(This article has already been published in the Daily Independent on 08 January 2010. This is the complete version) by Md. Asraful Alam Print media, especially the newspapers around the world are facing a new challenge particularly at the time booming of electronic media. Newspapers globally are losing circulation as readers turn to online news sources. American leading newspapers such as New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe have already seen steep declines in their circulation, the Audit Bureau of Circulations shows that in its latest report published on October 26, 2009. The report said the circulation of largest daily newspapers dropped more than 10 per cent. Likewise, the Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize winner American newspaper, stopped its daily print edition for the first time and focus only on publishing news online. Under the circumstances, newspapers are to find out some realistic options to catch the attention of readers and to hold their circulation intact. Like many other, investigative reports could be a great option for the apparent survival of newspapers. People, today, do not need to wait for the next day broadsheets. In the age of electronic media, television, internet, radio keep their audience informed from time to time. So the question can be raised why people should read newspapers when they are already informed what is happening around them through internet, TV, radio and even through mobile. The answer is simple. Electronic media are always to fight with time space and speed. They have little scope to search the news behind the news. They cannot provide sufficient interpretation and explanation on a specific event rather to inform the audience instantly. And here lies the reason why people need to know something more than that of electronic media. They wish to read in details. Sometimes, they want analysis of some reports. Simultaneously, readers desire to know the answer of 'why' and 'how' a particular incident happened. They want to dig deep into the story and to get news behind the news. Investigative report first came into view on the newspaper from mid seventies of the last century. In 1975, 'Washington Post' reporters- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the spying activities in democrat party office by Republican aides of then US President Richard Nixon. The event later familiarized as 'Watergate Scandal' that is also called the epitome of investigative journalism. Later, a conspicuous cinema -'All the President's Men'- was made just on the basis of the scandalized story. Through a subtle investigation, the film shows its audience how journalists find out hidden information by their skilled journalistic work that ultimately unveil a political 'dirty trick'. In our society, there are a lot of issues to investigate and let readers know about them. Journalists can dig into different socio-political matters like political or bureaucratic corruption, money scandal, bribery, malpractice of rule of law, wrong doings in private sectors etc. Our national newspapers, however, pay less attention compared to western media on investigative reporting. Rather they are still focusing more on covering daily events- road accidents, sports, political clashes, inauguration, seminars and so forth. Investigative reporters are to work for bringing the hidden and concealed matters into light. They have to dig out facts beneath the surface. They should always try to find the way how "to open closed doors and closed mouths". This type of journalistic work requires the scrutiny of details and fact-finding. As a result, reporters, who investigate, hunt for facts behind the news headlines. They look into facts that are deliberately hidden. They pursue a story relentlessly and try to probe into fact which is either unknown to the readers or often intentionally covered up. Instead of having great scopes for investigation in different fields of our society, few national newspapers show interest to consume time, expend money and use resources in this work. The lack of efficiency, proper training and inter-disciplinary knowledge appear as obstacles of a reporter to do this research reporting. Newspaper owners, many times, also show negligence to protect journalists and face the unexpected sue. Similarly, maintaining official secrecy rules is still in force despite right to information act in place, holding no specialization in news beat, coming frequent threats to journalists' lives, are some other reasons that act as deterrent to flourishing of investigative reporting in our media. (The writer is a Lecturer of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, Jagannath University, Dhaka) E-mail: