In this, the first of the three chapters on investigative journalism, we discuss why there is a need for investigative reporting and we state some basic principles. In the following chapters we give practical advice on how to set about the task and on how to write your stories or present your reports. We conclude with advice on some ethical and legal problems you may meet along the way.
What is investigative journalism?
Investigative journalism is finding, reporting and presenting news which other people try to hide. It is very similar to standard news reporting, except that the people at the centre of the story will usually not help you and may even try to stop you doing your job.
The job of journalists is to let people know what is going on in the community, the society and the world around them. Journalists do this by finding facts and telling them to their readers or listeners.
In much of their work, the facts are easy to find in such places as the courts and parliaments, disasters, public meetings, churches and sporting events. People are usually happy to provide journalists with news. Indeed, in many countries, thousands of people work full time in public relations, giving statements, comments, press releases and other forms of information to journalists.
Throughout the world, though, there are still a lot of things happening which people want to keep secret. In most cases these are private things which have no impact on other people - such as relations within a family or a bad report from school. These personal things can remain secret.
In many other cases, governments, companies, organisations and individuals try to hide decisions or events which affect other people. When a journalist tries to report on matters why
ich somebody wants to keep secret, this is investigative journalism.
The great British newspaper publisher Lord Northcliffe once said: “News is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”
There are several reasons why societies need investigative journalism. They include:
People have a right to know about the society in which they live. They have a right to know about decisions which may affect them, even if people in power want to keep them secret.
People in power - whether in government, the world of commerce, or any other group in society - can abuse that power. They can be corrupt, steal money, break laws and do all sorts of things which harm other people. They might just be incompetent and unable to do their job properly. They will usually try to keep this knowledge secret. Journalists try to expose such abuse.
Journalists also have a duty to watch how well people in power perform their jobs, especially those who have been elected to public office. Journalists should constantly ask whether such people are keeping their election promises. Politicians and others who are not keeping their promises may try to hide the fact; journalists should try to expose it.
Of course, journalists are not the only people in society who should expose incompetence, corruption, lies and broken promises. We also have parliaments, councils, courts, commissions, the police and other authorities. The police often take people to court for breaking laws. But sometimes they do not have the time, staff or skills to catch and correct every case of abuse. Also, they cannot do anything against people who behave badly without actually breaking any laws.
So journalists have a role as well. The difference is that when journalists expose wrongdoing, they cannot punish people. Journalists can only bring wrongdoing into the light of public attention and hope that society will do the rest, to punish wrongdoers or to change a system which is at fault.
Who should we investigate?
Journalists should be able to expose abuse, corruption and criminal activities in all fields of public life, but the main areas include the following:
Governments
These range from local councils to national parliaments and foreign governments. Sometimes politicians and public servants are actually corrupt and should be exposed and removed from office. But often they hide a decision because they know the public may not like it. They might keep a deal they have made with a foreign timber company secret because it will harm the environment or destroy people's homes. Often politicians and public servants spend so long in office that they forget that the public has the right to know what is happening. If the public elects people to office and gives them taxes and other forms of wealth to administer, the public has the right to know what they are doing. The electors should also know so that they can decide how to vote at the next election.
Companies
Some companies break the law and should be exposed. But companies usually like to keep activities secret for other reasons. Perhaps they have made a mistake or lost money. Perhaps they do not want competitors to steal their secrets or they do not want people to oppose a development they are planning. However, even private companies have some responsibility towards the public. Companies are part of each society. They usually make some use of natural resources, take money from customers and shareholders, provide jobs for people and use services provided by all taxpayers. Where their activities affect the rest of the community, the community has a right to know what they are doing.
Criminals
Although governments and companies can be corrupt, criminals make their living at it. They act like leeches on the community, so your readers and listeners have the right to know about them. Fighting crime is, of course, mainly the job of the police and legal system. But sometimes they do not have enough resources to do their jobs properly. Sometimes the law itself limits their powers. Also, the police and judiciary can sometimes be corrupt themselves. So journalists - like every law-abiding citizen - have the duty to expose wrongdoing.
There are, of course, all sorts of other individuals and organisations who like to hide things which affect the public. A charity may try to hide the fact that it is not doing a good job with money it has been given. A football club might be secretly negotiating to move its ground against the wishes of its fans. A man might be selling coloured water as a cure for every illness. All these things need to be exposed so that the public can make up its mind whether to support them or not.
Some basic principles
Let us discuss some basic rules about investigative reporting before we move on to the practical techniques.
News value
Most newspapers, radio and television stations get a lot of requests from people to "investigate" some alleged wrongdoing. In many cases these are silly matters, lies or hoaxes. But you should spend some time on each tip-off, to decide whether or not it will make a story.
You should judge all topics for investigative reporting on the criteria for what makes news. Is it new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people? Sometimes, the story might only affect one person and be so trivial that it is not worth following up. Remember you have limited time and resources, so you cannot follow every story idea. Use your news judgment.
Keep your eyes and ears open
Always be on the lookout for possible stories. Sometimes people will come to you with tip-offs, but often you must discover the stories yourself. Story ideas can come from what you read or overhear or even a sudden thought while you are brushing your teeth. Good investigative reporters do not let any possible story clues escape. They write them down because they might come in useful later.
Listen to casual conversations and rumor, on the bus, in the street or in a club. Careless words give the first clues to something wrong, but never write a story based only on talk you have overheard or on rumor.
Get the facts
Because investigative reporting means digging up hidden facts, your job will not be as easy as reporting court or a public meeting. People will try to hide things from you. You must gather as many relevant facts as you can, from as many people as possible. Your facts must be accurate, so always check them.
And do not expect dramatic results. Real life journalism is seldom like the stories you see in films. Most investigations need many hours of work gathering lots and lots of small details. You and your editor must realise this. If you are not given enough time, you may not be able to do any successful investigative reporting.
Fit the facts together
As you gather the facts, fit them together to make sure that they make sense. Investigative reporting is often like doing a jigsaw. At the beginning you have a jumble of pieces. Only slowly will they emerge as a picture. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle, you will not have all the pieces at the beginning. You have to recognise which pieces are missing then go and find them.
Check the facts
Remember you are trying to find information which some people want to keep secret. They will not help you in your investigation, so you cannot check your facts with them. They will probably oppose you and look for mistakes in everything you write or broadcast. If you make a mistake, they will probably take you to court. You must always check your facts. Take a tip from the most famous example of investigative reporting, the so-called Watergate Affair. The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigated a crime which eventually led to the downfall of US President Richard Nixon. They knew their enemies would be waiting for them to make a mistake, so they made it a rule that they would never use any fact unless it was confirmed by two sources. This is a good rule to try to follow.
However, remember that many people you might interview about corruption could be corrupt themselves. Criminals lie, so be suspicious of what you are told - and check their words with someone else, preferably someone you trust.
Evidence
In addition to gathering facts, you should also gather evidence to support those facts. This is especially important in case you are taken to court for defamation as a result of your investigation. Courts will only accept facts which can be proved. If someone tells you something on the record, you can show the court your notes, but it would also be useful to get a signed statutory declaration from them. This is a kind of legal statement given under oath. Original documents will usually be accepted as evidence, but photocopies may not, unless they are supported by evidence from the owner of the original, who may not choose to help you.
Confidential sources
When investigating corruption or abuse, you will meet people who will only give you information if you promise never to reveal their identity. This is very common in criminal matters, where people are scared of pay-back.
You can agree to these conditions but remember, sometime in the future a judge examining the same matter in court may order you to reveal the name of such a confidential source of information. You will be breaking the law if you refuse to name your source, and could go to jail for contempt.
If you promise to protect a confidential source, you must do so until the source himself or herself releases you from that promise. So if you are not prepared to go to jail to protect a source, do not promise in the first place. (For a full discussion of this issue, see Chapter 60: Sources and confidentiality.)
Threats
People may threaten you to try to stop your work. This could be a threat of physical harm or a threat by a company to stop advertising with your newspaper or station. It could even by a vague threat to "do something" to you. Most threats are never carried out. The people making them realise that harming you will only make their situation worse.
But all threats should be reported immediately to your editor or your organisation's lawyer. This will share the burden of worry with someone objective. It will also act as extra protection if the person making the threat knows that it is public knowledge. If you have a witness to the threat, you might be able to include it in your eventual story, after getting legal advice.
Investigative journalism always leads to some unpleasant conflict. If you cannot cope with conflict, stay out of investigative journalism (see Chapter 58: Pressures on journalists).
Work within the law
Journalists have no special rights in law, even when investigating corruption. Unlike the police, journalists cannot listen in to other people's telephone calls or open their letters. Journalists cannot enter premises against a person's wish.
You must work within the law, but more than that, you should not use any unethical methods of getting information. For example, you should not pretend to be someone to whom people feel obliged to give information, such as a police officer or a government official.
However, there are situations where you do not have to tell people that you are a journalist when gathering information. We will discuss those in the next chapter.
If you have any doubts about legal matters, consult your editor or your organisation's lawyer.
TO SUMMARISE:
Investigative journalism is needed to uncover important stories which people want to hide
Investigative journalists need all the skills of general reporting, but especially:
an alert mind to recognise story ideas and important facts which people are trying to hide
an ordered mind to make notes, file information and fit lots of facts together
patience to keep digging for information
good contacts throughout society
courage to withstand threats from people you are investigating
As well as accumulating information, you must also gather supporting evidence in case your story is challenged
You must protect confidential sources of information
Always consult a lawyer if you have any worries about the legality of what you are doing or writing
Double-check everything you do, from the information you gather to the way you write your final story
Investigative reporting in practice
In this, the second of the three chapters on investigative journalism, we give practical advice on how to undertake the task and make sure your work is reliable and accurate. In the third chapter on investigative reporting we discuss how to write your stories or compile your reports and we conclude with advice on some ethical and legal problems you may meet along the way.
The task of the investigative reporter may seem full of difficulties, but if you follow some simple hints it can be quite easy.
Contacts
We cannot stress often enough how important a journalist's contacts are. These are the people who can give you story ideas, information and tell you when you are on the wrong track. Make as many contacts as you can - and look after them as you would a friend.
Good investigative reporters have contacts in the places most likely to provide stories. Your contacts do not have to be people at the top of departments or companies. In fact, people down the ladder are often more practical use. Identify people in key positions within organisations. Good contacts are people like court clerks, council clerks, company clerks - in fact, clerks almost anywhere. These are the people who see all sorts of information you might find useful.
Trade union leaders are good contacts in the commercial world, as are accountants or financial advisers. Because groups such as lawyers, police officers, accountants, doctors, nurses, delivery drivers and politicians enjoy chatting about people in their profession, you only have to establish one or two good contacts within any group to get a lot of information about what is happening within the profession.
Always listen, even if what your contact says is no immediate use. If a contact rings when you are out, always ring them back, otherwise you may lose them. Protect your contacts and never reveal them if they ask you not to. Even contacts such as council clerks who are allowed to give you information openly may not want to seem to be favouring you, so be discreet.
