The Daily Novel

Journalists and journalism are facing an unprecedented level of attack in terms of public cynicism, legal constraints and the political spin designed to bolster support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the media’s watchdog role is dying through lack of use.
This form of undercover journalism, which challenges the activities of the dominant institutions in our society, is on death row. Since the late 1970s there has been a decline in investigative journalism in the world’s media, particularly in America and now in Britain
The demand for instant news diverts journalists and news organizations from their role of detecting, investigating and exposing society’s ills, which requires long and patient work by a team of journalists, in favour of the more easily produced, audience-friendly task of light entertainment and live reporting. News has now become a business force, focused on profit and political spin, rather than keeping the powerful in check.
Investigative journalists used to be the feather in the cap of any well organized newsroom, with some of the most famous being Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposing the scandal at Watergate in America. Seymour Hersh on the My Lai massacre, Wilfred Burchett, the first Westerner to enter Hiroshima in September 1945; Israeli journalist Amira Hass, reporting from the Gaza Strip in the 1990s, to name but a few.
The most prolific purveyor of investigative scoops, in Britain in the last century was the Daily Mirror newspaper, whose innovations, which included the now widely imitated, ‘shock issue,’ in which page after page was devoted to a single subject, usually exposing some social evil. The then editor, the legendary Hugh Cudlipp, called it an “exercise in brutal mass education”.
The first shock issue in 1960 was a searing account of the suffering of horses shipped from Britain to the butchers of Belgium and France. This was followed by scandals of poorly equipped youth clubs, cruelty to children, pollution, the suicide club of teenagers on ton-up motorbikes and the neglect of old and lonely people.
“Forward with the people!” said one masthead, during this time, which encapsulated the democratic role that journalists played in representing the public against the pillars of power.
However, in today’s more modern society such journalism, particularly by the popular press, has been confined to digging up dirt and revealing secrets about the private lives of the rich and famous, the Royal family, politicians and rock stars. The resignation of Paul Foot in 1993 brought an end to the Daily Mirror’s tradition of hard-hitting political investigations and marked a rapid decline that beset all news outlets. With the quality press, technology, competition and new owners have acted to curtail investigative work.
Investigative journalism defines what it is to write in the public interest and to be part of a democratic society. Democracy is founded on a number of principles, one of which is the accountability of elected representatives and civil servants to the people. Investigative journalists are among those best placed to expose it and ensure that justice is done.
But the politicians have hit back, as they did at the turn of the last century in America. Then, the Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt, turned the tables on the investigative journalists who had exposed the underside of American capitalism. He labelled them muckrakers, who were only concerned with digging up dirt. Today governments are seeking new and improved ways of restricting journalists, in what they report and in their working practices. And they are building on public dislike of the intrusion into private lives and the hounding of individuals for relatively minor sexual misdemeanors to suggest that all journalists are underhand and dishonest.
News of the World reporter David McGee found himself in the dock after his investigation into the failings at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. McGee had taken a job guarding prisoners. After months undercover he took photographs of Ian Huntley, who was serving a life sentence for murdering two young girls in Soham, in his cell. The pictures were published in June 2003, and prompted a Home Office review of prison security.
He got the job in his own name, providing passport ID showing his profession as a journalist. Yes, this was illegal but if one man with a camera can get in that position, what is stopping a crazed feminist protestor in a shell suit and a claymore, or an armed terrorist?
Moreover, due to his investigations he managed to reveal the problems with security and administrative procedures – he was working in the public interest. This did not stop, however, McGee being charged with taking a camera into prison, very minor offence. The government is punishing investigative journalists for pointing out that they are not doing their jobs properly.
Legal proceedings, in my view, should not be taken against investigative journalists, if they have acted in-line with what it means to write in the public interest and they have followed the guidelines set out by the NUJ, governing body
Another example is the BBC’s Real Story documentary, ‘Detention Undercover,’ took nine months of investigative research, including three months of secret filming to reveal asylum seekers and immigrants being racially and physically abused by security guards in a Cambridgeshire detention centre.
The programme’s findings were presented to the Home Office and also to the private security company who employed the guards whose deplorable behavior had been caught on camera. As a result, a number of employees were suspended. This is another classic example of investigative journalists providing a public service by using methods, which stretch the laws of the land. Investigations by undercover journalists have the potential to reduce crime, improve national institutions and the people who work in them.
Journalists must be free to identify problems and investigate them using whatever methods are necessary. They should be free to publish or broadcast their stories their stories when those stories are in the public interest, without fear of censorship, recrimination or penal sanction.
And journalists need to be supported by the public when governments and big business, try to use the law against them for doing their most essential job, uncovering the abuse of power.

Phil Simms is an undergraduate student in the Department of Journalism, City University.