson on the Sporting Life ... and Death, New York Times, 1980
Malcolm Gladwell on Enron, New Yorker, 2007
America's 'Dirtiest' Election, 1884, American Heritage, 1962
On Her Way Up, Slain 9 Blocks From Home, 2006, New York
Into the Vortex of Post-Disaster Human Greed, 2005, New Orleans Times-Picayune
Boom and Bust in the 1980s, or There We Went Again, 1989, Washington Post
David Foster Wallace, Looking for the Real McCain, 2000, Rolling Stone
Carl Bernstein on Journalists Working for the CIA, 1977, Rolling Stone
'CSI, Edna Buchanan,' 1986, Calvin Trillin, New Yorker
Shining a Light on Jailhouse Rape, 1982, Loretta Tofani, Washington Post
The Electric Kool-Aid Deadhead Test, 1968, Tom Wolfe
Baseball's Amazin' Sidd Fictitious, 1985, George Plimpton, Sports Illustrated
Covering Japanese Internment, 1942, San Francisco News
How the NY Times Helped Outlaw Abortion in 1872, Augustus St. Clair, NYT
Migrant Like Me, 1961, Dale Wright, New York World-Telegram and Sun
The Informant, Narcs and Their Wicked Ways, Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman, Philadelphia Daily News, 2009
Death in Cold Blood. Truly Cold Blood, Peter Stark, Outside, 1999
The Nihilistic Romance of the French Foreign Legion, William Langewiesche, Vanity Fair, 2012
Beauty and the Feminist Cheek, Susan Faludi, Mother Jones, 1988
The Con Man in the Rockefeller Suit, Mark Seal, Vanity Fair, 2009
Relics and Ruin in the Tribal Desert, Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times, 2014
Tom Wolfe Skewers 'Radical Chic,' New York Magazine, 1970
The Dogs of Juárez, Michelle Garcia, Al Jazeera America, 2012
Drug Cops Falling to the Morality of Criminals, Gary Cartwright, Texas Monthly, 1972
Secrets of the Monte Con, J. Peder Zane, New York Magazine, 1989
War's Mournful Refrain in Europe, John Burns, New York Times, 1992
The Assassination of Lincoln, Various Newspapers, 1865
The Case of the Vanishing Blonde, Mark Bowden, Vanity Fair, 2010
Les Payne, Following the Heroin Trail, Newsday, 1973
Before 'Red Badge,' Stephen Crane Covered the Bowery, New York Press, 1894
Amazon Brings Darwin to the Workplace, Kantor & Streitfeld, New York Times, 2015
Texas Breast Implants Go Boom and Bust, Mimi Swartz, Texas Monthly, 1995
The Anti-Walter Duranty Who Exposed Stalin's Famine, Gareth Jones, 1933
Slavery for Chocolate Lovers, Henry Woodd Nevinson, Harper's, 1906
When Reporters Put Bribery on Tap, Pamela Zekman & Zay N. Smith, Chicago Sun-Times, 1978
Better Warfare Through Chemicals, Raffi Khatchadourian, New Yorker, 2011
Before 'Black Like Me,' There Was Negro Like Him, Ray Sprigle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1948
From a Zulu Chant to 'The Lion Sleeps,' Rian Malan, Rolling Stone, 2000
Do Women Get Away With Murder? Patrick Radden Keefe, New Yorker, 2013
A Charity Hospital Struggles to Heal Itself, Lucette Lagnado, Wall Street Journal, 2003
Prohibition's Deadly, Government-Induced Hangovers, Deborah Blum, Slate, 2010
Amazon's March of the Fulfillment Soldiers, Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian, 2013
The Murder of Emmett Till, Simeon Booker, Jet magazine, 1955
The Life and Death of Jack Anderson's 'Senior Ferret,' United Features Syndicate, 1971
Playmate's Life and Death Reveals Power of Sex, Teresa Carpenter, Village Voice, 1980
Charles Manson's Charismatic Hate, Steven V. Roberts, New York Times, 1970
Why Are Feminists Defending Bill Clinton?, Marjorie Williams, Vanity Fair, 1998
Shining Light on Scientology's Dark Sides, Charles Stafford, St. Petersburg Times, 1979
The Deadly World of Young Police Informants, Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker, 2012
David Halberstam, Prophetic on Vietnam, 1963
MGM Destroys a Rape Accuser, 1937
Dawn of the Thermonuclear Age, Edward R. Murrow, 1952
Hugh Hefner, the Words Behind the Pictures, RealClearInvestigations
The Klansman’s Secret, McCandlish Phillips, New York Times, 1965
Inside the Madhouse, Nellie Bly, New York World, 1887
Evolution of 'America's Toughest Sheriff': Gabrielson, Giblin, East Valley Tribune, 2008
The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan, 1868
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900: Mitchell Capital
Lincoln Steffens Exposes Corruption in Ohio: McClure’s, 1905
Frank Serpico Exposes Corruption in NYPD: Burnham, New York Times, 1970
Frisco's Opium 'Fiends': San Francisco Call, 1895
How Diamonds Became a Girl's Best Friend: The Atlantic, 1982
Joseph Rago's Reported Editorials: Wall Street Journal, 2010
Hemingway's Reporting on Bootleggers: Toronto Star, 1920
Neglect of Mentally Impaired: Katherine Boo, Washington Post, 1999
Absorbing JFK's Assassination: Merriman Smith, UPI, 1963
Campus Rape Hits the Front Burner: Center for Public Integrity and NPR, 2009
Merchants of Misery Prey on the Sick in Chicago: William Jones, Chicago Tribune, 1970
The Making of a Homegrown Terrorist: Lucinda Franks and Thomas Powers, UPI. 1970
