Spalpeen

For my application to City University’s Investigative Journalism MA, I had to write 250 words on what attracted me to investigative journalism and about a subject I would like to investigate. Here’s what I wrote:

I am attracted to ‘Investigative Journalism’ because investigation is a universal skill required for all types of reporting. By studying an MA at City University in Investigative Journalism, I seek to follow in the footsteps of reporters like Seymour Hersh, Lowell Bergman, the late Lasantha Wickramatunga, and Ben Goldacre. Acting as an ethical gatekeeper to the truth, I wish to contribute to the cause of uncovering information that those in positions of authority may wish to conceal. This I consider to be the pinnacle of all reporting.

I am realistic about the profession that I have chosen. Much of the debate about the state of contemporary journalism features ‘doomsayer’ journalists complaining about the lack of time they have to focus on stories, due to economic pressures placed on them by their employers. I believe that the onus is on journalists themselves to fix the problem! If journalists wish to avoid being forced to produce “churnalism” or infotainment-style “investigative” reports, they must take a central role in pioneering new financial models to support their work. Achieving success, utilising sound research skills, having my work published, read and reviewed, has driven me forward to seek a future within investigative journalism.

My work as a writer and producer at two successful American start-up companies was, in part, a personal investigation into the opportunities offered by the internet for supporting and sustaining journalism. Attempting to find a successful sustainable model for independent investigative journalism is a project I will continue to pursue.

Posting inspired by Jeff Jarvis’ post from Davos. In particular, this sentence: “It’s our job to find out what people don’t want to tell us. Maybe that is the real definition of reporting. The rest is just information.”

I’m attending Nick Davies and David Leigh’s Masterclass in Investigative Reporting (thanks to Michael Haddon for hooking me up with a ticket!), so do make sure to send me a twitter if you’ll be there too.

Jeff Jarvis writes on the subject of open source polls: “I say that if we could easily poll people about, say, indecency, we could counter the assertions of pressure groups that there’s an outcry — sufficient to threaten the First Amendment — when, in fact, there is no such outcry, only media spin and hype.”

Would that really work? If the media has published that there is an outcry, then it usually has the byproduct of creating one. Newspapers and media in general need to stop relying on polls, which, thanks to the nature of statistics (73.53% of all statistics are meaningless, don’t you know?) can be manipulated to show one point of view. An open source poll would guarantee the reliability of the statistics, but those statistics can always be interpreted to show the other side’s point of view.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the practice of polling, but with the actual implications of polls. The Guardian in particular seems to be fond of flashing headline stories based on poll results (Google reveals dozens of matches, and you can bet on seeing at least one front page story based on a poll result every week). I’d be very surprised if the data behind these polls was gained in an actively manipulative way, but I also know that all polls have an inherent bias: if not in the collation, then in the interpretation! Besides, nine times out of ten, the “controversial” poll tends to disappear from the headlines within the week, only to reappear the next time another controversial point of view is garnered from another commissioned poll.

Polls, like petitions, give the impression that society as a whole cares about things (and believes it’s possible to change the situation). The reality is that Government tends to do whatever it wants if it can reasonably expect to get away with it. The fundamentally ambiguous nature of polls and petitions means that they can never be considered a limitation on the power of Governement. An open source poll solution would be great of course, but just don’t expect it to be the solution to end all solutions.

The Guardian redesigned its website’s front page the other week. I wrote about how tabloidy it is, but Jeff Jarvis in his Media column put the view across much more effectively today. He talks about news being more of a feed than any other format. Instead of having a homepage with some big, large image pointing to the biggest issue of the day, Jeff suggests that they should redesign around a feed format. Allow people to customize what they see on the homepage. Add video, audio, and text commentary from other sources on the web to add context. Make it collaborative. He cites figures where only 20% of readers come to the front page of the site sites. The rest all read The Guardian through links that were originally collated through feeds and deeper linking on other sites, using RSS or otherwise.

These are all nice ideas, but it’ll take a significant culture change within a paper like The Guardian in order to effect a move away from what editors have always understood: a front page, with a leading story. Unfortunately for newspapers, the days where the newspapers get to decide this story are coming to an end. What makes it all the more depressing is that “All this can be done today. And doesn’t that make the notion of the home page, the web site, and the site sound antiquated and quaint like, oh, a newspaper?”

Jeff’s got it right. The real change that has to come at newspapers is cultural, so it’s rather strange that Jeff’s voice comes from within The Guardian. I hope the old hands on the front page read his articles.