Media Law Lecture - 09/11/10

The topic of today's media law lecture was investigative journalism. Investigative journalism is when, rather than reporting on well publicised news, journalists go out of their way to find stories that have not been reported or made public for various reasons; the journalist creates the news. Investigative journalism, I would imagine, is quite challenging work but it must be very rewarding when you are able to report on something that the rest of the world had no idea was happening. There have been cases in where investigative journalists have uncovered incredibly scandalous stories and have been able to make a real difference.

It is thought that Emile Zola (2/4/1840 - 29/9/1902) was the founder of investigative journalism. He risked his entire career in order to try and prove that Alfred Dreyfus, accused of spying for the Germans, was innocent. Zola wrote an article entitled 'J'accuse...! Lettre au President de la Rebublique.' (I accuse.. A letter to the President of the Republic.) The letter was published on the front of the daily paper L'Aurore on January 13th 1898. This was very risky for Zola because it meant he was publicly claiming that Dreyfus had been framed by French officials. He was convicted of criminal libel, but rather than face jail he went into hiding in England. The case is thought to be one of the first instances of investigative journalism.

Two of the most famous investigative journalists are Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein who were the journalists behind the Watergate scandal. On the 17th of June 1972 five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Evidence showed a link between the five men and the President at the time, Richard Nixon. Woodward and Bernstein took it upon themselves to find out what the story really was behind Watergate; what they found out shocked the nation. They found out that Nixon recorded almost all the conversations that he had because he suffered from paranoia. They managed to get hold of the tapes and came across a conversation in which Nixon could clearly be heard discussing how to cover up the Watergate scandal.

Woodward and Bernstein publicised their findings, revealing Nixon as a liar and a crook. This was, of course, incredibly embarrassing to Nixon. He was the first, and so far only, President to resign. It is an incredible achievement of the two journalists who single handedly shamed the President of the United States and forced him to resign.

The story of Woodward and Bernstein is legendary and was even made into a film called "All the President's men" starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.

I first saw this film when I was about 10 years old and I have to admit it bored me mindless. As I learned about the Watergate scandal as part of my history course at school I decided to watch the film again; I loved it. Since then I have seen the film over 10 times and I am fascinated every time I watch it. I think that the story is incredibly inspiring, and is one of the things which sparked my interest in journalism.  

Another high profile where investigative journalists have been able to make a difference by rev

The effect of Thalidomide

ealing  scandal is in the Thalidomide case. Thalidomide was a sedative drug which was prescribed to many pregnant women in the 1960s who suffered from morning sickness. At the time Harry Evans was the editor of the Sunday Times and he had a team of highly successful investigative journalists, referred to as 'The Insight Team'. The Insight Team researched Thalidomide because they thought that they could prove that it caused birth defects in the children of women who had taken the drug. They proved their theory to be true and Thalidominde.

Again this case proves the power of investigative journalism. Without the Insight Team the effects of Thalidomide may have taken years and years longer, or perhaps never have been discovered.

Journalism can also be used to publicise stories in cases where justice has not been served accurately or at all. Take, for example, the case of the Omagh bombings. At the time the police were unable to charge anyone for causing the bombings, even though policemen on either side of the Irish boarder claimed to be certain as to who was responsible. They were not able to charge the suspected arsonist because they did not have any evidence that would show beyond reasonable doubt who was responsible. The police took the case to the BBC investigative show Panorama. Journalist, John Ware, investigated the case and exposed those responsible on the Panorama show in October of 2000. After being proved guilty on the programme, although it was not proven in a court of law, the RIRA retaliated by bombing the BBC. The five men who were responsible for this retaliation were arrested and sentenced to between 16 and 22 years in jail.

The Omagh case shows how investigative journalism can be used not only to expose atrocities, by also to make sure justice is served on those who are guilty but were not found guilty in a court of law. A similar situation happened was the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. After a £30 million court case, five men were cleared of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, even though the police, and majority of the population knew that the men were part of a racist group and that it was incredibly likely that it was them. However, once proven innocent in a court of law, individuals cannot be charged for the same offence again, and so there was no possibility of justice being served on the men. It is incredibly defamatory to call someone a murderer when they have been proven innocent, and any journalist who does so will be suseptible to a libel case against them.

In 1997 The Daily Mail printed this on their front cover:

All five of the men pictured had been proven innocent, however the Mail still positively identified them as the murderers stating "If we are wrong, let them sue us". This very public defamation of the men was an incredibly bold move by the Mail, which was applauded by the population. None of the five men sued the Mail, and their decision not to sue, in a way, proved to the public that they were guilty of the murder.

Investigative journalism can not only be used to expose those who have broken the law, it can also identify individuals who are going to commit crimes in the future. This was true in the case of the Secret Policeman. The Secret Policeman was a programme on Panorama in which journalist Mark Daly went undercover in a police academy to try to expose a trainee policeman who was a racist. As part of the investigation Daly needed to use subterfuge in order to gather evidence against the corrupt policeman. He used a hidden camera and was able to capture video evidence of the man admitting that he only joined the police force so that he would be able to accuse black people of crimes they did not commit.

Subterfuge is a risky method for a journalist to use and there are certain restrictions on when it can be used as a method of research:

1. It must be the only way to obtain the information
2. It must be in the public interest
3. It must be carried out under the permission of the head office - for example Ofcom.

If a journalist does not have permission then they are not able to use subterfuge, even if it is the only way to get the information and is n the public interest.

I think that investigative journalism is a risky, but ultimately worthwhile career because the possibilities are endless and you could end up exposes an injustice or cover a story that no one has ever covered before.