The majority of a significant newspapers and magazines have special reporters which commit a secret recording conversations, staging and manipulating events or provoking the law to reveal many problems in the social, political or economic life. The aim of the article is to discuss issues related to ethics and law in the perspective of investigative journalist work. The journalist sometimes uses tools, techniques, methods that are controversial, and applying them do not arouse the general approval of both the media community and the society. The article is an attempt to answer the questions: what is the meaning of journalistic codes of ethics? How journalists actions are interpreted by the law? And how to understand the service of journalists towards the society and the state? The journalists cannot decide about the freedom, give the binding orders, even though their actions have the executive power. The representatives of this profession control politicians, officials and other public officers.
Keywords: investigative journalism, journalistic ethics, journalistic codes of ethics, journalistic provocation