Part II | When Investigative Journalism Challenges Power

In the early hours of June 17, 1972, five men were arrested inside the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary burglary. Few could have imagined that the incident would ultimately lead, two years later, to the resignation of the President of the United States. Even fewer realized that it all began with a suspicion, a confidential source, and two reporters willing to pursue a story long before all the answers were known. American democracy did not change because someone uncovered a complete truth overnight; it changed because journalism was free to investigate a reasonable doubt.

That has always been the essence of investigative journalism. Its mission is not to publish only what those in power have already acknowledged, but to examine what political leaders, corporations, or institutions would rather keep beyond public scrutiny. Investigative reporting begins with questions, not conclusions. It demands the verification of documents, the corroboration of testimony, and the careful testing of evidence before facts become public knowledge. That is precisely why it often unsettles those who hold power. Not because journalism seeks confrontation, but because its democratic function is to reduce the spaces where power can operate without accountability.

Only a year before Watergate, another landmark episode reshaped the relationship between governments and the press. In 1971, The New York Times and The Washington Post began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a classified study revealing how successive U.S. administrations had misled the public about the Vietnam War. The federal government attempted to block publication on national security grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected prior restraint, establishing one of the defining precedents for press freedom in modern constitutional law. The principle was unmistakable: in a democracy, preventing the publication of information of significant public interest requires an extraordinarily high constitutional justification.

Decades later, investigative journalism demonstrated once again that truth often transcends national borders. The Panama Papers were not the work of a single reporter or a single newsroom. They emerged from an unprecedented collaboration involving hundreds of journalists who analyzed millions of leaked documents exposing complex offshore financial structures linked to politicians, business leaders, and public figures around the world. The investigation prompted resignations, legal reforms, criminal inquiries, and renewed debates about financial transparency. More importantly, it proved that journalism itself had become global in response to increasingly global forms of power.

Mexico has also experienced defining moments that illustrate the democratic value of investigative reporting. The investigation widely known as The White House Scandal, published in 2014, sparked a nationwide debate over potential conflicts of interest involving then-President Enrique Peña Nieto and government contractors. Regardless of individual political interpretations, the investigation demonstrated how rigorous reporting can elevate matters of public concern to the center of democratic debate. Years later, revelations surrounding the Pegasus spyware scandal introduced another dimension of the same issue: journalists and human rights advocates themselves could become targets of sophisticated surveillance, reminding society that investigating power often carries significant personal risks.

Despite their differences, these investigations share a fundamental characteristic. None of them began with a fully established truth. Each started with a leak, a confidential source, a document, or a fragment of evidence whose authenticity still required careful verification. Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, the Panama Papers, The White House investigation, and Pegasus were not born as complete stories. They became historic investigations because journalists chose to verify, challenge, and deepen the available evidence before those in power were willing to provide official explanations. That is precisely why freedom of expression protects not only what journalists eventually publish, but also the investigative process itself.

This broader context gives particular relevance to the recent reflections of Mexican columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio regarding the Gianni Infantino case. His analysis raises a question that extends far beyond a single individual or event: How should journalism handle information that has not yet been fully verified but may nevertheless carry significant public interest? The answer cannot be reckless publication without evidence, but neither can it require waiting indefinitely for official confirmation that may never arrive. Responsible journalism exists precisely within that difficult space where prudence and investigation must advance together.

It is at this point that the debate over audience rights acquires constitutional significance. Protecting citizens from disinformation, deceptive practices, or manipulative content is a legitimate democratic objective. Yet such protection must coexist with another equally essential principle: preserving the conditions that allow investigative journalism to fulfill its public mission without creating legal incentives for self-censorship or discouraging reporting on matters of legitimate public interest. The challenge is not choosing one principle over the other. It is designing institutions capable of protecting both simultaneously.

Both the Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have consistently recognized that freedom of expression possesses a dual dimension. It safeguards the individual’s right to investigate, speak, and publish, while simultaneously protecting society’s collective right to receive diverse information and form independent judgments. From this perspective, investigative journalism is not merely a professional privilege enjoyed by media organizations. It is a constitutional safeguard that ultimately belongs to every citizen. When investigating becomes excessively risky, it is not only journalists who lose. Democracy itself becomes less informed.

For that reason, the debate surrounding Mexico’s new Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law should never be reduced to a simplistic confrontation between regulation and freedom. The more consequential question is whether democracies can strengthen audience rights without weakening investigative journalism. That is the standard by which twenty-first-century institutions should be judged. Protecting audiences is indispensable, but so is ensuring that future investigations capable of exposing corruption, abuse of power, or institutional failure can still be conducted with independence, professional responsibility, and constitutional protection.

History repeatedly demonstrates that the investigations which transformed democratic societies never began with complete certainty. They began because someone refused to ignore an uncomfortable question. Mature democracies require protected audiences, but they also require journalists willing to continue asking those questions. Whenever either pillar begins to weaken, democratic accountability weakens with it.

In the next installment, we will examine how different democracies have attempted to resolve this same dilemma. The United States, the European Union, Hungary, Türkiye, Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have adopted very different regulatory approaches. Understanding those experiences will help answer a defining constitutional question of our time: Can a democracy regulate information without concentrating power over it?

Mario López Ayala, PhD

Researcher and Director of Phoenix24