The world needs investigative reporting

By Henrik Keith Hansen, programme manager

Media worldwide might be in a severe crisis with collapsing business models, increased suppression in many countries and a lack of trust from audiences. But investigative reporting are thriving again. In Africa investigative networks of journalists are mushrooming.

The world’s biggest conference on investigative reporting, The Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Johannesburg, with 1200 people from 130 countries has ended.
Brave journalists from around the world – some of those who at great personal risk reveal issues of importance to society and vulnerable individuals were gathered to share best practices and discuss working methods. A special focus was on the numerous new data-driven tools.

For me personally, it was so nice to be reminded of the many journalists out there, who have the guts, will, talent and citizenship to reveil politically motivated killings, assaults on minorities, extremism and terrorism, corruption, fraud, greed and cheating in any form.

Meeting some of the best investigative reporters in the world reiterates the absolute necessity of professional, independent media and journalists working to inform the public.

From attempted objectivity towards transparent engagement
One take away is, that it seems as if the genre of investigative reporting is moving away from an attempt to be balanced and objective and more towards engaged transparency, as one of the grand old men of investigative reporting, Mark Hunter, formulated it. Meaning that it is not only okay, but also expected that good journalists takes a stand and work for the good of humanity and societies. The key is to be open and transparent about work-methods.

In Sweden the much admired investigative desk, ‘Uppdrag Granskning’ (Mission Investigate) at the public broadcaster SVT aspire to follow the principles of states built on the rule of law: anybody accused of wrong doings in their investigations shall enjoy the same principles as those accused in the judicial system. They will be presented with all evidence and allowed sufficient time to react. All this so ‘that we in the media do not pass judgements without fair conditions for the accused part to prepare their defense,’ as Nils Hanson, the editor-in-chief of Uppdrag Granskning explained.
It was comforting to see that ethics and ethical awareness played a key role at the conference. As the Chinese journalist Ying Chan said in a session: “Always ask yourself if you are being fair and if your journalistic methods can be justified,” and as she added: “I am sure that many journalists will be as fair as possible not only for the sake of their sources but also because they want to be considered a pro by their colleagues.”

Understand you audience and share knowledge and data
Several panelists talked about the necessity to understand your audience know who you report for – or as a minimum reporters will be citizen-oriented in everything you do. “We have to be more demand-driven and aware of what keeps people awake. What are the crucial questions for them in their daily lives?” said Justin Arenstein from African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting.

Several participants pointed to a problem with investigations that only interest a narrow elite. As Giannina Segnini from Costa Rica noted: “We as investigative reporters are extremely boring. We do not report in ways that are easily understood. Survey your taxa-driver and you will find that they have rarely heard about our stories.”

Another take away was the realization that you can achieve and impact more with your journalism, if you share knowledge and data with colleagues nationally as well as internationally. Several investigative journalism networks around the globe have created databases, allowing other journalists access to information that might be key to their further investigations. Such shared databases facilitate transnational investigations and tend to better reflect how crimes takes place across borders.

Media organisations worldwide need to be more innovative in their approach to the fast-moving digital development and to experiment with digital solutions and create a more systematic frame or a lab for innovation. This was also somewhat reflected at the conference with many attendees impressed about the innovation going on in Africa in the area between tech and media, with many sophisticated tech oriented start-ups popping up all over.

Some of these new digital African start-ups are supported by the continent’s largest civic technology network, Code for Africa. Africa’s largest investigative technology lab, ANCIR also fund digital experiments in newsrooms or social justice organisations. To me, this is an approach that the international media development community could learn from.

Legacy media still have some catching-up to do and improve their digital mind-set. One of the ways to accomplish this is via innovation and knowledge transfer from tech- and media start-ups . This they seem to have understood in Africa.

The conference programme is available here