As we witness the quality of journalism sinking deep into the bottom bit by bit, on this International Journalism Day we remember the fearless Nellie Bly. A thread on the origin of investigative journalism. (1/7) 
New York, 1887. When 23-years-old Nellie was stuck with fashion reporting, one fine morning, she stormed into the office of New York World, a newspaper owned by eminent Joseph Pulitzer, with an outrageous idea. (2/7)
She wanted to report on the inhuman brutality conducted at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. But there was no way to report from the outside. What Nellie did was nothing short of fiction. (3/7)
She enrolled herself in a local boarding house, night after night she refused to sleep, scared the other boarders faking as an insane until local police took her to a court and the judge instructed her to be taken to the infamous Blackwell's Island for treatment. (4/7)
Once she got the most coveted admission, she stayed inside the asylum as a patient for ten days observing and learning the deplorable condition inside the Government facility. (5/7)
Later she wrote an exclusive ground report “Ten Days in a Mad-House” exposing the abuse of female inmates that eventually prompted the asylum to go under reformation. (6/7)
This was one of the earliest instances of investigative journalism in the modern world. Yes, you’re looking at the pioneer of investigative journalism. (7/7)
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