Make good relations with other people in your news organisation. They will have their own contacts who might be useful. It is always good to get to know the people who sell advertising space in your newspaper, radio or television station. They meet all sorts of people in their work and always like to talk. They usually love passing information to their journalists.
Listen
Good journalists know how to listen. Listen to people even if they do not seem to have any useful information. They may still say something you can use later.
If a contact calls you with information which you do not think you can use, do not tell them so immediately. Say you will "look into the matter" and the next time you talk to them, mention that "I couldn't use your information, but thanks anyway". This approach keeps them feeling important.
Interviewing
You will need to interview people in your search for facts. Never interview the person at the centre of the investigation first. Always start at the edge and work your way towards the middle. You must not warn the person under investigation too soon. Also, you need to gather as many facts as possible before you put your questions to the person at the centre.
For example, you may be investigating a rumour that Mr X, the manager of the city rubbish dump, has accepted bribes to allow companies to dump dangerous waste illegally. Start by interviewing drivers of garbage trucks who use the dump, then the managers of their companies and finally, if you have enough information by then, question Mr X himself. Start with those people who are innocent or just on the edge of the corruption (because they will speak most freely), before digging deeper into the centre of the matter.
Make notes
Make lots and lots of notes. Write down everything, however unimportant it may seem at the time.
If you cannot write your notes immediately, write them as soon as possible. For example, if you are having a private conversation with a contact in a club, he may not want other people to see you making notes like a reporter. Make your notes as soon as you get somewhere private, like your car or the toilet!
Keep all your notes in order. It is good practice in a big and lengthy investigation to set up a filing system for notes, reports and other documents. This will keep them in order and separate from any other stories you might be working on at the same time.
Keep all your notes, tapes and documents in a safe place, just in case there is a fire or the office is burgled by the people you are investigating or raided by the police. In an important investigation, make copies of all material and take them home or leave them with a trusted friend, a lawyer or in a bank. You cannot resist the police if they come with a warrant to take material from your office, but you do not need offer them information on where you keep any other copies of your notes.
Protecting documents
Your contacts or anonymous people may give you confidential documents exposing some corruption, such as a letter from Mr X to the rubbish companies asking for bribes (though he might not use that word). Or it could be a confidential report that a new public building is about to fall down, something the government wants to keep secret.
We say that such documents have been "leaked" - like water through a hole in a pipe. You must be especially careful in protecting such leaked documents, because the legal owners of them (such as Mr X or the government) could get a court order forcing you to give them back. If they have a code on them somewhere which can identify that particular copy, they might be able to trace your source who leaked that copy. One tip is to photocopy the document then either destroy the original or hand it back to your source to put back in the proper place. Then you cannot be accused of possessing stolen goods. Now use scissors to cut out any parts of your photocopy which might give clues to who sent it to you. If the police do seize your documents, they may not be able to trace who sent it.
Teamwork
Where possible, try to work with another reporter on a big investigation. They can go with you on difficult interviews, to make their own notes, to protect against threats and to support you if the interviewee later denies something he said.
Working with a partner allows you to divide up some of the time-consuming work of chasing leads and checking public records.
A partner will also be able to discuss the story with you in detail. Together you might be able to solve a puzzle which you alone cannot solve.\
A partner will also stop you feeling isolated. Because investigative reporting can be a long and lonely job, you need someone near you to give support and tell you when you are going right or wrong.
Sources of information
Although a lot of your work may be digging for secrets, you can get a lot of useful information openly from official sources and documents if you know where to look.
Official sources
There are official reports, minutes of meetings, company reports, transcripts of courts or commissions, records of land ownership, police records, even yearbooks, telephone books and electoral lists. By piecing together information from these sources, helped by talking to contacts, you can build up your jigsaw.
For example, if a disco burns down in suspicious circumstances, you can find who might benefit from insurance money by checking who owns it. Look in the company records and land titles records. You might be surprised to find that the person who runs the disco does not really own it. Court records might tell you whether any of the real owners have any criminal records for arson or fraud. Bankruptcy court records might tell you whether the owner is in financial trouble. You build up the picture piece by piece.
Unfortunately, because the situation varies from country to country, it is impossible to give detailed advice here of where you should look for official information. It is something you will have to learn by asking friends, colleagues and contacts - then doing it.
In countries like the United States where there are laws which allow members of the public to examine all sorts of public records, the task of the investigative reporter is made easier - even if it still takes a long time. Freedom of Information (FOI) laws set down rules about which records are open for the public (including journalists) to see. They also include rules on how people can ask to see official information and what to do if information is refused.
If you do not have any FOI laws in your country, perhaps you and your fellow journalists can lobby your politicians to introduce them. (You can get details on FOI laws by contacting journalism associations or councils for civil liberties in countries such as the United States, Britain or Australia.)
If you do not have FOI laws in your country, your Constitution may give you some rights to examine government records. Check this with a good lawyer.
Even if there is no law giving you the right to examine official documents, some public bodies may have rules which allow the public (including journalists) to see certain records. Some court and parliamentary records are usually available for inspection. Your country may also have bodies such as a companies commission, corporate affairs commission, public stock exchange or securities commission which keep records on commercial companies. You should ask if their records are open to public inspection. Most democracies have laws which state that all public companies must produce certain kinds of regular reports (such as annual reports, lists of directors and financial statements). These records may be available for inspection.
The general rule should be: Whether you have a legal right or not to examine records, you should ask to see them. Sometimes you may be lucky and an official will let you see records you are not legally entitled to. Sometimes they may refuse permission, in which case you should find out whether you can appeal to anyone higher up to change the decision.
If you are blocked in your search, why not ask a politician to help out? He or she may have access to records which you have not been able to see. Politicians may agree to help either because they want to help to expose wrongdoing or because it will help them against their opponents.
Overseas information
You may need information about foreign governments, companies or organisations. Perhaps the company you are investigating is based overseas. You could try to get information or help from a number of organisations such as international news services, universities, international computer databases, foreign embassies or lobby groups such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International.
If your story has connections with another country, contact a news organisation in that country and agree to work on the investigation together, sharing information and ideas. If the story is big enough, they might even send their journalists to work with you.
Gathering evidence
It is never ethical to trick people to gain evidence for a story, but you can sometimes set your own trap without lying.
For example, if you are investigating a story about Garage X which is charging customers for repairs it never makes, you can test that garage yourself. Perhaps get a faulty car and first take it to a government inspection station or a reputable garage, who will tell you exactly what faults it has. Then take the car to Garage X, posing as an ordinary customer, not telling them that you are a journalist. When they say they have completed the repairs, take the car back to the original garage that you trust, and get a report from them on whether or not the repairs have been done. You or your colleagues will need to do this several times before you can be sure that Garage X really is cheating people, not just making mistakes in its work. Then you should confront the Garage X owner with your evidence and ask him to explain.
A word of warning here: do not encourage anyone to break the law. In some countries, such as the United States, this is called "entrapment" and is illegal. For example, if you hear that Mister Y is taking bribes to issue building permits, you must not go up to Mr Y posing as a builder and offer him money - that may be illegal. However, you can go up to Mr Y and ask for a permit and explain that you need it urgently. If he then asks for a bribe, you have your story.
Publication
If your newspaper, radio or television station is in competition with other news organisations, you will usually try to keep your investigation secret until it is published or broadcast. This is because you may spend many days or even weeks of work on a story, and do not want to give your competitors all your work for free.
It is occasionally also important to keep it secret from people at the centre of your investigation who will be exposed for incompetence, corruption or a crime. Although, as we discussed earlier, you should eventually interview the people who have been accused, you should not give them too long before you publish the story. If you do, they might threaten you, escape or take out a court injunction stopping publication. (See "Silencing writs" in Chapter 70: Defamation.)
The ideal investigation follows these steps:
Build up facts until there is no doubt;
Interview any people who seem to be doing wrong;
Write the story;
Make a final check with your lawyer to make sure your story is legally safe;
Publish.
Incomplete stories
You may occasionally find that, however hard and long you try, you cannot get all the pieces in the jigsaw. Perhaps some documents are missing, hidden or they cannot be released; perhaps someone refuses to comment. You will have to decide whether or not to publish the incomplete story. Consult with your superiors and lawyer before making the decision.
You will occasionally find that publishing an incomplete story helps to unearth some missing details. A reader or listener may come forward with the information you need. The person who would not comment may realise that silence is no longer useful.
Follow-ups
The story should not end with publication or broadcast. If you have exposed something wrong, you must check to see what is done by people with authority to put it right. Are the police going to press charges against the rubbish dump manager for taking bribes? Will the Minister of Health do anything about the poisonous waste left in the dump? Then you can write a series of follow-up stories, referring back to your original article or documentary.
If you have exposed a defect which will take longer to correct, make a note in your newsroom diary to check perhaps a week, a month or a year later. For example, if you have written a story showing that schools in certain provinces have been starved of teaching staff because of Education Department inefficiency, first find out what the Minister of Education intends to do about it. And perhaps six months later check again if the Minister has supplied the necessary teachers.
If other news organisations in your area or country also do investigative reporting, you will occasionally find that they have their own exclusive story exposing some wrongdoing.
It may be so important that your organisation has to use that story too. In such a case, look for a good angle to follow up. The most usual one is to ask the people under investigation for their reaction, or ask people responsible for putting the situation right - such as the police or a minister - what are they going to do about the situation which has been exposed.
From the moment it is published or broadcast, the competition's story is public property, so follow it up if it seems worthwhile. But remember, your competitor may not have checked their facts properly. Do not trust them. You cannot be sure that their story is true unless you check the facts again yourself. Some quick visits or telephone calls may be all that is needed.
TO SUMMARISE:
Investigative journalists need all the skills of general reporting, but especially:
an alert mind to recognise story ideas and important facts which people are trying to hide
an ordered mind to make notes, file information and fit lots of facts together
patience to keep digging for information
good contacts throughout society
courage to withstand threats from people you are investigating
Become familiar with all the different places you can get information, such as company registers and court records
As well as accumulating information, you must also gather supporting evidence in case your story is challenged
Double-check everything you do, from the information you gather to the way you write your final story
Investigative reporting, writing techniques
In this, the final of the three chapters on investigative journalism, we discuss how to write your stories or compile your reports and we conclude with advice on some ethical and legal problems you may meet along the way.
Investigative reporters must take special care when writing a story. This is because investigative stories usually make someone appear either bad or stupid, accusations which can lead to legal action against you for defamation. You will probably be safe if your story is true and in the public interest. But it can lose the protection of the law if there are serious errors. Someone - probably the people your story exposes as corrupt, dishonest or simply incompetent - will be looking closely for mistakes to attack you on. So you must take extra care. (For more on the risks of defamation, see Chapter 69: Defamation.)
Writing
Writing stories or scripts based on investigative journalism requires all the skills you need for general journalism. However, given the risks you will face in investigative journalism, a few of the core rules are worth stressing again here:
Stick to facts
You will be much safer if you stick to facts which you can prove are true. That is why you check your facts and get confirmation for each one.
As you write, stop at each new important fact and say to yourself: "Is this true?" Then say: "Have I confirmed it with another source?"
Do not speculate (i.e. write things which might be true, but which you cannot prove). If you do not have all the facts you would like, you may have to be satisfied with a lesser story, as long as it makes sense and contains no errors.
Avoid personal comment
Do not put in your personal opinions. You may be writing a story about someone who has cheated old people out of their life savings. You may hate this man, but you must not say it. You might believe he is evil, but you should not say that either. If you show in your story that you hate this man, that could be seen as malice, which will destroy your defence against defamation.
Just show your readers and listeners the facts. If the man is bad, the facts will lead your audience to that conclusion without you telling them what to think.
Keep your language simple
Keep your sentences short and your language simple and concise. Some investigations will reveal some very complicated facts, perhaps because the person under suspicion has tried very cleverly to hide their wrongdoing. You must simplify this for your readers or listeners, so they get a clear picture of what has happened.
Avoid vague words
Wherever possible, avoid using vague words, such as "a large amount" or "some time later". Words like this show that you do not have accurate details - otherwise you would use them. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but vague words will usually take the strength out of a story.
If you know the man cheated the old people out of $110,854, write that figure somewhere in the story (but not, obviously, in the first few paragraphs, where you should say "more than $100,000").
Check your work
You should check your work at each stage and when you have finished, double check everything again.
Ask yourself again: "Are these facts correct and confirmed?" If you have enough time, put the story to one side for a few hours, then return to it with a fresh view, seeing it as a reader or listener might.
Ask a colleague to read the story and try to find errors. Do not be upset if they expose errors or big gaps in information. It is better to be told now by a colleague than later in a defamation case.
Wherever possible, show the story to your organisation's lawyer, who will bring a fresh mind to the story and spot any legal problems which might arise.
If anyone recommends changes, do not let them write the changes themselves. They will not know the case as well as you do. Get them to explain what is wrong, rewrite that part yourself, then ask if it is right. Never settle for anything you are not completely happy with.
One final check worth making is to ask yourself: "Is there any way I have identified my confidential sources, even though I promised to keep them secret?" Try to read the story as if you are one of the people who has been accused of incompetence or corruption. See if they would be able to identify any of your confidential sources from what you have written. If there is any risk at all, change the story to protect your sources.
Illustrations
Can you use any illustrations to make your story more interesting? Perhaps you can use pictures of the victims looking sad, or someone at the scene of an alleged crime.
In complicated stories, a diagram might help to show how the pieces fit together. For example, in a story involving related companies, you should include a simple box diagram showing with lines and arrows how the companies are related. If your organisation has a graphic artist, ask them for help.
In a story about how a government department has been wasting taxpayers' money, you might use a graph to show how the money has disappeared over the years.
If you have a really important document to support your story, include the relevant sections of that document as an illustration. On television, you can type quotations from the document across the screen as the story is being read out.
On radio and television, use the actual tapes of interviews if you have them. These will add variety and also act as confirmation.
However, if your interviewee wants to remain anonymous, perhaps film them in silhouette or change the sound of their voice electronically.
Headlines
However carefully you write your story to make it safe, a sub-editor may not understand exactly why you use certain words or describe something in a certain way. The sub-editor may write a headline which is wrong or possible defamatory.
Having spent a lot of time working on the story, do not abandon it at this final stage. Discuss possible headlines with the sub-editor, until both of you are satisfied you have done the best job possible
Some words of warning
As we have said several times in these chapters, there are many dangers to investigative reporting. The greatest danger is that you will do or write something which will allow the person under suspicion to take you to court for defamation or on some other charge. So remember the following:
Sub judice reporting
It may happen that a story you are investigating is also being dealt with by a court. In most countries, a matter before a court is said to be sub judice and there are limits on what can be reported about it, beyond what is said in the court.
Be very careful when covering any sub judice matters. Consult your editor or lawyer for advice. If you make the wrong decision, you could be charged with contempt of court. (See Chapter 64: The rules of court reporting.)
Mistakes
If someone complains about a mistake after the story is published or broadcast, never issue an immediate apology or correction without talking first to your editor and lawyer. They will decide what action to take.
Payments for stories
Sometimes people will ask to be paid for their information. Try to avoid this, but sometimes it is necessary, even if it is a few dollars for a tip-off.
However, never pay for something which might have involved criminal activity. For example, if someone asks for $100 to provide a document, then they steal that document, you could be charged as an accomplice to theft. Any payment could be seen as encouraging a crime.
Concealing crimes
Your informant may tell you that they have committed a crime, perhaps that they broke into an office to steal a photograph as proof of corruption. You should never knowingly hide a criminal from the law. If you think that your informant is involved in criminal activities, tell them at the beginning that you do not wish to know anything about it. Talk only about the facts you need to know for your story
A final warning
You may live in a country where the media are controlled and the government will not allow any real investigative reporting. You and your editor must decide whether or not you should take the risk of carrying out investigative reporting which the government will not like, and may punish you for. But journalists throughout the world have often had to make such decisions. Some have paid the price with imprisonment or death. You must decide in each case whether the issue is worth the ri
TO SUMMARISE:
Investigative journalism is needed to uncover important stories which people want to hide
Investigative journalists need all the skills of general reporting, but especially:
an alert mind to recognise story ideas and important facts which people are trying to hide
an ordered mind to make notes, file information and fit lots of facts together
patience to keep digging for information
good contacts throughout society
courage to withstand threats from people you are investigating
Become familiar with all the different places you can get information, such as company registers and court records
As well as accumulating information, you must also gather supporting evidence in case your story is challenged
You must protect confidential sources of information
Always consult a lawyer if you have any worries about the legality of what you are doing or writing
Double-check everything you do, from the information you gather to the way you write your final story
Investigative Journalism
Writing a history or complete account of African investigative journalism is outside the scope of this project. But we offer here a series of contributions – some current, some historical – on the topic, that will, hopefully, lay the foundations for further research, and also lay to rest decisively the myth that journalism which exposes social problems and criticizes the powerful is ‘un-African’.
We can define investigative journalism as:
An original, proactive process that digs deeply into an issue or topic of public interest
Producing new information or putting known information together to produce new insights
Multi-sourced, using more resources and demanding team-working and time
Revealing secrets or uncovering issues surrounded by silence
Looking beyond individuals at fault to the systems and processes that allow abuses to happen
Bearing witness, and investigating ideas as well as facts and events
Providing nuanced context and explaining not only what, but why
Not always about bad news, and not necessarily requiring undercover techniques – though it often is, and sometimes does.
An investigative reporter needs to have:
Curiosity
Passion
Initiative
Logical thinking, organisation and self-discipline
Flexibility
Good teamworking and communication skills
Well-developed reporting skills
Broad general knowledge and good research skills
Determination and patience
Fairness and strong ethics
Discretion
Citizenship
Courage
And finally
Finally, we have noted that though there are shared goals and common standards, there isn’t one, universal model for investigative reporting, and that to get the most out of studying case studies of other investigations, you need to think carefully about the similarities or differences in context between the case study and your own situation as a reporter.
Qualities of an investigative reporter
Passion
Says South Africa-based Evelyn Groenink: “Let’s face it, most investigative journalists will never be played by Robert Redford or Cate Blanchett in a Hollywood movie, no matter how brave and important the work they did or do! Most investigative journalism is a thankless endeavour, time- and energy-consuming, that will get your editor impatient and powerful people annoyed with you.
If you like a stable income with regular promotions; if your deepest wish is a management position with matching salary and if you enjoy being invited to dinners and parties given by VIPs in your country or community, then investigative journalism is probably not for you. But if you enjoy challenges, have a passion for truth and justice, and want to serve your readership or audience with stories that matter, no matter how much time and energy it costs you – and even if some powerful people will end up with maybe less-thanfriendly feelings towards you – then, by all means, go for it!”
Curiosity
Asking questions is where investigative journalism starts. The questions can be about events in the news, or about things you see or hear about in your day-to-day life.
Initiative
As we’ve noted, many newsrooms operate on limited resources and all run on tight deadlines. So an investigative idea you mention at a news conference won’t always be instantly adopted, particularly if it is un-formed and vague. You need to take the initiative, do your own preliminary checking and shape the idea into a solid story plan. If your newsroom still isn’t interested, you may need to take further initiative in identifying support (such as an investigative grant) for the work needed. (See Chapters 2-3.)
Logical thinking, organisation and self-discipline
Investigative reporting takes time and, because of the legal risks it often carries, must be verified down to the smallest detail. So you need to become a careful planner to make the best use of your time, and obsessive about checking and re-checking everything you discover, and making sure your story fits together.
Flexibility
An investigation can take unexpected turns. Sometimes the question you began by asking turns out to be a dead-end, or opens the door on another, far more interesting but less obvious question. You need to be prepared to rethink and redesign your research when this happens, and not stay wedded to your first ideas.
Teamworking and communication skills
Movies often portray the investigative reporter as a ‘lone wolf.’ Sometimes, there are situations where secrecy is so important that a story cannot be shared with others until certain safeguards are in place. But very often the best stories come out of a cooperative effort that uses all the available skills in (and even outside) the newsroom. An investigative story may call upon knowledge of anything from science and health to economics and sociology, and no one journalist, however strong their general knowledge, can be an expert in all these. For example, if you are following a paper trail through company audits and no-one in the newsroom has a sophisticated grasp of accounting, you’ll need to identify an expert who can help you. So good contacts and networking form part of your teamwork. And you’ll need to be a good enough communicator to ensure that the team understands the purpose of the story and the standards (accuracy, honesty, confidentiality) expected of everybody on it.
Well-developed reporting skills
This doesn’t mean you have to have a degree in journalism. But you need enough of either training or experience, or both, to know how to identify sources, plan story research, conduct good interviews (and sense when an answer doesn’t ring true), and write accurately and informatively. You also need to know when you are out of your depth, and have the humility to ask for advice or help. If you are relatively inexperienced, good teamworking (again) will help you to tap into the skills of others when this happens. Sometimes, people who don’t have a reporting background do have these skills. Researchers and community workers have often also been trained to interview and identify and sift facts, although they may need the help of newsroom workers to package a story attractively and accessibly for readers, listeners or viewers. We’ll look at effective writing and storytelling techniques in Chapter 7.
Broad general knowledge and good research skills
Understanding the context of your investigation can help you avoid dead-ends and spot relevant facts and questions. But if your investigation takes you into an unfamiliar area, you must be able to familiarise yourself with at least the background, conventions, terminology, role-players and issues of that area quickly. The ability to have a searching, informative conversation with an expert, use computer search engines, or locate and skim-read useful books are all vital here. Above all, you must read – everything, whenever you have the time. You never know when a bit of background will prove useful for your work.
Determination and patience
Investigative reporting will bring you up against all kinds of obstacles, from sources who disappear and records that don’t exist, to editors who want to can the story because it is taking too long or costing too much. Only your own motivation and belief that it is a worthwhile story will carry you through what is often a slow process of discovery.
Fairness and strong ethics
Investigative stories may put the security, jobs or even lives of sources at risk. They also risk putting their subjects at similar risk if reckless accusations are made. So an investigative reporter needs to have a strong, explicitly thought-out set of personal ethics, to ensure that sources and subjects are treated respectfully and as far as possible protected from harm. In addition, newsrooms that support investigative stories need to be guided by ethical codes and have a process in place for discussing and resolving ethical dilemmas. Sometimes public trust is your best protection, and you lose this if you behave unethically. More on this in Chapter 8.
Discretion
Gossips do not make good investigative reporters. As we’ve seen, loose talk can put the investigation – and lives – at risk. But in addition, it can tip off commercial rivals who will then scoop your story, or alert interviewees before you get a chance to talk to them. In a whole range of ways, talking too much can sabotage the story.
Citizenship
IJ’s are often attacked as ‘unpatriotic’, but we do not see our role like that. We believe that what we investigate and discover is driven by concern for the public interest and what will make our community better. Zambia-based Edem Djokotoe warns: “You might have the best research and writing skills in the world, but if you aren’t driven by personal convictions to contribute your skills to your society as a citizen, your story will lack purpose and heart.”
Courage
It isn’t only subjects and sources that are at risk. Reporters may be threatened with legal action or violence, jailed, or even assassinated for their investigations. In the face of these risks, you may succumb to pressure and censor yourself. You need to believe in what you’re doing, have the courage to carry on, and if possible have personal and professional support structures (for example, family or partner, religious community, counsellor, legal advisor, supportive editor and team) in place for when times get tough.
Generating story ideas
“We were motivated by the need to clarify … the vast difference between electoral promises and the actual exercise of power” – Eric Mwamba, Ivory Coast
“I began my story because a World Bank press release did not ‘feel’ right” – Joe Hanlon, UK/Mozambique
“I heard more about this from a colleague whose cousin had been involved. I thought: I’d better go and have another look” – Henry Nxumalo, South Africa
Story ideas come from a range of sources, including some that might appear routine or unexciting. Don’t neglect:
Your own experience and that of friends and neighbours
Follow-ups on previous stories
Reading and the Internet
Street, café and taxi gossip
Routine checks of public information and with contacts
Keep an ideas book to record issues you come across.
But in every case, evaluate these ideas for their currency and public interest, and for any biases or lack of representivity related to their source.
Tip-offs can produce dramatic stories, but should be handled very carefully.
Evaluate their worth. Story tips about corruption have the most value when they can be used to shed light on some important aspect of public life; merely crucifying an individual is not always the best use of reporting resources.
Evaluate their truthfulness and the possible motives of sources.
Investigative journalism sets its own agenda, and uses sources and tips to uncover important truths. When sources and tips use the journalist, this is called ‘leak journalism’, not investigation.
Wherever a story idea comes from, journalists should start with their own and their community’s real concerns:
Analyse those concerns
Boil the story idea down to a clear ‘headline’ to focus the investigation
Source map the story
Data map the information as it is uncovered
What to find a story
Generating good story ideas isn’t easy – in fact, the editorial focus group on this chapter, made up of regional journalists, said it was probably one of the hardest parts of a journalist’s job. So, here we’ll consider the various alternative ways of finding stories:
Your own experience
Very often, reporters complain “I don’t have enough evidence!” when they have been to the site of a story, spoken to role players and recorded detailed descriptions of what they saw. Yet all this is real, concrete evidence. In the same way, something that happens to you is no less valid as the starting-point for a story than something that happens to someone else. The advantage is, you know it is happening: you experienced it. You are your own best and first witness, and it is always preferable to have first-hand experience and observation to help you shape your own view of the story – backed up, of course, by detailed notes taken at the time; never rely on your memory. If you have a cellphone with a camera, photograph that leaking sewer as soon as you see it.
Experience of friends and family
All the same advantages and disadvantages apply to the people you know and work with. Their experiences are real, but may not be representative, and may be biased by personal feelings. So, again, they can be the starting points for good investigations – but only starting points.
The Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) notes: “Some people you know may do jobs where a commitment not to disclose information goes with the job… a policeman, for example. So think first about how you use the people you know. And don’t imagine that because someone is a friend or neighbour, they don’t mind helping you out – it might make life difficult for them. Always get permission before you use someone’s personal story.”
Steer clear, however, of things told to you by friends that are not direct experience, as in: “I have a cousin who knows a woman who was asked for a bribe at the airport.” Unless the woman has a name, an address, and can be interviewed, this is just rumour or urban legend.
Roadside radio
No medium is better at generating urban legends than ‘roadside radio’: the fast-traveling gossip and anecdotes of street traders, taxi drivers and passengers, and people in bars and cafés. Periodically, rumours of ghost hitch-hikers, or miracle cures, or magical tricksters who make penises disappear, infect whole cities or villages.
Of course, the legend itself can become the subject of an investigation: is it really true? Why do people believe it? What does it tell us about our times and our country?
But far more useful is the way roadside radio can alert us to real trends and changes. The media is often accused of ‘agendasetting’ and telling readers what they ought to be interested in, but popular rumour also sets its own agendas. Just as you keep your eyes open for physical clues to stories, so your ears need to be alert to what people around you are discussing. Are girls disappearing, suspected victims of trafficking, in a certain suburb? Have people begun abusing a new type of homebrew? Has a well-known businessman suddenly stopped spending money, or a top policeman begun socialising with the criminal elite? Roadside radio will tell you about all these developments, and many of the tales will be true.
Your first step, however, has to be confirming the validity of the rumour. Cross-check with sources who are in a position to know. Once you have confirmed that the rumour has some substance, you can begin planning your story.
Local newspapers
Former IRE executive director Brant Houston reminds us in his and IRE’s Investigative Reporter’s Handbook that local newspapers carry many seeds for investigative stories. A story lurks, for example, behind practically every paid legal notice: whether it deals with wills, name changes, foreclosures, auctions, tenders, seized properties or unclaimed property. Local newspapers also carry valuable reports on new construction or government projects and on local court cases. You may find the name of your school bus driver in a drunken driving case, or the name of a financial officer in a shoplifting case.
Following unpublished stories
We do this far too infrequently. Reader surveys and focus groups invariably tell us that readers love follow-ups. They want to know what happens next, or why it happened, or what the story is behind the terse daily news. Look especially for news stories that neglect to ask ‘why’, or that seem to focus narrowly on only one aspect of an issue. Look, too, for alternative ways of covering obvious, or regular stories such as world or national commemorative days.
Remember, though, that a follow-up rests on information that is already out in the public domain. Other journalists or publications may seize on exactly the same line of investigative follow-up as you, especially if the original story has obvious gaps in it. So you will need to ensure that you have an original angle, and may need to plan speedy work and publication to beat any rivals.
One form of follow-up that we often neglect is asking ‘stupid’ questions – in other words, questions that are so basic and almost naive that they are neglected. When every newspaper is speculating whether a politician took a bribe to vote a certain way, why not instead investigate whether he needed to be bribed, or why his price was so low/high? You may uncover some surprises.
Reading and surfing the web
Reading widely is your most important source of story ideas and the best way to upgrade your professionalism and writing skills. If you’re serious about your beat, accessing everything that is published about it is a professional duty. If you are not prepared to do this, investigative journalism is not the career for you.
What’s more, without the detailed, concrete knowledge that reading will give you of how systems and processes are supposed to work, how will you detect when something is going wrong? Don’t spend your time simply processing the information that happens to come your way – from press releases, statements and public events. Seek out new information to broaden your own knowledge base.
Although scarce resources, or geography, may limit your access to overseas publications or the Internet, you should use whatever channels you can to keep up to date. The various information services of embassies and non-governmental organisations often have free reading rooms or libraries, often with Internet access. If you have no alternatives, get into the habit of visiting these whenever you can.
Official and NGO reports often look dull and daunting, and many journalists see reading these as a routine task, rather than a source of exciting stories. But if you read them carefully, rather than simply using the front page or a press release summary, you can often uncover new and challenging information that can kick off investigations.
Checking public information
This is another basic professional obligation. When someone is appointed to a new post, check the public information about them:
their life story, education, the directorships they hold, etc. When a new enterprise is founded, check the main players. Cross-check too: look for links between them and their colleagues, or rivals, or relevant figures in government. If the new Agriculture Minister also sits on the board of a major grain supply company, is this legal? Even if it is permitted, surely there’s the possibility of conflict of interest? Discovering these types of links is a potent source of stories.
Any reports of scarce supplies – whether of petrol or land or scholarships – make the likelihood of corruption in the allocation of those resources greater. Asking questions such as who the gatekeepers are on these supplies, and what the allocation mechanisms are supposed to be, can help you to track down the points at which scarcity is being turned into somebody’s personal gain.
Another form of routine checking is having regular conversations with your contacts in various fields. We talk at length about handling sources in Chapter 4, but it is worth pointing out here that if you only contact sources when you need them, they will begin to feel used, whereas if you meet with them regularly without a set agenda, you’ll establish a good relationship and your conversations will produce news of new developments before any other reporter is alerted. We call this ‘working’ your contacts.
But stories from these sources will not automatically jump out and wave at you. You will have to use reasoning to work out the story. Says Edem Djokotoe:
“For instance, in a country of 12 million people where almost 80 percent of the population earn under one US dollar a day, from which sources do political parties get the financial and logistical resources they need to operate on a national scale, with a presence in 72 districts? Sheer common sense will suggest that money for running parties will not come from the sale of party cards or from fund-raising dinners. So where is the money coming from? It is easy for ruling parties to divert public funds to run party activities, but the question is: how exactly does the skimming occur and which functionaries make it happen? The fact that in Zambia political parties are not obliged to publish their financial statements and make the source of their funding known makes this a story worth pursuing.”
Planning the investigation
You cannot just move from idea straight to investigation. What you have is just a starting point. Because investigative stories carry a heavy social responsibility – and various legal risks – you must be sure your investigation is as thorough, accurate and comprehensive as possible. And because investigative reporting needs resources, you need to make certain these will be in place.
You need a framework of structured questions that will allow you to move from a broad, theoretical story idea to a tightly-framed hypothesis or question your IJ project can prove or answer
You need to plan your project, thinking about rationale, sources, obstacles, timeline and budget
You need to base any story pitch on this plan
Consider all sources: primary, secondary, paper, human and digital
Be aware of the uses of each, and construct a methodology that allows you to dig for information from sources that are appropriate
From idea to hypothesis
Very often, you’ll find you have the story idea in broad general terms that will allow you to investigate a wide (and probably unmanageable) universe of topics. A good technique for developing and refining this idea is to write your way into it. Try to compose a story summary: a paragraph that describes what the final story will look like. This is a way of opening newsroom minds to the story, and sketching out a range of possible explanations. It also helps you to see whether the story can be treated as local, or whether it might have national, regional or even pan-African implications.
For example:
Local, national or regional?
A lot has been written about the impact of water privatisation on poor people in Africa. X municipality in our country privatised its water services three years ago, and our paper’s local office has been receiving many complaints that water is now unaffordable and repair services are unreliable. Now there has been a big outbreak of diarrhoea in the area. Some people are saying the water supply is no longer poor; others are saying that people who cannot afford private water are using other unsafe sources. This story will look at the impact of water privatisation on the community and whether our water is still safe.
This ‘big picture’ approach is a good basis for further brainstorming. It takes you some way towards focusing the story, but not all the way. It’s quite abstract and general – almost academic rather than journalistic. It doesn’t define its terms, and raises issues that could take the story in different directions or split it into different themes.
Is our focus safety or cost? These could be two stories.
Does ‘impact’ mean impact only on the poor? Are there problems in middle-class communities too? What about industrial and agricultural water users in the area?
Do we want to see if the same problems exist in other regions? In other countries around us? Internationally?
(These questions, of course, may form the basis of other, future stories. Don’t throw away the results of such brainstorming.)
There are some other, more detailed frameworks that can help you tighten this very general level of description and see exactly what your IJ project should be. The first is the classic formula for focusing a story:
What’s been happening? So what? (Why should our readers care?)
What’s been happening? This puts the focus of your story firmly on the NEWS aspect. There’s been a major outbreak of waterborn diarrhoea in X, a district where water supply has been privatised. So what? Our readers want to know why, and whether their own water supplies and health are also at risk. We need to find out the source of the epidemic. If it can be linked to privatised water, we need to discover that link. And whatever the risk factors, we need to see if they exist – or are likely to be created – anywhere else, and warn our readers.
This framework gives you useful ideas about packaging and presenting your story so it is appealing to readers. But it is still broad, and doesn’t indicate the practical activities, precise focus or levels of depth in the investigation.
Who did it? How did they do it? What are the consequences? How can it be put right?
This is an IJ outlining approach that many US journalism textbooks recommend. It clearly sets out the stages of the planned investigation and is appropriate for stories where there are already strong indications that corruption exists. But assuming somebody’s guilt before you have looked at all the evidence can be dangerous. It ignores another key IJ question: conspiracy or chaos? In other words, is the outbreak the result of deliberate neglect and cost-cutting that risks safety, or the result of slackness, inappropriate systems that don’t suit the circumstances, inadequate resources, or a dozen other causes that can’t be pinned on one ‘villain’. It might be better to ask more neutral opening questions:
What went wrong? How did it go wrong? Why did it go wrong? What are the consequences? How can it be put right?
Thomas Oliver, assistant managing editor of projects (investigative stories) on the American newspaper The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, suggests three questions that bring together news and in-depth, focused planning:
What’s the news? What’s the story? What’s the keyword?
‘What’s the news?’ makes us sum up in a sentence what might be going wrong: the epidemic again. ‘What’s the story?’ focuses on how it can be told – for example, by telling the story of how people find water when they cannot buy it from a private company. Or by going to the water plant and looking at the adequacy of safety checks in the process. And that third question, ‘What’s the keyword?’ makes the journalist boil down the story idea to a key aspect: perhaps ‘affordability’ or ‘cutting corners’.
Going through this process means you have to choose a direction for your investigation. When you have collected all your evidence, you can return to these three questions to direct your writing of the story. Oliver notes: “projects tend to become all-inclusive and sometimes exhaustively cover everything one ever wanted to know about a subject. This is a weakness, not a strength.”
A final question to ask is:
What’s the rationale? (Why are we doing this story?)
Examining your rationale puts the spotlight on the values that underlie the story. This is the point where aspects such as public interest are examined, and asking and answering this question may put the brake on stories that are simply exposure for the sake of exposure.
Some questions that can flesh out the rationale for a story include:
Who will benefit/ who may suffer if we do this story?
Whom does the story challenge or call to account?
How important is the issue?
Will the story stir debate around values or behaviour?
Will the story highlight faulty systems or processes?
What could the story reveal that wasn’t previously known?
Has the story been covered before or elsewhere?
You may wish to take questions from all these frameworks and weave them together into a personal planning process. That’s fine – any framework is useful if it helps you decide:
Whether you really have a story;
What that story is; and
What direction your investigation should take.
Sources and spin-doctor
Three problems with accepting favours from news sources.
1. The first is the power-balance. Once you are in any way in someone’s debt, they are in a position to pressure you and weaken your independence.
2. The second is conflict of interest. If you are beholden to someone, you have something to lose (even if it’s only friendship or good gossip) if you ever exercise your journalistic skills against them.
3. The third is reputation. Even if you think you would never bow to pressure or be swayed by gifts, once it is known you took the gifts, the public might believe you were influenced. And your source will undoubtedly develop all kinds of expectations about what his ‘friend’ the journalist will do for him – and may talk about these.
The usefulness of sources depends not only on the sources themselves, but how skillfully you use them.
Start with your subject, and then ‘map’ witnesses, people currently or previously involved, experts and relevant official and organisational contacts. Make your selection from these.
Select and evaluate experts carefully, and find a way of dealing with differences in expert views without distorting arguments.
Pay particular attention to organisational contacts who act as gate-keepers, surveyors and door-openers.
Use covert techniques only after careful decision-making on important, public-interest stories.
Evaluate sources and documents methodically. Use the two-source rule to try to ensure that each of your findings has independent back-up.
Beware of spin. Question the origins and motives of everything.
Encourage reluctant sources to go on the record. If they will not, take every possible precaution to protect their identity.
Avoid making any payments to sources that can be misinterpreted as payment for the story.
Protect yourself by accurate record-keeping, careful guarding of your story materials and, where possible, getting signed affidavits from important sources.
There is a wealth of documentary source material in the public record. Look here first.
Also check work done in your field by previous writers and researchers, to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
The most important principle is that your relationship with your sources is sacred. Do not make promises you cannot keep. If you have made promises, you must be prepared to put your own liberty or life on the line to see they are kept.
Possible sources
“However much we try to refine our methods, there’s a hell of a lot of luck in this.” (Stephen Grey)
Never forget that the usefulness of human sources depends not only on who they are, but also on your skill as a reporter in building a relationship of trust, asking good questions and recording answers with meticulous accuracy. Investigation is one type of reporting where – whether or not you can use it in court – you should record, and not simply note, your interactions with sources.
Your starting point – always – is listing the main role players in your story and planning how you will interview them. We’ll look in more detail at investigative interviewing in Chapter 5.
Witnesses
We have already seen that the most important, reliable and vivid sources are usually witnesses: the people who have experienced or are otherwise directly involved in a story. You begin to identify witnesses by combing previous accounts of your topic for the names of people who were involved, or simply on the scene. If people claim to have been present or involved, you must of course verify that they were. Where you experienced parts of the story, you also count as a witness for what you saw. Sometimes, when reporting on the circumstances you have observed at a story scene, you are the most important witness. For example, if you are conducting lifestyle checks on a community leader, enter her home, and see expensive leather furniture and a flat-screen TV in what looks from outside like a humble cottage, you can report that.
But often an investigative project benefits from doing your most important interviews at a later stage, when you are in possession of more information and background and can frame your questions very precisely. So there are other people you need to find first – and some of them, you may not even know at this early stage. What follows, provides some tips.
Current associates
Look for people currently associated with the subject (e.g. other company officers or shareholders, family members, business associates, employees or clients). Consider organisations in which the subject is active such as sports clubs, religious organisations or charities. Remember that such people, because they are in some kind of relationship with the subject, will have an attitude towards him or her. Factor this into your enquiries.
Previous associates
Look for people who were previously associated with the subject: ex-partners in business, former spouses, employees, doctors, teachers etc. Remember, some professionals may have legal or ethical obligations of confidentiality, even after they have left a job. People with whom the subject was in a known dispute or in litigation can be very important witnesses, but, again, remember that their emotions and attitudes will colour what they tell you.
Chains of enquiry
Development researcher Joe Hanlon calls this “finding the woman who knows.” Start with an obvious contact or acknowledged expert in the broad field, and ask this person to refer you to someone with more detailed knowledge of your precise area of enquiry. Ask that contact, in turn, for an even more specialised referral. At the end of such a chain – sometimes after only three or four phone calls – you may well find someone who worked on the project or with the person you are investigating. This is particularly true in developing countries, where social and professional circles are small, and everybody knows everybody else – one of the advantages of doing research in Africa!
Experts
There are experts on almost everything. After the Tsunami in late 2004, every television and radio station in the world managed to find their own expert on extreme weather. There are technical experts, historians, research scientists, lawyers and engineers and many more. When dealing with corporate affairs (for example, the activities of multinationals) it is particularly important to identify the right expert: what a local accountant can tell you will be very limited.
What’s more, experts inhabit their own – often transnational – communities, so one expert will often lead you to another. Make sure you have done solid preliminary research before you talk to your chosen expert, so that your questions are clear and reasonably well-informed. An expert does not expect you to know as much as he or she does, but it is insulting to go in unprepared.
However, it is quite legitimate to ask for explanations in layman’s language, so that you can explain things better to your readers. Always be careful to record what experts tell you accurately. It is acceptable to ask: “Is this correct?” And never twist, omit or distort what they tell you because it does not fit your hypothesis.
You can find experts by looking at sources quoted on the Internet, in other materials on your subject, or through books they have written on the subject. Publishers can often provide contact addresses for their expert authors. Some experts – for example the forensic accountants employed by the police to trace paper trails of corruption or drugs money – operate as paid consultants. They are expensive, and what they can discuss with the media is limited by the constraints of client confidentiality.
A far closer, more affordable and accessible source is often your local university. If you are seeking expertise on mining, university departments of mining, engineering, mineral sciences and environment may all employ people who can help you. This may involve time fighting your way through sometimes unhelpful switchboard operators or departmental administrators. But local experts often have advantages over the star name you have found on the Internet. They are accessible; you can meet them face-to-face; they may speak in your local language and they can certainly relate what they tell you to the local context.
Government departments and other official bodies
In most countries with a functioning central government, government departments and experts are regarded as reliable sources of information. There is a long history of apparent impartiality in scientific reports, accurate minutes of meetings, court proceedings and registrations.
But in major and controversial stories, this can prove a naive and dangerous assumption. A state-employed expert is just as likely to be right or wrong as any other expert – and in some cases may be under pressure from his employer to present information in a particular light. As with any other sources, consider the context and possible motives when you weigh up the information they give you.
However, such insiders are often extremely knowledgeable, and assuming they are always biased could be as mistaken as assuming they are always correct and impartial. Simply test the likelihood of what they tell you using a second informed source. It is also sometimes possible to ask a government department for an unofficial off-the-record briefing from one of their specialists, and this can provide extensive background, although you cannot quote it in your story.
International agencies
We tend to think of these bodies as sources of written reports and policies only. But they can also provide useful contacts, both in their home country and in the countries in which they operate. They are under no obligation to help you, but are often extremely sympathetic if approached correctly, particularly if your enquiries relate to an issue where they have strong policies.
