Investigative Journalism David Leigh Investigative Journalism

Home , David Leigh (journalist), James Ball (journalist)

A Survival Guide David Leigh City, University of London London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-16751-6 ISBN 978-3-030-16752-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16752-3

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface

Few—if any—textbooks like this are available. The author combines an academic background with a prominent track record in investigative journalism. This is therefore intended to be a candid practical guide for journalism students interested in investigative reporting in print, online, or video. It will be useful to media professionals who themselves want to do more work in this demanding field and also to anyone in the wider public with a concern for keeping democracy alive. The book is based on long insider experience of adversarial writing. It sets out to describe the key enemies and dangers that investigative journalists face, with the intention of better equipping those reporters for profes- sional survival. The idea is to provide guidelines for people who want to develop the discipline and flair they will need to succeed as public interest reporters in an often hostile environment. This is not, however, a training manual of the kind which explains how to do basic journalistic interviews, make freedom of information requests, manipulate spreadsheets, or scrape data. There are many such technical handbooks already accessible, some of which are indicated in the appendix. Nor does this guide include more than a minimum of media theory and history. Instead, the book takes a broad and essentially practical approach, with autobiographical aspects. It offers an analysis of institutions, laws, techniques, problems, and case-histories from the field. The first chapter reviews the existential challenges faced by modern investigative journalism. Chapter 2 is an introductory account of the historical tension between commercial greed and liberal ideals of public service which culminated in

v vi PREFACE the Watergate generation of investigative reporters. The rest of the book gives specific examples of investigative stories alongside a systematic analysis of the obstacles which the would-be investigative reporter faces in such work. Chapter 3 dissects two key case-histories. These were the journalistic exposures of UK minister Jonathan Aitken and the UK’s giant arms manu- facturer BAe. Chapter 4 discloses the perils and pitfalls of carrying out investigations while working for a media boss. Chapter 5 focuses on the obstacles the law places in the way of the probing reporter and provides methods to defeat legal bullies. Chapter 6 unearths the ways intelligence agencies threaten the work of journalists. Chapter 7 shows why conspiracy theories can lead excitable investigative reporters astray. Chapter 8 docu- ments how over-enthusiasm and personal vulnerabilities can also derail reporters (and sometimes get them killed). Chapter 9 explains that the new need for collaborative international work on a large scale has reduced the scope for the lone mavericks of yesteryears. Chapter 10 considers “fake news” from a fresh angle, chronicling the menace of bogus “investigations” published by the mainstream media. Chapter 11 rounds off the case histories with a single detailed study of the Trafigura toxic waste scandal, showing how modern investigative reporters can combine across borders to defeat their many enemies. Chapter 12 looks to the future with a cer- tain amount of optimism. An appendix lists some basic public sources of key types of information. Investigative journalism, by its nature, is highly culture specific. A lot of investigative work is about “feel”—a sense of where to go in a particular society, at a particular moment, to find things out and get them success- fully published. Techniques that succeed in one legal or administrative environment frequently do not cross over into another. The context of this book is therefore inevitably primarily British, but many of its more general ideas and attitudes will also be relevant to investigative journalists worldwide. So will the realisation, particularly outlined in Chap. 9, that journalists from the northern hemisphere and from the developing south can nowadays work fruitfully together. The right kind of mindset is what matters. My postgraduate students at City, University of London, debated many of these topics with me for 12 years. I am also grateful to Jeannie Mackie above all, and to Rob Evans, Paul Lashmar, Adrian Gatton, Elena Egawhary, James Ball, James Oliver, and Sara Beremenyi for entertain- ment and encouragement; and, for particular pieces of help, to Meirion PREFACE vii

Jones, Lindsay Mackie, and Fred Laurin. I owe a sizeable debt to Godfrey Hodgson, Sally Sampson, and the Gatsby Foundation for launching the Anthony Sampson chair at City University in honour of one of Britain’s finest journalists. The Monty Python script extract is quoted in Chap. 3 by permission of Methuen. I should also like to thank those editors who over the years gave me a job: Eric Mackay at the Scotsman; Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post; Robin Lustig at the Observer; Roger Bolton at This Week; Charles Tremayne at World in Action; and Alan Rusbridger at the Guardian. They helped me learn the trade and pay my rent, which are things for which an investigative reporter should always be grateful.

London, UK David Leigh Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 A Short History of Investigative Journalism 5

3 Two Case Histories: Jonathan Aitken and BAe 23

4 Investigative Journalists and Their Bosses 43

5 Journalists Versus the Law 59

6 Dealing with Spies and Spooks 85

7 Conspiracy Theories 99

8 Bad Practice and Good Practice 111

9 Cross-border Collaboration 127

10 Fake News in Mainstream Journalism 155

ix x CONTENTS

11 Trafigura: A Classic Investigation 175

12 Conclusion: A Golden Age for Investigative Journalism? 197

Appendix: Basic Public Sources 209

Index 215 About the Author

David Leigh Anthony Sampson Professor of Reporting at City University of London 2006–18 is one of Britain’s best-known investigative journalists. He was head of investigations at the Guardian 2000–15 and at the Observer 1980–89. He was a TV producer at This Week and World in Action 1989–97 and the first Laurence Stern Fellow at theWashington Post 1979–80. He is one of the founder members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists based in Washington DC; was a trustee of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London 2008–14; and is a director of the independent press regulator IMPRESS. He has won numerous UK and international journalism awards in a 40-year career. His books include biographies of Michael Foot and Howard Marks; an account of Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s relations with the intelligence services; and a study of secrecy in British life.