Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a Critical Perspective Candea, S
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WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch Cross-border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Candea, S. This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © Mr Stefan Candea, 2020. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Cross-border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ȘTEFAN CÂNDEA Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media Communication and Media Research Institute June 2020 ABSTRACT Focusing on power relationships in the context of Cross-Border Journalistic Investigations (CBIJ) this study takes into account a critical approach of the emerging field. The thesis differs from other accounts on CBIJ, be it from practitioners or academics. Although studies in global media have examined new frameworks and developments, as well as emerging new practices in global investigative journalism in a digitally networked society, this has usually come from a positivist view of strengthening democracy, with an added techno-euphoria. This research presents an analysis of the power relationships in CBIJ as well as its challenges in the global context. Going beyond the usual positive tech-determinist approach the thesis explores how journalistic practices in this field are shaped in two different CBIJ networks when their two major CBIJ projects overlap, through the study of data generated by participatory observation, autoethnography and archival research. The analysis is giving a special attention to both technology communication infrastructures and non-profit funding models and is showing power inequalities and limitations of CBIJ networks as well as implications of contemporary platform investigative journalism and their unintended consequences. As such, this study is providing the insight of an Eastern-European journalist, a long-time practitioner and CBIJ network facilitator, so the analytic focus on the backstages of managing access control in two major cross-border investigations enables another contribution. This thesis finds that CBIJ has been building up based on a (white male) elitist identity for investigative journalists, first in the US in the ’70s and then in Europe and beyond in the context of Post-Cold War globalisation. To add credibility to this identity, scientific techniques have been replicated in what was called 'precision journalism ' which later became data journalism and now has been used in the mega-leaks CBIJ projects. Such data-sets have been building up to such an extent that they create the authoritative source many journalists would like to have access to (i.e. Panama Papers or Football Leaks data). While shifting CBIJ to rely heavy on big data-sets (leaks) and expensive software and computing power (to process data and to share information securely across borders), statistical techniques do not reveal main stories and most of the data work is done by engineers to index and clean data and make it available for the easiest search operations possible (type and click). Because of this dependency, this research shows that today CBIJ networks incur high costs which, in the case of the largest CBIJ organisations, are not paid by media partners of such organisations but are subsidised by media assistance or philanthropy, both governmental and private. This double capture in the technology and non-profit realms gives an unusual strong leverage to the few financial donors and platforms owners, without any accountability, on influencing the CBIJ field at a global level. Contrary to the public claim, this thesis finds that investigative platforms can act as amplifying agents of national commercial (and non-profit) competitive interests at an international network level. Furthermore, journalists accepted as members of a given investigative platform work for free in the platform realm; such network technological infrastructures and the hosted data-sets are not co-owned (in some cases not even co-managed) by all participants in the network. Without decentralised technology design and without governance documents, such platform are totalitarian governance systems (surveillance and control build in) putting access control for collaborations in Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Ştefan Cândea 04.2020 the hand of a few people. Thus modern CBIJ systems re-create the past pain points of commercial news industry, creating even less gatekeepers than before. I conclude that CBIJ network centralization of socio-tech access control, bankrolled by philanthropy, are building more walls and barriers