But precisely for this reason, (like all other organisations) donor bodies and other types of agencies have their own policies and principles, as well as sometimes being firmly guided by the policies of their home governments or backing organisations. (For example, some European countries have donor foundations run by parties of the political Right, or the Centrists, or the Left. When you interview a representative of one of these agencies, what you hear will relate to one of these broader political perspectives.)
Research will allow you to put their comments and information in context, and judge whether you also need to conduct a balancing interview with another source.
Allow time for these kinds of interviews, as often international agency representatives have to seek permission before they can talk to the media. And be sure to credit the individual and organisation for the help they provided.
‘Shaking the tree’
Investigative reporting can sometimes be risky, and in some countries or for some topics the risks for the journalist can include arrest or assassination. So often working discreetly (if not actually ‘underground’) is important. But sometimes you can ‘shake out’ contacts by actually letting it be known that you are working on a topic, or already possess certain information. Sometimes you can do this informally, by using your networks of contacts; sometimes by publishing a preliminary, sketchy story on the investigative project. At that point, new people may volunteer additional information, or previously reluctant sources may come forward to ‘correct’ your story. Always weigh up the pros and cons of this tactic carefully; it can backfire. An equally possible outcome is that you alert people to your scrutiny, and they rush to hide evidence, silence sources or take pre-emptive action against you!
Blogs and internet chatrooms
Sometimes reading these can lead you to ‘whistleblowers’: discontented employees with dirt to share on their organisation. Many companies, organisations and government departments in the developed world have unofficial electronic meeting ‘rooms’ where critical opinions and information might be shared. It also happens in the few African countries where Internet use is well developed, such as South Africa. But do not take information directly from such sites into your story. You need to verify that the person is genuine and can support what they say; try to meet the source or conduct other checks.
Networking
Every journalist builds up networks. Often this happens naturally, in the course of reporting. But if you are working on a specific investigative project, you need to work proactively to build up a network relevant for your story. Where do people involved in what you’re investigating socialise? Do they live in a particular suburb? Shop at a particular store or mall? (Again, the smaller professional circles in many African countries make these slightly easier questions to answer than they might be in a huge city such as New York.) Go to those places, and get talking to people, gradually narrowing in on people associated with areas of, or individuals involved in, your investigation. You can glean a great deal of background knowledge just from chatting and observing. You can ‘house’ the key role player: find out exactly where (and how) he or she lives. But think carefully about both ethics and the security needs of your investigation before you take decisions on revealing your identity and conducting on-the-record conversations with targeted individuals.
Don’t neglect your journalistic colleagues as sources of contacts from their personal networks. If rivalry on a story is intense, you may not wish to share story details. However one good way of overcoming limited resources is to set up joint investigative teams with like-minded colleagues even if they work for other media houses. Divide the work, and agree which of the resulting stories each outlet will publish.
Gate-keepers, surveyors and ‘door-openers’
The most useful contacts are those within an organisation who can save you the moral dilemmas and risks of ‘going underground’ yourself. Gate-keepers are often literally that: secretaries, receptionists and door security officers, who can let you in to a place – or tell you who else goes in and out. Don’t make the mistake of paying attention only to high-ranking officials; try to establish good professional relations with everybody. Gate-keepers also play their role symbolically; controlling access to information rather than physical entry.
Remember that gate-keepers such as workers in banks, credit departments or government bodies will have signed confidentiality clauses as part of their employment contracts, and are legally bound not to disclose information. Do not seek their help for frivolous reasons, and always keep your relationships with them discreet, so that their identities can be protected. One very useful question in any investigation is ‘Who has this information?” Often, information has multiple gate-keepers.
Think laterally. If the Ministry of Health refuses to give you a document, perhaps another body has access to the same document: for example, the World Health Organisation, a health NGO, a university researcher working on this aspect of health, or a sympathetic member of the parliamentary health sub-committee.
Surveyors are your inside contacts who may not have any sensitive knowledge, but who can tell you, in Stephen Grey’s words “the lay of the land, who is who, who is really important, who really makes decisions”. Door-openers are the people with influence. If they like you, or believe your work is worthwhile, they can persuade others to talk to you. Door-openers may be respected elder statesmen, or far less senior but trusted individuals in an organisation or social group. Sometimes a traditional leader is the door-opener for his or her community. These are the people who will be listened to when they say: “This journalist is OK. You can talk to him/her.” Identify them through your context and background research and cultivate them.
Surveillance and ‘going underground’
Hanging around a shopping mall in the civil service suburb to observe bureaucrats at play is not quite the same thing as surveillance. Surveillance is close, covert observation of a story subject, which may or may not involve your ‘going underground’: posing as an insider, or using concealed cameras and recorders. One very common tactic since the arrival of cell phones is to phone your source while he is in a meeting with the person you are investigating, then have the cell phone left on while they conduct a conversation about your story topic, so you can listen in.
These activities are usually illegal and may also be unethical. The laws we discuss in Chapter 8 (privacy, false pretences, official secrets etc.) exist to prevent such activities, and all African states have these laws. Penalties can be severe, for both you and your news organisation. So, be sure you:
use them only as a last resort, after you have tried all legal and public channels
use them to fill defined gaps in your research, not simply to amass random raw impressions in the hope something will emerge
use them only after careful consideration and discussion of the ethical implications
consider how the use of covert techniques will affect the credibility of the final story and your reputation. Your subject may claim (and prove) that he was ‘trapped’ into doing or saying something incriminating
use them only for stories that are in the public interest, where serious consequences will result if you do not follow the story through to the bitter end
In important investigations, you will sometimes need to use these tactics: never say “Never.” But be sure your reasons are sound.
Forensic interviewing
The basic principles of planning and preparation applies to any interview situation. However, an investigative reporting project puts different demands on your skills and requires a different emphasis in your approach. Timing is of the essence, and the context is different. For this reason, you will use a different strategy, and your questioning technique will aim to achieve different goals.
Interview preparation is key. Devote as much time to research, collecting primary documents, question planning and rehearsal as you can.
Set up the interview in a way that suits the story and circumstances.
Lose the attitude. Even in interviews that may become adversarial, a calm, neutral demeanour and questioning style will produce better results.
Have a strategy for the whole interview. Always move from warm-up and broad, less threatening questions towards more precise, focused questions that will allow you to pin the interviewee down on key aspects.
Use data-mapping techniques to pinpoint the areas of short information and contradiction your interview needs to deal with.
Keep questions clear, simple and direct.
Establish ground rules (e.g. on/off record) and confirm basic information at the start of an interview.
Follow-up, re-phrase or reflect back to get answers that are equally clear and direct.
Take your time and don’t be scared of silences.
Understand and strategise in relation to the motivations of spin doctors.
Handle reluctant or fearful interviewees kindly and carefully – but don’t let them off the hook.
Establish support structures and strategies to help you deal with threats and intimidation.
Use covert interviewing techniques only after careful, ethical decision-making – and be sure you have the technical skills to carry them off.
Never take interview answers out of context.
Rules of the interview
Lose the attitude
Journalists often suffer from their own ‘bad press’. We are said to be nosy, sensationalist, out to destroy people’s reputations, working for the opposition, keeping hardworking people from their duties, lacking respect, etc. Sometimes, these accusations are well-founded. If someone was annoying us the way we sometimes annoy other people we would be upset too. The way to counter this negative image is to behave decently and ethically. Don’t be rude and don’t demand things that are unreasonable.
The more we behave in a way that implies “I can phone you at any time of day and night and you just have to give me what I want” the more we encourage hostility from the rest of society. Most people like to believe that they are good and honest. So why not begin by relating to interviewees on this basis? Phrasing questions in ways such as: “I would really like to understand how this works”, or “Please help explain the problem for the benefit of the community”, “Please work with me on this because the pollution is killing children” often produce good results. In many cases, individuals will help a journalist if they can be convinced that the public interest is at stake.
This is not just a matter of strategy. Despite grandiose labels such as ‘The Fourth Estate’, no individual journalist was democratically elected to monitor anybody – we just happened to land a job as a journalist. We are part of civil society, and in that sense share the responsibility of making sure the state serves its citizens, and we do have privileged access to channels of mass communication such as newspapers or broadcasting stations. All of that should make us less arrogant, not more so. Especially when we are working to expose hostile agencies, using methods such as making covert tapes that skirt or even break laws, it is important that we demonstrate our bona fides through pleasant, sincere, transparent (at least, as transparent as possible) working methods. To ensure that you don’t overstep the mark as a journalist, always ask yourself: What if I was the person I am investigating? How would I see the world, how would I see the role of journalists? Also ask: How accountable am I? Would I succumb to the same temptations that I am investigating against others? What would stop me? Where are my checks and balances?
Arrive on time
If you don’t, you will alienate your interviewee, lose time, waste time apologising, and spend the first moments breathless and unable to focus.
Dress appropriately
While rules of dress are more relaxed than they used to be, you don’t want to alienate your interviewee on first impression. Dress in a way that will fit in with the context, show appropriate respect, and be neutral enough to send no messages about your lifestyle or views.
Choose where you sit
If necessary, use the needs of your recording machine (“It will pick up sound better here…”) as an excuse. You need a position where you can maintain eye-contact, but sitting directly face-to-face can feel too confrontational. Rather sit level, opposite, but at a slight angle to your subject. Avoid obstacles between you, such as piles of books or the lid of an open laptop. A soft sofa makes it hard to write and too easy to relax out of alertness.
Always do some warm-up
This is good manners (you are their guest), will help you to relax and collect your thoughts, and may help them to see you as a human being rather than an intrusive journalist. But keep the type and length of the warm-up appropriate for the circumstances of the interview.
Maintain appropriate eye contact
There may be cultural considerations of ‘respect’ to deal with here, but you will always have a better conversation with someone if each of you sees the other’s face and expression. This may be difficult if you are taking notes, but remember to look up occasionally, and always when you are asking a question. If you simply read your questions your interviewee will suspect you are not confident, or
read rudeness or hostility into your refusal to engage.
Be equally conscious of body language
Be aware of body language (yours and theirs). Clusters of defensive gestures and posture can signal evasion and are a good clue to where you may want to push the questioning harder. Look too for signals of hurt, relief, humour, anger or boredom to either build on or counteract.
Establish the ground rules at the start
Confirm on/off the record and the timeframe; ensure informed consent to publish stories around sensitive topics. If the interview is informal choose your moment to get out your notebook or tape recorder and say: “You don’t mind if I record this/take notes?” If it’s formal, get going quickly.
Be aware that taking notes or recording may intimidate some interviewees
Don’t conceal recording devices, but try to write or record non-intrusively, and explain (“This will help me to get your answers right”) if they seem nervous, or ask.
Always take notes even if you record too
Note-taking keeps you focused and allows you to record things (gestures, surroundings, expressions) that the tape may not capture. It is also a back-up if anything goes wrong with the recording. Note accurately, and distinguish between quotes and your own observations/analysis.
Include confirming questions (those to which you know the answer)
These are those questions to which you know the answer. It will help you break the ice and cover the basics, and you may discover you actually don’t know the whole story. If your interviewee is bemused by the simplicity of the question, don’t take offence. You don’t need to, but you can explain – “Readers need this in your own words, not mine.”
