Earlier this year I was asked to write a chapter for a book on the future of investigative journalism – ‘Investigative Journalism: Dead Or Alive?‘. I’m reproducing it here. The chapter was originally published on my Facebook page. An open event around the book’s launch, with a panel discussion, is being held at the Frontline Club next month.

We may finally be moving past the troubled youth of the internet as a medium for investigative journalism. For more than a decade observers looked at this ungainly form stumbling its way around journalism, and said: “It will never be able to do this properly.”

They had short memories, of course. Television was an equally awkward child: the first news broadcast was simply a radio bulletin on a black screen, and for decades print journalists sneered at the idea that this fleeting, image-obsessed medium could ever do justice to investigative journalism. But it did. And it did it superbly, finding a new way to engage people with the dry, with the political, and the complex.

Now the internet is growing up too, finding its feet with the likes of Clare Sambrook, Talking Points Memo, PolitiFact and VoiceOfSanDiego all winning awards, while journalists such as Paul Lewis (the death of Ian Tomlinson), Stephen Grey (extraordinary rendition) and James Ball (Wikileaks) explore new ways to dig up stories online that hold power to account. As these pioneers unearth, tell and distribute their stories in new ways we are beginning to discover just what shape investigative journalism might take in this new medium.

Funding investigative journalism

There is a now-familiar refrain that rumbles across the newsroom as regularly as a train: that online publishing cannot support what is needed for proper journalism – the journalism we have to call “investigative”. The argument is simple. Done the way it has been done for the past 50 years in newspapers and broadcasters, investigative journalism requires a reporter’s time – and, therefore, money. Online publishing – or at least, online advertising – does not currently offer a publisher the same margins that they enjoyed in the past.

But investigative journalism does not have to be pursued – or funded – in one particular way. The newsroom investigative journalist was an endangered species well before the internet arrived, while over the last decade NGOs and activist organisations have taken on an increasing role in funding investigations.

Indeed, the argument that the commercial pain of news organisations leads to cuts in investigative journalism is contradicted by research undertaken by Dutch-Flemish investigative journalism organisation VVOJ. They found that there was no relationship between the financial health of a news organisation and the amount of investigative journalism that was undertaken there.

It is notable that some of the biggest investigative stories in decades have come during one of the worst commercial periods for the newspaper industry: and while the MPs’ expenses and Wikileaks stories may not prove anything about the health of investigative journalism as a whole, they do serve as canonical examples of how it is changing. Because the web specifically – and digital technology more generally – offer new business models around investigative journalism. Primarily these come down to two features: a lowering of costs, and a broadening of revenue streams.

One of the costs of investigative journalism, for example, is that of organisation. As the internet makes it significantly easier to collaborate and communicate with others, the need for a formal news organisation is much reduced. The way that the Wikileaks revelations were managed both with that organisation and between publications in different countries is just one very visible example. My own project Help Me Investigate, meanwhile, proved that it was possible to conduct investigations (such as that into a £2.2m overspend on a council website) with the help of self-organising groups of individuals.

Another cost is time – and here, again, the internet offers efficiencies: a visit to the library is replaced with a visit to the library website, or a database. The FoI Act and related online services make it easier to obtain official documents. Social networks and forums make it easier to find leads, sources and experts.

This is not to argue that investigative journalism can be replaced by an entirely online process, merely to point out that previously time-consuming elements of the process have now been considerably accelerated.

The funding opportunities presented by the web are particularly interesting. Print and broadcast journalism relied on three streams of funding: advertising, for most; cover sales for some; and the licence fee.

Online, those organisational capabilities and reduced costs have opened up other streams: donation-funded investigations, for example, may not be new for charities and NGOs, but even those middlemen are now not always needed. The US website Spot.us, for instance, has successfully facilitated the sponsorship of numerous investigations by users. Other crowdfunding platforms offer the same possibilities to non-journalistic organisations. It is also difficult to pick apart how many subscribers to a platform such as Malaysiakini, for example, are paying for content, and how many to support a cause – its founder notes how subscriptions rise and fall in direct relation to negative actions by the government.

Meanwhile the funding of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, ProPublica and the Huffington Post Investigations Fund (coming from sources other than traditional advertising or cover sales) suggest that we may be seeing a partial separation of the investigative and watchdog roles of the media from those of entertainment, information and current affairs which previously subsidised it. It is not yet clear, of course, how sustainable the individual examples are – but the broader trend towards a wider diversity of funding streams and business models remains.

Part 2, Investigative Journalism As A Genre, is now live here.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YeYn--rnIY]

Last week Channel 4 and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism “raised questions” over the election campaign expenses of Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, specifically the practice of claiming partial expenses on the grounds that ‘not all material was used’.

The response from Goldsmith and the Conservative Party seemed to argue that this was standard practice. “The examples raised could be seen in the returns of other candidates.” (see video above)

So I decided to obtain the expenses receipts for two of the most closely-fought campaigns in Birmingham, and put them online, with the invitation for others to take a look to see if that is indeed true.

And now the receipts for the election campaigns of Gisela Stuart (Lab) and Deirdre Allen (Con) for Edgbaston can be found at EdgbastonElectionExpenses.posterous.com

Here’s the plan:

• Take a look at the expenses – they’re all individually tagged so you can click on the tags on the right hand side to just look at Labour receipts or leaflets.
• Post a comment to say you’ve looked, and to note anything of interest, or any detail that is missing (such as a company name or claim type).
• Join the investigation to discuss and follow up on the findings

But that’s only part of the story. I want to help repeat this in other cities and towns. And it’s quite simple: start your own investigation into your own local election candidates. by following the instructions here.

Remember, finding nothing is still a finding, as it challenges Goldsmith’s story.

More questions from a student that I’m publishing as part of the FAQ section:

1. If News Corp starts charging for news stories, do you think readers would pay or they would just go to different newspapers?

Both, but mostly the latter. Previous experiments with paywalls saw audiences drop between 60 and 97%. And you also have to figure in that a paywall will likely make content invisible to search engines (either directly or indirectly, because no one will link to them which will drop their ranking). Search engines are responsible for a significant proportion of visits (even the Wall Street Journal receives a quarter of its traffic from Google). Still, some people will always pay – the question is: how many?

2. A newspaper website which introduces paid content is very likely to see a decline in number of visitors. How would this affect advertisers and the amount they agree to pay to that website/newspaper?

Advertisers will pay more per user, firstly. Both because they will know more about that user through registration details (and therefore advertising will be more targeted), and also because they know that that user has paid to see content, making them both more engaged and likely to be more affluent.

Of course, there will be fewer of those users, so the challenge is compensating for the loss of quantity through the increase in quality.

3. In your opinion, how could the concept of ‘charging for content’ affect the quality of journalism?

The interesting thing about the recent announcement by the editor of The Times is that he said they wouldn’t charge per article because that would influence their commitment to expensive journalism such as covering Sri Lanka.

An optimist would hope that charging for content would mean that a news organisation would focus more on unique journalism that doesn’t replicate what is available elsewhere for free. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll see that happen, at least in the near future.

It’s worth pointing out that many web operations churn out content because the advertising rates are so low they need to get as many views as possible.

On the flip side, if your paywall is preventing you from attracting enough readers to fund decent journalism, then you save the same problem.

More generally, putting up a paywall means that your journalism is seen – and criticised – by fewer people, which I would argue does present a quality issue. The future of journalism is collaborative, so if you’re putting up barriers you’re not enabling that opportunity to tap into the enormous knowledge in your former audience.

4. Do you think other newspaper publishers would follow News Corp and start charging for content or there would always be “free” places for news?

If News Corp makes it viable, then yes, others will surely follow. Until then I think almost all will sit back and see what happens with News Corp. But there will always be free places for news for a range of reasons: firstly, publicly funded organisations like the BBC and those with a social remit such as The Guardian; secondly, those funded by voluntary or foundation income such as The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and organisations like Amnesty; and finally, passionate citizens and those who simply like to chat.

5. Do you think that ‘charging for content’ is a vital business model which would last for long time?

I think it’s a business model that can work in some circumstances, if managed intelligently. The FT, for example, seems to be making it work, mainly because that content is financially valuable (I’d argue it’s information they’re charging for rather than content) but also because they’ve not cut it off entirely.

But broadly I think it’s the most difficult model because people never paid for ‘content’; they paid for a package and a service that included content. They bought a newspaper, not ‘the news’.

As for its longer term viability, as the means of production and distribution become more widely available, and advertisers themselves become content producers, it’s going to be increasingly difficult, and we’ll see increasing pressure on government to legislate to shore up publishers’ monopolies because of that, I fear.

These days any journalist job ad is news, but this one is particularly worth blogging about. The recently formed Investigations Fund has in turn launched the Bureau of Investigative Journalism with a £2million grant from the David and Elaine Potter Foundation, and they’re looking for a Managing Editor.

Here’s the PDF of the job ad. The closing date is actually August 17 and not the 7th as stated in the ad. Although the job ad doesn’t particularly reflect it, the Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism Gavin Macfadyen expresses a desire for the Bureau to experiment with new media:

“We will experiment with all the techniques available to us from ‘crowdfunding’ to ‘crowdsourcing’ and provide content across the media spectrum. But there is no substitute for first rate reporters being given time and resources to deliver great stories, which hold the powerful to account. The Bureau will offer investigative journalists both proper funding and the support of senior and experienced editors and researchers to carry out important investigations that are in the public interest.”

Here’s what they’re looking for:

• A noteworthy career as an investigative reporter in either print or electronic media; preferably in both newspaper and television.
• Experience as an editor or in leading teams of reporters and researchers, in commissioning the work of others.
• Experience in media law and a track record of defending publication.
• Dedication to the highest standards of truth in journalism and integrity.
• The imagination to be highly innovative; and to help the Board in building, and defending a high profile and potentially controversial new venture.

Expressions of interest with an up-to-date CV, can be emailed in confidence to Olga@crsearchandselection.com