Investigative Journalism Workshop

Mr. Paul Lashmar spoke on the decline of investigative journalism across all media, but with some hope for the future.

Presenting some thourough research, Mr. Lashmar said that only 75 to 125 investigative journalists are employed at any one time, “scattered across the media.”

While television-based investigative journalism is in decline after a boom of investigative-based programs in the 90s, radio is “actually holding up in the midst of all this. Newspapers are seriously in trouble… It is Radio Four that does most of the investigative journalism.”

He said that The Sunday Times have laid off almost all their investigative journalists, while the Observer and the Independent have stopped doing it on a regular basis.

The BBC, he said ‘will be the umbrella under which Investigative journalism will survive’. However, this raises questions as to whether the BBC is the best location for this 4th estate journalism to survive.

Better Locations

Showing better models, he mentioned ProPublica, a foundation-based investigative journalism organisation, and Spot.US, a Californian organisation.

These organisations supply a huge net of contacts through which they can sell their stories to bigger media institutions.

However, the legal environment in the UK puts both of these models at risk: technically, the donors are the publishers of the investigations, and they are the ones exposed to lawsuits.

A Brighter Future?

Mr. Lashmar did end on a good note however, mentioning Global Radio News, a London based agency which “dots journalists around the world”, making them available to institutions who want to conduct investigations, as well as creating a global community of knowledge.

Hayian Wang followed Mr. Lashmar’s speech with research on five Chinese newspapers reporting on corruption in the Chinese government, and comparing the relatonship between the media and the government as “clientelism”.

She concluded that the more independent the newspapers, the higher the number of articles on investigations concerning the governments. But why do these papers wait to publish the investigations?

Questions and Answers:

To conclude, a Q&A session brought up an interesting point on the Spot.US model of investigative journalism. A question from the floor mentioned that any single donor can only contribute 10% to an investigation.

Mr. Lashmar said that the Spot.US model is tricky, but then, it seems to be among the most succesful.