Future of Investigative Journalism: Communications Committee Report

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston Excerpts

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Macdonald of Tradeston]

My Lords, this inquiry was my last as a member of the Select Committee on Communications, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on his adroit chairmanship of our exploration of possible futures for investigative journalism and on stopping our straying too often into matters that are probably best left to Lord Justice Leveson for now.

As I know from personal experience in both newspapers and television, investigative journalism can be time-consuming and expensive work, involving digging for concealed information, proofing allegations against legal challenge and then persuading risk-averse proprietors or regulators to publish or broadcast your findings. However, despite many wrangles over the years with the independent broadcasting authorities, my professional experience was largely positive. When hidden cameras had to be used, conversations recorded or some subterfuge employed, the regulators of ITV and Channel 4 would discuss the programme in depth, sometimes demand to view it in advance, and then almost always approve transmission as being in the public interest.

Our committee’s earlier inquiry into the governance of the BBC confirmed a similar approach and a shared belief across public service broadcasting in the importance of serious, revelatory journalism. A positive aspect of this inquiry was the continuing support for investigative series promised by the BBC and Channel 4, with ITV also looking again to strengthen its once formidable current affairs output. Our committee recommended that this commitment by public service broadcasters should be underpinned by Ofcom amending its guidance to include investigative journalism in its definition of the current affairs category. In its formal response, Ofcom acknowledged that encouraging investigative journalism in its quota requirements could be beneficial, and promised to consider our recommendation when its guidance is next updated. I hope that the evidence emerging from the Leveson inquiry will persuade Ofcom to act.

Our optimism about the future of investigative reporting on television was based on the relatively robust state of public service broadcasting. The BBC seems confident that it can maintain standards despite a freeze on its licence revenue. Viewing levels across television are holding up surprisingly well. The mass audiences of mainstream television are still more attractive to big advertisers than fragmented online options.

By contrast, however, the internet has drained classified advertising from newspapers. Traditional business models are being undermined, with editorial budgets slashed and journalists sacked. It is a pretty vicious downward spiral. Investigative journalism is always vulnerable because it is expensive. We heard in evidence that managements were increasingly concerned that controversial stories meant legal threats and unaffordable costs. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has said, our committee concluded that such risks might be reduced if a legal defence of publishing in the public interest were made clearer and more consistent. Like the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, I therefore applaud the Director of Public Prosecutions for recently clarifying the more nuanced approaches his staff will now take in such cases. Additionally, our report welcomes the Government’s new Defamation Bill to make our libel laws less expensive and inhibiting. I also look to the Government to strengthen the protection that journalists can offer their sources—and whistleblowers, who often risk their careers in serving what they judge to be in the public interest.

The profound impact of the internet on traditional forms of publishing and broadcasting has yet to be fully understood. The damage already done to our press makes informed public debate of important social issue less likely and threatens a vital element of the UK’s system of democratic governance and accountability. However, in the specific area of investigative journalism, the new technologies are hugely helpful. At the press of a button, search engines offer information of extraordinary detail and scale. The quantity of information now in the public domain has created new specialisms such as data mining, which allow journalists to track trends, flag up problems and identify patterns of good and bad practice across society.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, assured us that the Government are committed to an open data agenda whereby public bodies make available online huge amounts of statistical information. Mr Hunt, in evidence to our committee, said:

“If we unleash citizen journalists on vast swathes of government data we are opening up big, big opportunities both to hold Government to account and also to learn things about our society that we never knew before”.

I take this rare opportunity to agree wholeheartedly with Mr Hunt. The growth of social media and the explosion of blogging show the astonishing potential for citizen journalism—a phenomenon that may soon see us looking back rather bemusedly to when the practice of investigative journalism was concentrated in a handful of small teams scattered across the higher peaks of British media.

Our committee welcomes the innovative use of social media by journalists in connecting with people around the world to access and disseminate information in utterly different ways. The so-called “crowd sourcing” of stories and visual evidence also has great potential. These novel forms of journalism will, of course, require training in new skills. We therefore applaud the important role played by universities in training journalists.

The urgent search continues for viable business models that will allow the best of traditional media to survive the disruptions of the digital age. National newspapers are testing online business models, erecting pay walls to collect subscriptions or offering free access to sell more eyeballs to online advertisers—as yet with modest results. Meanwhile, circulations and advertising revenues continue to decline and more titles are lost.

To date, more American newspapers have been harder hit than the national press here in the UK. However, philanthropy is a social force in the United States, and wealthy foundations are funding a number of projects to encourage the growth of investigative journalism online. We should monitor these pro-bono projects to see which, if any, can be transplanted to the UK. In Britain, charitable support is harder to find, but donors have helped the Bureau of Investigative Journalism do good work in its short life. The bureau is also earning income by working with newspapers and broadcasters on big stories. I suggest that this kind of co-operation could be extended to involve journalism students in universities. Young people are still surprisingly keen on careers in the media, despite its uncertain future. Perhaps they sense that a new order is emerging.

Sadly, our report found little solid evidence of viable business models evolving to support investigative journalism on any serious corporate scale. However, we are still in the early explorative stages of the digital revolution. I am optimistic that people in ever greater numbers will feel compelled to share information or opinion that they deem to be important with ever-wider audiences. Micropayments on an international scale may float or reward specific projects. Self-publishing is already transforming book publishing, and some of those books are in-depth investigations. Similarly, online ways of funding serious journalism will surely evolve. After all, who could have predicted that the original Private Eye, with its stapled yellow pages, could combine jokes and gossip with outstanding investigative journalism and still be thriving 50 years on? I suspect that the internet is already producing equally unorthodox online initiatives, and I hope that in some small way this report will help more to emerge.

Perhaps I am overoptimistic, but I believe that the emerging force of citizen journalists, with the power of new technologies and the potential of the global internet audience, will produce revelatory stories of a range and frequency that the traditional media, even in its prime, could never achieve. I invite the Minister to endorse at least some of the eminently sensible recommendations of your Lordships’ Committee on Communications.