The notion of far-flung correspondents now exists only as a quaint metaphor in the New Yorker. Where once it was common for television and print reporters to roam the world in search of untold stories, now most get assigned to international hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan, or major foreign capitals like Moscow and Beijing, to cover breaking news from war zones. The fascinating story that forms the centerpiece of Tuesday night’s “Frontline/World” – “The Curse of Inca Gold” – would never have surfaced in the course of a beat reporter’s daily life. But for Lowell Bergman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has made a career of looking for stories where others don’t, this saga of intrigue typifies a kind of journalism that threatens to become extinct.

Mr. Bergman has uncovered a scandal at one of the world’s richest gold mines. In the mountains of Peru, the Yanacocha mine processes 30 tons of earth to deliver a single ounce of gold. A gold brick weighs 28 pounds, Mr. Bergman explains, and is worth $180,000 – and according to an old mining tradition, if you can lift a brick with one hand you get to keep it. The stakes for such an operation have grown enormous, and that’s the point of Mr. Bergman’s investigation; he has uncovered a battle for control of the mine that reveals astonishing allegations of corruption and bribery.

Thanks to hidden-camera footage obtained by “Frontline,” Mr. Bergman was able to chart an effort by partners of Newmont Mining – the American company that controls the mine – to bypass traditional controls in its business dealings and to curry favor with authorities. It seems that the scandal reached the highest levels of the Peruvian government, with the then-president’s right-hand man involved in covert dealings with the CIA and others. The purpose of all these backroom machinations was to keep American control of the mine; the question raised by Mr. Bergman’s reporting is to what extent competing interests – or the Americans – were willing to pay bribes to ensure their success.

The resulting investigation is vintage Bergman – which means, to students of investigative journalism, just the sort of hard-hitting questions and analysis that defined the classic reporting of CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in the 1980s and 1990s, when Mr. Bergman worked as one of the top producers for correspondent Mike Wallace. To many, Mr. Bergman is best-known as the character portrayed by Al Pacino in “The Insider.” The Michael Mann 1999 movie told the story of Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco-industry whistleblower who Mr. Bergman tracked down and tried to get on “60 Minutes” – until Mr. Wallace and executive producer Don Hewitt killed the story in the face of a threatened lawsuit against CBS.

The dogged do-gooder presented by Mr. Pacino now gets face time on television himself, thanks to a recent Pulitzer and the generosity of Frontline. While Mr. Bergman doesn’t deliver information with the comforting cadences of a seasoned on-camera veteran like Mr. Wallace, he somehow manages to be a forceful figure as he wanders regularly into the camera frame, asking tough, clipped questions. The gruff, no-nonsense Mr. Bergman engages in no small talk or casual banter; he’s in a hurry to get the truth. And before the end of “The Curse of Inca Gold,” which airs at 9 p.m. tonight on Channel 13, you’ll have the same doubts Mr. Bergman did about whether Newmont Mining has handled the operation of the Yanacocha mine according to the appropriate environmental and safety standards, or is cutting corners simply because it can – thanks to its enormous economic impact on Peru, and its own bottom line.

This is classic investigative journalism, the kind that prompts not only thought but also change. With nearly $2 billion invested in this mine, it’s a story of considerable importance and impact, and one you won’t see on any evening newscasts. One wonders whether even the New York Times, which has partnered with Mr. Bergman for this investigation, would have attempted this on its own; the economics of international journalism have fundamentally changed, and not for the better. “Frontline/World” and Mr. Bergman have nobly maintained a commitment to these kinds of yarns in the face of cutbacks, and the results remind us just how important it is to support their efforts by watching.

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Would Charles Rocket be alive today were it not for the absurd morality code of network television? Mr. Rocket shot to fame in the 1981 when he let a profanity fly on “Saturday Night Live” and was fired from the show; the next time his name surfaced in the headlines was last week, when newspapers reported his suicide at the age of 56. During the intervening years, Mr. Rocket got the occasional sitcom assignment, but never landed a role big enough to erase the stain of his moment of infamy. That Ashlee Simpson can be invited back onto SNL after her lip-syncing contretemps last season – while Mr. Rocket was left to rot by an industry embarrassed by its own prudish rules – represents a sad double-standard. When will people on network television be allowed to talk and act like the people who watch it?

dblum@nysun.com