Keep to the point
Don’t ramble (their answers are more important than your monologues) and don’t interrupt. If their answers are not easy to understand, rephrase the question and try again. Some interviewees need to order their thoughts and will be happy to try again. Listen carefully to the reply – does it really answer your question? If not, you must try again. If you want to be absolutely certain you have understood, rephrase the answer back to them (“So you are saying…?”)
Keep calm
The interview is not about you. Don’t get aggressive even if the interview isn’t going as well as you hoped or the interviewee is rude. In a more informal interview resist talking about yourself, and provide empathy, not sympathy (which can sound patronising) for their difficulties.
Ask lots of neutral-sounding, open questions
Take a tip from psychologists. Avoid questions that reveal how you will feel about the answer – “Wasn’t this a shocking abuse of power?” – and rather ask: “How do you feel about using power in this way?” You may be seeking motivation and reasoning, but directly using the word “Why?” can sound accusing or incredulous. So ask “why?” indirectly: not “Why did the press reports make you
angry?” but rather, “You said those press reports made you feel angry. Tell me more about that…”
Silence is not a bad thing
Let the interviewee finish, pause, then ask your next question. You don’t need to fill the gaps. If the interviewee needs time to think about an answer, give it; if they need time to recover their emotions, just wait quietly before asking, “Shall we go on now?”
Look interested; be interested
Be in a constant state of interaction with what you hear; note your responses in your notes and use them to generate additional questions. Is this the answer I want? Do I understand this? How will I use this? Once the interview is over it may be very difficult to go back for a second one. If you have done your research and to your surprise you are not hearing what you expected, don’t panic,
give up or change the subject – go with it. Respond to new points and ask follow-ups. Don’t try and shoe-horn an interview into a preconceived story. The surprise might turn into a better story in the end; if it doesn’t, you can choose a later moment to return to your original theme.
Respect time
Keep an eye on the clock, pace your questions, and when you reach the end of your agreed time, ask: “Do we have time for X more questions?”
At the end, confirm with the interviewee what will happen next
“The story will appear on Thursday.” “The photographer will phone you to make an appointment.” Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
Always say thank you
This is important, even if you have been stonewalled and insulted. Try to sound as if you mean it.
Check and clarify your notes immediately after the interview
This is the time when your short-term memory works best; if you leave the notes until the next day, you may forget what a tailed-off scribble actually stood for, or what you urgently noted to yourself to check.
Respect the reality of the interview when you use it
Good journalists will use their material honestly. Obviously, you cannot tell lies about what was said. But nor can you alter the sense of a question or reply after the interview is over: that is what is meant by ‘taking something out of context’. (Be especially careful when you have to move answers from the sequence in which they occurred in the original interview; it’s easy here to distort truth accidentally by clumsy juxtaposition.) Tell your story, and then give the response of those the story concerns. Audiences are intelligent. They will know where the truth lies. You don’t need to tell them it lies with you.
Basic research tools
“I spent weeks looking for the records of the former East German secret
service, the Stasi, trying to find out who the spies were in the UK. We looked through thousands and thousands of documents all marked ‘Streng Geheim’: top secret. We spent weeks looking and trying to decode the whole system – until we found out there was a book available in the bookshops that had done that already. In fact, this book even named some of the Stasi sources in the UK.” – Investigative journalist Stephen Grey.
Use data management tools – either via computer software or a good secure filing system – to build up your paper trail and keep the detail of your investigation under control. Develop your CAR, profiling, paper trailing and data mining skills.
If your country has Access to Information laws – use them.
If your country does not yet have such laws, join the campaigns to secure them.
Remember that by working with and through organisations in countries that do have such laws, you may be able to create a ‘back door’ to access information. Look for ways you can use numbers and statistics to strengthen even social and ideas-based stories.
Look into numerical data to spot story ideas and angles.
Master basic number skills.
Always interrogate numbers and statistics to discover their source and how they were compiled.
Always re-check figures – your own, and those supplied by others – to ensure that they have been calculated correctly.
Remember statistics are compiled by human beings; they are not unquestionable and very rarely provide ‘proof’ on their own. Ask questions about numbers by means of short, closed, staged questions to ensure you get precise answers.
Make numbers accessible for readers by rounding them or explaining them, but do not distort them when you put them into words.
Internet search tips
Search programmes have revolutionised finding data on the web. The best known is Google (www.google.com), but there are others, such as Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and “meta-crawlers” which do the same search on four or five search engines at the same time. The trick to efficient web searches is to choose your search keywords and phrases with enough precision to exclude the masses of results that are irrelevant to what you are interested in.
Set your preferences to return the maximum results
The Google page has a link marked ‘preferences’. This allows you to set some search preferences (to search only English language pages, for instance) but the most useful preference to change is the number of results shown for each search. The default setting is for 10 results which means you have to refresh the page each time to get the next ten. Set preferences for the maximum 100 results – which allows you to scan much bigger chunks of data to see if it is relevant.
Keywords provide a simple way of narrowing down your focus, but, often, keywords alone are not enough. Say you are looking for John Smith. Simply typing in John and Smith in the search bar is going to give you every document where both of those names appear: hundreds of thousands of documents. To avoid drowning, you will need to find relatively unique features that identify the John Smith you are looking for.
Use quotation marks
“John Smith” will return only those results where the words appear together. If you have a middle name you can add that, for example: “John Sylvester Smith”
You can combine options using the OR command written in capitals, which Google uses to distinguish from the word ‘or’. “John Sylvester Smith” OR “John S Smith” OR “JS Smith”
Add facts that you know or suspect
Say the John Smith you are interested in is alleged to be involved in drug smuggling and operates out of Zurich. You would add to your search bar: “John Smith” Zurich or perhaps “John Smith” Zurich drugs
Which would return only pages where all those words occur.
Country-specific searches
You may not be certain that Smith operates out of Zurich, but you are sure he is based in Switzerland. Using the “site:” command, Google allows you to search only pages with a specific country domain designation. The Swiss domain designation is “.ch” So you might type in the search bar: “John Smith” site:.ch which would return all Swiss pages containing the name John Smith; or “John Smith” drugs site:.ch The domain designation for South Africa is .za, for Britain .uk Not sure of the country designation? Google: “domain by country”
Organisation-specific searches
Many commercial websites end with .com; many NGO’s, developmental organisations’ sites and activist groups end with .org. So if you are researching wind turbines, and want the companies, you might use “wind turbines site: .com”. If you want to find criticism about wind turbines, you might use “wind turbines site:.org”. If you want data on activist groups in South Africa, you type “wind turbines site: .org.za”.
Use the net to find sources
Drug smuggler John Smith may never have appeared on the net in that context (as an accused drug smuggler) so the next best thing is to find an expert on the drug trade in Switzerland who might have heard of John Smith and be able to give you more information. “drug smuggling in Switzerland” or “drug smuggling” site:.ch should give you access to newspaper or academic articles giving the names of such experts. You can then google their names to find their telephone numbers or email addresses and make contact.
Using automatic translations
Your articles from Switzerland may be in German or French. Google results offer an automatically translated version which can give you a good sense of what the article says (click on the note ‘translate this article’ under the result), but note that this is a very inexact process and you may have to struggle to make sense of the machine-generated translation!
Using Google cache
Web pages change or are shut down. You may get a result on Google and find the page has gone. Then click on the “cached” link on the specific result. Google saves a copy of the pages that it catalogues as it searches the web, and that is the cache version: the snapshot of the page as it was when Google’s computer looked at it. That copy is often still available long after the original page has disappeared from the net. This is very useful for tracking companies and individuals who have ‘disappeared’: they often still exist in caches.
Finding databases that are not covered by search engines
Many useful databases are not covered by Google. This includes many newspaper archives and municipal property databases and (in some countries, such as the USA) court archives. In looking for traces of John Smith, it might be useful to access Swiss newspaper sites and search their archives. Most archive searches work the same way that Google does. You can also type in the URL of the archive you are searching in the ‘domain’ box that appears when you click on Google Advanced. In that way you can get Google to search that specific archive.
Use the internet’s phonebook
Nearly every country has an extensive telephone database, usually under the term “white pages” (even many non-Englishspeaking countries list “white pages” of their phone directories in English). So, for example, to try to look up John Smith’s Swiss number, you would Google “white pages” site:.ch and find the sites that offer Swiss telephone directories. Generally, directories require that you specify at least the town/city as well as the name.
Download long articles for later reading
If you have limited opportunity to go online, then save pages that look useful for background research so you can go through them carefully later.
Build up your own database in a structured searchable way
When you save documents from the internet, or save transcripts of interviews or notes, do so in a way which will allow you to find information again easily, or your virtual desktop will end up like many journalists’ actual desks: a vast, widely spread pile of assorted data where it is difficult to find anything at all, let alone quickly. There is a great free internet tool, called ‘Google Desktop’, that searches and lists your computer files for you. Simply key in ‘John Smith’ and the tool will give you a list of all the files you have saved, even many years back under you can’t remember what name, with ‘John Smith’ in it.
Telling the story
“We gather information to get a story out of it; …..You want to stir emotions. You want your readers to get angry, to weep, to become determined to change things. Otherwise, what is the point of spending so much time collecting evidence, risking your life and your relationships? People are real characters in your investigations, not just quotes”.
- Journalists Mark Hunter and Luuk Sengers at a presentation to the University of the Witwatersrand Investigative Journalism Workshop in 2007.
You need to develop a method of data mapping the information you have gathered before you begin writing. Collect all the facts, quotes and ideas together and note where contradictions or gaps exist.
Understand the difference between ‘evidence’ and ‘proof’. Particularly in an investigative story, ensure that your arguments are logical and don’t over- or under-state the case because of careless, generalised writing.
Structure the sections of your story as paragraphs: mini-stories that group together all the material on one aspect. Then order the paragraphs and link them together to show the path your argument is taking.
Use quotes selectively and to add value to the story. Don’t take quotes out of context or spin paraphrases.
Write at least one draft before you attempt the final story. Use the draft to lay out what you have, identify strengths and weaknesses, and plan any additional research or reporting you still need to do. You may need several drafts to get it right.
Clarity is the most important quality in writing an investigative story. If you lack confidence about writing, just lay out the evidence clearly and in order.
If you want to structure your story in a more sophisticated way, the ‘Wall Street Journal’, ‘High Fives’ or ‘Pyramid’ formulas work well for investigative stories.
If you use a narrative journalism approach, make sure your focus on an individual story or incident doesn’t get in the way of explaining issues and broader arguments.
Good introductions and conclusions are important. Spend time working on these. The introduction invites your reader into the story; the conclusion ties together the thoughts the story leaves them with.
When writing a broadcast story, script to your pictures or audio quotes and ‘write for the ear.’ Remember, your audience will be watching and listening, not reading; they can’t back-track so you must make your structure and language accessible and easy to understand.
A print story can be posted to the web exactly as it appeared. But you can edit it to make it more web-friendly. In particular, breaking a story into manageable sections, and providing good indexing and links, will massively increase its usefulness.
