Is Watchdog Journalism An Effective Way To Investigate?

Was the F-22 Raptor the best fighter jet ever made or was it a total flop?

What is Watchdog Journalism? Watchdog Journalism is a new way of online journalism where journalists fill in the holes of investigative journalism. "They sniff out when something isn't working as it should and, pretty soon, if they are doing their job well, sources start to come to them. Stories that once seemed impossible to nail down now seem doable."

When doing Watchdog journalism many journalists will use the internet to find sources, facts, and information quickly. "What the Web does incomparably well is to provide information--instantly--on just about anything." It is super effective when trying to find the information that you cannot seem to find. The issue with using the internet to research their topic, is finding reliable sources that are factual.

I found an article from, Neiman Reports, that was an example of watchdog journalism. The article I found was called, The F-22 Raptor is said to be invisible...until it isn't, which was written by Ed Offley. This article talks about the F-22 Raptor which is a to notch fighter jet that is used by the armed forces. The Raptor seemed like a useful and very critical piece of machinery, but many believe that is false. "Simply put, said Pierre Sprey and James P. Stevenson, the F-22 Raptor is shaping up to be the Sturmvogel of the 21st century: a dazzling piece of technology that fatally ignores some of the unbending realities of aerial combat." This being said, there were some major flaws in this F-22 Raptor program that was being implemented. The F-22 had four different pieces of criteria to make it a successful jet, but it failed all those categories. "Sprey said his briefing focused on the time-tested factors that define an effective fighter plane: (1) See the enemy first; (2) outnumber the enemy; (3) outmaneuver the enemy to fire, and (4) kill the enemy quickly." All of 4 of these categories of what makes a plane successful, as advanced as the Raptor, should do it with ease, but that was not the case. "The Raptor is a horrible failure on almost every one of those criteria," Sprey said.

The F-22 was found to be a complete flop by the investigators using the Watchdog style of journalism. I have always been fascinated by the F-22 and I believed it was the best fighter jet we have but I guess I was wrong.