contrary to current claims and past configurations. As such, the current combination of data journalism, network structures, non-profit and commercial models, and the contemporary 'precariat' indicates that cross-border investigative networks are in the data feudalism realm. Combined with the standardising of the field to be platform ready, CBIJ becomes also ready for its own colonisations. This research makes an original contribution to existing literature, especially in the global media studies, more specifically in journalism studies with a focus on collaborative journalistic practices from a political economy angle. Last but not least, I hope this thesis contributes to the de- Westernizing process of journalism studies. ii Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Ştefan Cândea 04.2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i LIST OF FIGURES vi LIST OF APPENDICES vi Acknowledgements vii Introduction to Cross-Border Investigative Journalism (CBIJ) 1 Problem statement 3 My place and contribution 5 Motivations translated into Research Questions 6 Outline of Chapters 7 Chapter 1. CONCEPTS AND THEORIES TO INVESTIGATE CBIJ 11 1.1. Investigative journalism literature not explaining power structures 13 1.1.1. Investigative Journalism Definitions 14 1.1.2. Motivated by the limitations of the news industry 15 1.1.3. Cross Border Investigative Journalism practices 17 1.1.4. Journalism meets Network: no user manual 19 1.1.5. Tech determinism in the global networked society 21 1.2. Political Economy and Media Research 24 1.2.1. Political Economy questions applied to CBIJ 24 1.2.2. Global CBIJ and journalistic capital 26 1.2.3. Standardisation of journalistic practices 28 1.2.4. The hope for a vigilant transnational public sphere 31 1.3. Extra pressures: platformization and data feudalism 32 1.3.1. Critical approach of Networking 32 1.3.2. How networks emerge: Identity and Control 34 1.3.3. A game of exclusion in the CBIJ context 37 1.3.4. Shaping (partial) organisations of CBIJ 38 1.3.5. Critical theory meets Science and Technology Studies 44 Chapter 2. METHODS AND TOOLS 56 2.1. How and where to investigate CBIJ 57 2.1.1. CBIJ journalistic practices and digitalisation 57 2.1.2. Qualitative research needed 61 iii Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Ştefan Cândea 04.2020 2.2. Qualitative research and newsroom ethnography 67 2.3. How to clarify the public CBIJ narratives 69 Chapter 3. GENESIS OF CBIJ 77 3.1. Building an Identity: Excluding the unethical, incompetent, unskilled 78 3.1.1. US: defining the boundaries by creating a narrative 78 3.1.2. Building credibility: precision journalism to leaks 83 3.1.3. The US narrative on investigative journalism expands 83 3.1.4 Excluding the unethical, incompetent, unskilled beyond the US 90 3.2. Building Control: How CBIJ developed 98 3.2.1. Institutionalisation: CBIJ registered in the U.S. 98 3.2.2. Blockage: oligarchization of global CBIJ 101 3.2.2. Decoupling: alternative CBIJ structures in Europe 102 3.3. The main claims of CBIJ Genesis 104 3.3.1. What are the CBIJ elements 104 3.3.2. Questioning the claims 121 3.4. Current CBIJ Practices and Tools 125 3.4.1. Practices of CBIJ: conferences, philanthropy and leaks 126 3.4.2. Tools and communication infrastructures of CBIJ 138 Chapter 4. THE PATHS OF LILLEHAMMER 157 4.1 Panama Papers: clarifying the process and challenges 161 4.1.1 Rules of the game: centralised power configuration 161 4.1.2 Centralised Access Control: ICIJ as an agent 168 4.1.3 Publication: fitting the octopus in a jar 181 4.1.4 Network by being nice 185 4.2. Uncovering contradictions to a positivist narrative 187 4.2.1 CBIJ technology: a totalitarian governance system 187 4.2.2 The fear of being replicated 190 Chapter 5. THE BACKSTAGE OF FOOTBALL LEAKS 193 5.1. Football Leaks: process and challenges 196 5.1.1 EIC federated power configuration 197 5.1.2 Who get’s to join Football Leaks 203 5.1.3 Publication schedule: intensive negotiations 211 5.1.4 Network by agreement emerges 218 5.2. Beyond Football Leaks: limitations of the CBIJ model 222 Chapter 6. DISCUSSING CBIJ 228 6.1. The 'leak capture ' 230 iv Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Ştefan Cândea 04.2020 6.2. CBIJ and its perpetual promise 238 6.3. Data Feudalism 246 Chapter 7. CONCLUSIONS: Colonisation of CBIJ 250 7.1. Local control 252 7.2. Global consequences 254 7.3. Limitations and further research 256 7.4. Colonisation of cross-border investigative journalism 258 APPENDIX A 262 APPENDIX B 264 APPENDIX C 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY 278 v Cross-Border Investigative Journalism: a critical perspective Ştefan Cândea 04.2020 LIST OF FIGURES