Story shapes and styles
There are two basic types of story content, whether investigative, hard news or feature:
chronological – in which the story unfolds through time, and sequence and actions are the material of the investigation (narratives; following a situation through a period of time; following the actual investigation as it unfolds); and
topical – in which the story revolves around issues and arguments (depending on the specific story, these may be systems, processes, trends or explanations).
The crop-spraying story is clearly the latter: it’s about issues and arguments.
As we’ve seen, you start sorting your material by doing a fairly crude division into sections: the issue; who’s affected; the conflicts and discoveries you make. On a relatively simple, short investigative story, these sections, with an introduction and conclusion added, may make a perfectly satisfactory plan for the final story.
In investigative writing, literary flair takes second place to making the issues and facts crystal-clear to readers. So a sections structure, without any ‘frills’ can work well. On our crop-spraying story, the sections are:
The issue: the damage that spraying appears to do
Who’s affected: villagers, company, government
The technical background: the harmfulness and non-approved status of the chemical; the regulations
The villains: authorities who don’t respond or fail to issue warnings
The motives: the relationship of the company to district and national authorities
The end: where this leaves us or what might happen next.
But you may feel that this bald outline of the story could be made more interesting for readers if you worked it more. There are a number of different ways to shape your material into a story; a number of ‘recipes’ and approaches that writing coaches suggest for investigative stories. Your material is longer and more complex than a normal hard news story, and imposing shape and structure gives your reader a pathway through complex information. The three most common investigative story structures are:
1. The ‘Wall Street Journal’ formula
This involves
starting with a person or situation to set the scene
broadening out from that individual case to deal with the bigger issues, by means of a ‘nut graph’ that explains the link between the case and the issues, and then
returning to your case study for a human, striking conclusion.
2. ‘High Fives’
This is a model developed by US writing coach Carol Rich. Her five suggested sections are:
News (what’s happened or is happening?)
Context (What’s the background?)
Scope (Is this an incident, a local trend, a national issue?)
Edge (where is it leading?)
Impact (Why should your readers care?)
This structure needs the ability to write good links and transitions, so that the five elements fit together. Otherwise, it can feel like five shorter stories one after the other. But it can make an excellent structure for a long story on the web, where you need to break an extended narrative into manageable sections so readers can browse.
3. The pyramid
Whereas the traditional approach to a hard-news story was the ‘inverted pyramid’ (main points first; less important supporting material added later ) the pyramid turns the structure right-way up. You have the length in an investigative story to build up to the punch, leading the reader with you through the discoveries you make. So, you
Start with a summary of the story’s theme
Foreshadow some of what you’ll discover
Then walk step by step through your investigation, keeping the suspense alive and building the story towards the most shocking or dramatic discovery, just as if you were writing the story of a scientific breakthrough – or a mystery novel
Save the most important, dramatic information for last.
Writing for the web
Many newspapers have websites that simply reprint stories from the paper, with no changes whatsoever. That works – so in one sense there is no point in worrying about ‘writing for the web’. If you have completed a worthwhile investigative project, you may immediately post it, as it is, on whatever website is available to you.
However, it is possible to adapt stories to make them more web-friendly. Especially if your story is long, complex and linked to large amounts of other information, a little re-editing can maximise the value readers will take from it.
You probably came up with some of the following points:
It’s harder to identify the right web article, unlike a print story where headings, sub-headings and so on lead you to what you’re seeking.
Technology problems (such as power cuts) get in the way more often; you can read by candle-light. So getting to what you need fast is important.
You tend not to read a web article from beginning to end, but skip through it looking for key points.
You often rely on the navigation tools like indexes to skip through.
You may leave a web article half-read, to chase links to other, more relevant-seeming material.
For this reason, getting an article web-ready is not so much about writing it in a different way, but rather about editing your print article so that it has the architecture (shape) and navigation tools a web reader will need. This may mean:
1 The good old ‘Who, Where, What, When, Why and How’ summary.
In this case the essence of the story is summed up at the beginning. Readers who are interested can then read the ‘long tail’ (the full story which follows that nutshell introduction).
2 Giving it a new headline.
Search engines such as Google are very literal-minded: they will only find stories containing the actual keywords a searcher has entered. Wordplay and teases often don’t get picked up, and may irritate readers if they mislead. So while your newspaper may headline the Gindrin story “Deadly harvest”, the web version is more likely to be picked up if it is headlined “Gindrin crop spray damages village health, crops.” A New York Times journalist headlined his analysis of web headlining “This boring headline is written for Google”!
3 Revising language.
Because many web readers tend to be ‘skimmers’, a more straightforward ‘writing for the ear’ approach to language is more user-friendly.
4 Breaking the text into a series of self-contained sub-documents.
Each of those sections you began your story plan with, could be given a sub-heading, and tidied up so that it can be read as a mini-story on its own. The bigger a story is, the longer it will take your reader to download, especially in African countries with narrow bandwidth. And while there is no limit to how long a web story can be, we know that readers read 25% more slowly on screen, so there may be a limit to human patience! So it’s important to inform readers about the content and value of the story, and, if you make them download the whole, unbroken document, make sure it’s worth it. If you do break a story up, make sure each section is genuinely self-contained: since a search engine will not necessarily have brought them in through the ‘front door’ – your introduction – you may need to repeat some information or context in each section. Make sure date markers are clear, so readers know when your story happened.
5 Identifying links to other texts.
For example, you could list links to stories on the FDA suspension of Gindrin, to the national code on crop-spraying, and to international stories on pesticides. But check out sites you link to, to make sure the links are worth following. And get the URL (web address) right: even a skipped comma can make a link valueless.
6 Adding indexes and outlines where needed.
This is so that readers can skip to the part of the story that interests them.
7 Simplifying layout and captions.
The eyes of web readers bounce around, so simple and arresting words are better than long complex lines.
8 Not being carried away by the multimedia possibilities.
Big complex graphics, moving charts and interactive sections require fast connectivity and big bandwidth – which many African searchers simply do not have. In fact, they may be desperately trying to read or download while the electric power holds out. And fancy visuals do not make up for bad writing.
9 Re-checking everything!
Mistakes are easier to spot and faster to correct on the web than in print, but while they are up they may be seen by many more people, and this can, for example, multiply the seriousness of a defamation.
Finally, the following points from the 2007 meeting of the American Copy Editors Society, from an address on Editing for the web by Theresa Schmedding:
Choose the RIGHT multimedia element!
Still photos – best for setting a mood; making readers stop and think
Video – best for action, changes, bringing readers face-to-face with a person or event
Audio – best to hear emotions, add context, ‘in their own words’, narrative backbone behind visual material
Graphics – best to explain complicated processes, numbers and stats, sequence, scale, development over time, relationship of different elements. Don’t forget maps
Words – added value, more depth.
Know your audience!
Myth: Online users log onto your web site for the same reasons they read the paper.
Fact: Whether that’s true depends on your market, but it is unlikely. Find out who is accessing your site and why.
Ethics and general legal principles
Context can also defame. So everyone needs to know about libel law – including the person who writes the headline, lays out the page or writes the continuity links. When the late Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda was life-president of Malawi, he fired a newspaper editor for the defamatory implications of placing a headline story on one of his speeches too close to a large photograph of a witch-doctor.
Journalists’ freedom to operate is governed by an international legal framework that guarantees significant rights, as well as by national legal codes that are sometimes more restrictive.
The ‘public interest’ is a key concept in defence against legal attacks and in making decisions. It refers to information which the public will be better-off knowing or worse-off not knowing – not simply what interests the public.
Defamation laws exist to protect individuals’ reputation and dignity. Defamation is the crime of publishing something that could tend to lower a person’s reputation. Publication includes republication from another medium, a quote, or Internet publication. The key defence is that what was published was “true and in the public interest”, but to succeed this must be provable in terms of your country’s legal code.
Keep all materials relevant to a potentially defamatory story until the statute of limitations runs out, and keep track of witnesses, too.
Everybody – including public figures – has the right to privacy. You have to be able to demonstrate the relevance of their private to their public life to justify breaching privacy.
Official secrets laws exist nominally to protect national security, but can be and are used to restrict press freedom. The climate of official secrecy has in many cases been made tighter by anti-terrorism legislation.
You need to know the press laws of your country thoroughly, and seek detailed advice for specific problems. Don’t rely on generic tips and hints.
All reporting requires ethical decision-making at every stage.
The guiding principles are: tell the truth; minimise harm; stay independent and be accountable.
Use a consistent process (such as the ‘ethics roadmap’ given here) for reaching ethical decisions.
General ethics principles
Ethics is a personal and professional responsibility for all journalists, not simply a theoretical debate. And from these short discussions, we can see that ethical decision-making is undepinned by four broad principles:
Tell the truth
Or, more accurately, truths, since situations are often complex and many-sided. This is our mission as journalists; when we stop doing it, we cease to deserve the name.
Minimize harm
If we said “Do no harm” we might be advocating writing no stories, since all actions have consequences. But by balancing truthtelling and doing the least possible harm, we have constructed a framework that allows us to do our job while always being mindful of consequences.
Stay independent
Don’t be bullied, bought, or even muted by the weight of conventional opinion. It’s legitimate to have views, and to write stories motivated by your convictions, but your views should never lead to your changing the truths you discover.
Stay accountable
This means always thinking about how you would justify a story, or aspect of a story, if challenged. In many newsrooms, it means setting up a formal or informal process for ethical decision-making: having an ethics committee to debate tricky stories, or a ‘press ombudsman’ to arbitrate on complaints about stories.
International law- the rights of journalists
As well as national law codes, the media operates within an international legal framework, based on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its various supplementary codes and conventions, as well as (for Africa), the Windhoek Declaration – which highlighted ownership monopolies as a threat to press freedom – the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights and later declarations adopted by the African Parliament. Countries that are signatories to these documents are expected to uphold them; even countries that are not signatories are often judged by their standards.
One key aspect of this international framework is that while interpretations may differ slightly between documents, it upholds freedom of expression and information; something that, as long ago as the 18th century, was recognised (in the words of French revolutionary Mirabeau) as “the freedom without which other freedoms cannot be gained”.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines this freedom through the following clauses:
Article 15: the right to form, hold, receive and impart opinions
Article 16: free and equal access to information inside and outside state borders
Article 17: freedom of speech and expression, equal access to all channels of communication, and no censorship (though restrictions under defamation laws are allowed; see below)
Article 18: the duty to present news and information fairly and impartially
Article 19: the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including “freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information through any media, regardless of any frontier…”
If they are met, these requirements are designed to set up a broadly free framework within which media organisations and other civil society bodies can operate.
The circumstances in which governments can limit these rights are outlined in Article 29 of the Universal Declaration. The Political Covenant of the Declaration details the restrictions on these rights article by article, as follows:
To ensure respect for the rights and reputations of others (anti-defamation)
To protect national security, ordre public (the circumstances necessary to keep a state governable), public health or morals
To prevent incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence
