From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's on the media.

I'm Brooke Clydstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

And here is our president.

My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in time of war.

The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy.

That shameful act was the New York Times story on the National Security Agency's

secret domestic wiretapping program in 2005.

Words like shameful, unconscionable treasonous often are applied to investigative reporting,

usually by embarrassed politicians.

Publishers, on the other hand, may be more inclined towards words like exorbitant or extravagant

or just plain unaffordable because investigative pieces can consume years of labor and

mountains of cash, not including legal fees in investment few newspapers can afford to make.

We're devoting this hour to investigative reporting, which has blossomed and faded and

bloomed again across the decades. Veteran investigative reporter Lowell Bergman says it thrives best in a particular political

and regulatory climate.

That's why the 1970s provided perfect weather for investigative work.

It wasn't until the confluence of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement and the turmoil that became Watergate,

that in-depth investigative reporting was unleashed in major market newspapers like the New York Times.

The other part of what went on during this period of time is that the FCC in the broadcasting area set certain standards,

like the right of reply, fairness, and one very particular one, which is they declared that 7 o'clock on Sundays was a protected time period.

And it just so happened that CBS had a fledgling magazine program called 60 Minutes.

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