Media Law Lecture-Investigative Journalism

Investigative journalism is where the journalists go off the agenda and decide the agenda for themselves. This is classed as the miscarriage of justice, where people are framed and can go to jail, the legal system has pronounced. Although, 'absence of malice' is where you can never investigate or go off the agenda where you are personally involved, and never do it to exact vengence.

One famous investigative journalist was actually on "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" the other day-Donal MacIntyre. Along with being one of the best investigative journalists in the country, he also fits in well with other Tv shows after appearing on "Dancing on Ice" where he ended up in 2nd place (a fine achievement). For more information on Macintyre or just general information about the BBC Radio Five weekly radio show presenter, here's some background information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donal_MacIntyre

Investigative Journalism, which has as its focus purely private concerns such as the state of health or interesting lifestyles of public figures may not enjoy protection even if the methods used to obtain and check information conform to the 10-point test and are other wise of the highest quality. Central to this test is the idea of the public good and the public interest, and how this is to be the balance against the right of the individuals under investigation to maintain their reputation. Also, it can be shown that there is a high level of public interest in making allegations, and that they are free from malice-then there is a strong qualified privilege right to publish them-even if they turn out to be false.
Libel lawyer David Price states that qualified privilege defence is a must in stories dealing with corruption in some countries, because then definitive proof may be impossible to get a hold of because of censorship or intimidation of witnesses. