Future of Investigative Journalism: Communications Committee Report

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and his colleagues for a very interesting and timely report into the future of investigative journalism. A great deal of the value of the report lies in its detailed attention to the wider landscape, in particular the economic landscape, in which investigative journalism takes place—or does not take place. As the report makes clear, and as other noble Lords have already stressed, the transformations produced by new technologies and new media, by dwindling print advertising and shrinking revenues, and by the meteoric growth of a public relations industry with aims that are not well aligned with those of journalism, place particular pressure on what is unavoidably one of the more expensive but also more significant sorts of journalism.

The report shrinks from any definition of investigative journalism, which is the question I want to address today. Clearly the committee heard a variety of opinions on what it is, ranging all the way to the view that any form of journalism that investigates something or other is thereby investigative journalism. I believe that the latter view would spread the net too wide and leave us without any grasp of the distinctive and valuable features of investigative journalism or why it is important to protect it.

If a reporter summarises a debate at a meeting of a local council—or, for that matter, in your Lordships’ House—that is indeed valuable reporting, but it is reporting on matters that are not difficult to find out. Such reporting is an honourable activity, but it cannot really count as investigative journalism. What it adds for the public is convenient access, but it is not really a matter of investigation.

We tend to keep the term “investigative journalism” for work that penetrates more deeply; that draws on sources that are not, or not wholly, public; that informs readers, listeners and viewers in ways that are not merely accurate but that would have been hard to discover by other means; and that aims not merely at accuracy but specifically at accuracy about matters that the public have an interest in knowing about.

Investigative journalism, I suggest, is a specific sort of journalism. Indeed, it should count as a luxury brand within journalism. As others have said, it costs more to produce than many other sorts of journalism. It is more difficult and it attracts more attention. The distinctive features of investigative journalism are reflected in some of the most widely made claims about its importance. Investigative journalists, it is said, seek to speak truth to power—or at least sometimes; to let light in when some, including some who are powerful would prefer secrecy; and to expose misdeeds and corruption. That might be a somewhat romantic version of these matters, but it is the sort of thing we often hear.

A standard and much cultivated image of the investigative journalist sees him or her as courting danger, as an intrepid but secretive sleuth, as taking risks yet protecting informants in the face of the malign demands of power and authority. Luxury brands usually need special protection since they offer great temptations to counterfeiters, who serve up mislabelled and inferior goods, passing them off as examples of the coveted brand. We can all think of handbags that are allegedly handmade by prestigious Italian manufacturers that, surprise surprise, are available for a song in the back streets of many cities. We all take pleasure in the surprisingly overt trade in fake diplomas, degrees and qualifications that can be found online; it is hardly hidden. There are many other cases of mislabelling and mis-selling prestigious coveted brands, and we should learn from that reality.

The same difficulties arise with investigative journalism. We cannot afford to be too generous about its definition if we are to devise structures that enable and protect the genuine article without providing protection for the fake article, thereby ultimately destroying the brand value of the genuine article. By this I do not mean that we should aspire to find a tight definition of investigative journalism, and I agree with the recommendation of the report for a definition that sets out the complete, necessary and sufficient conditions for anything to count as investigate journalism, although I am sure that there will always be borderline cases.

However, there are at least three conditions for anything to count as investigative journalism that should be recognised in our debates. The first is that a piece of writing or a programme does not count as investigative journalism if it does not even aim to report accurately. Secondly, something does not count as investigative journalism if it aims to report accurately but the matters on which it reports are in any case in the public domain. Thirdly, something does not count as investigative journalism even if it aims to report accurately matters that are not in the public domain but coverage of those matters is not in the public interest. That, of course, is a topic to which the report devotes considerable attention and makes interesting proposals.

No doubt other noble Lords will say more about conceptions of the public interest, so I shall not say anything about it today. It is important to look at how we can give regulatory or legal protection to that specific and valuable form of public interest journalism that is genuine. Rather, I am going to talk about some of the other standards that investigative journalism needs to meet if it is to be the genuine article. A great deal of media content does not even aim to report accurately because it is not aimed at matters of fact; it is not aimed at the truth. It is overtly and quite properly concerned with comment or culture, with entertainment or fantasy. We do not fault the horoscopes because they are inaccurate; indeed, let us be honest about it, they are invented. However, everyone understands that that is what they are.

A great deal of media content does not even aim to report what is the case; a fortiori it is not about speaking truth to power. That is why it is a great mistake to base arguments for press freedom on considerations about the importance of investigative journalism. There are a number of arguments for press freedom. However, those who try to link it too closely to claims about the importance of investigative journalism aim too low. They seek a justification that will ignore freedom for much that has a proper place in media content. Therefore, we should not link arguments for investigative journalism too closely to our basic arguments for media freedom.

Investigative journalism is distinctive in seeking to report what is the case. However, as we know, it is not the only sort of journalism to do that. Much reporting aims at accuracy and there is no need to dignify all of it with the label “investigative journalism”. Again, an example is the summary of a parliamentary debate that is fully reported in Hansard. This is very useful but is not investigative journalism. Those who report based on a company or charity press release are not investigative journalists. Indeed, those who do not mention that their articles are merely an extract or rehash, or perhaps a repetition, of someone else’s PR work are very far from investigative journalists. They are misleading the public into thinking that this is an independent report, when it is in fact paid-for content—or, rather, content freely provided by interested parties.

This is why investigative journalism works by seeking not merely to report accurately but—and this may seem surprising—to be open about its sources where possible. A need to protect sources arises in some cases but always in the context of journalism that seeks to be evidence-based and to provide readers, listeners and viewers with such evidence as can be made available for the claims that are made. Sometimes we are mesmerised by the special reasons that can exist for protecting sources in some cases, and we forget that serious, good journalism is directed towards reporting what is the case. It works by providing readers, listeners and viewers with evidence when this can be done.

We both romanticise and demean investigative journalism if we view it simply and misleadingly as work that hides its sources. Investigative journalism is much more than that. On the contrary, the best investigative journalism achieves credibility by carefully providing evidence when this can be done without risk to sources and certain others. We have reached entirely the wrong position if we think that an automatic appeal to the need to protect sources is the hallmark of genuine investigative journalism. Instead, it is a special case that must be dealt with. It has credibility and importance only within journalism that respects the disciplines of truth seeking and generally provides for readers, listeners and viewers the evidence needed to assess what they read, hear and see wherever possible.

However, it is not always possible. In some cases, sources will be at risk if they are named. In other cases, evidence may only be secured by practices that breach conventions or laws. For example, seeking employment using bogus credentials or false names in order to discover what is happening in a nursing home. Here, the report of the Select Committee points in a plausible direction by suggesting that the defence offered in such cases could in part consist in providing a clear audit trail that could be used in litigation for breaches committed. That defence should not require demonstration that what was reported was true—we can only aim at but not guarantee the truth. However, it should require that journalism aims to discover the truth using the relevant, routine but demanding disciplines of truth seeking for the particular area and citing evidences and sources where this can be done without risk to sources and others. Journalism should rely on a public interest defence only where needed. The specificity of the defence creates its plausibility.

Other noble Lords have said more already about public interest defences. There will be more said today. I try to set investigative journalism in the wider context of seeking and communicating what is the case. This context is necessary if we are to see its specific importance and the importance of distinguishing it from counterfeits in which the alleged protection of sources is in fact used to hide from the public a lack of sources, or credible sources, and evidence—indeed, at its worst, to lie to the public.

The river of change is running very fast and there is a lot more technical change ahead. We are in a flowery spring, perhaps the 1968 of this transformation, in which we imagine that new possibilities will enhance citizen journalism and forget that they may also protect poison pens. In the next year, we shall have to test whether the draft regulation on data protection is fit for purpose in the new climate. I do not know whether it is and it will be very difficult to see whether that transformative approach to protecting personal privacy fits with the views that we reach about investigative journalism.

I understand very well why the Minister can make only a limited response today to the committee report because of the work still being undertaken by Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry, but I hope that in the course of dealing with the vast range of legislation bearing on data—the EU draft directive, the Defamation Bill and others—your Lordships’ House will return to this report in the coming year and take its recommendations into careful consideration.