Why is investigative journalism so much more important now?

by | May 15, 2018 | Uncategorised

We’re living in a world where our trusted sources of news are being subverted in new ways that are silent – but all the more deadly because of that. There has been, for example, over the last eight years a quiet revolution at the BBC and the old BBC Trust, which was quite independent of government, was abolished in favour of a board modelled on a business, where the senior posts have been filled by the Tories with their supporters, such as Rona Fairhead, David Clementi, the architect of the new governance, and James Harding, and senior editorial posts have gone to Tory supporters, such as Alison Fuller Pedley, who is responsible for choosing the audience for Question Time and has been packing it with Tory stooges, as last week, and Sarah Sands, ex-Telegraph and Mail, who edits R4’s Today programme, which has taken a completely supine approach to questioning Tory ministers. Liam Fox last week stated that inward investment into the UK has increased and wasn’t questioned or even challenged that, in fact, it has declined considerably since the Brexit referendum. One example is not enough to show bias – but the BBC’s output is just questionable. The selection of what is news and who is brought on to comment on it has also been skewed, so that Labour Party alleged antisemitism is paraded all the time, but Islamaphobia and racism in the Tory Party is never mentioned, and last week we had the presence of a representative of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, which is, to say the least, a shadowy organisation funded opaquely. I suppose it made a change from Nigel Farage.

Against this background, investigative journalism is that much more important – and some of the reporting – scarcely mentioned or kept right to the end of bulletins and then negated by someone’s comment it has to be said, by the BBC – is so significant now, laying bare the lies and obfuscation that passes for political debate. Robert Fisk – a highly respected journalist – reported on the alleged Syrian chemical attacks recently and cast doubt on the BBC’s reports, and there was no mention of them on the BBC. Carole Cadwalladr’s reports on the scandal over interference and downright illegality in the referendum campaign are also ignored as much as possible – with the denial of one of the alleged perpetrators being given more prominence than the allegation. (It was difficult to understand from the way the BBC reported this what had been alleged and how it had been politically motivated as Arron Banks, one of the funders of the alleged breaches of electoral practice, claimed.) Nevertheless, sterling work is being carried on by journalists – who are courageous it has to be said. The death of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, who had apparently uncovered fraud and worse, is a salutary reminder of this.

Against that background, I commissioned a book – and there are many other books on this subject that are worthwhile – about the current state of investigative journalism in the UK and globally. Edited and contributed to by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble, Investigative Journalism Today: Speaking Truth to Power I hope it is a valuable contribution to the debate – and also a guide to new ways of working that are making investigative journalism in some ways much easier, but at the same time, that much more difficult. Certainly the whole concept of investigative journalism is under threat from very powerful forces so anything we can do to strengthen it has to be good.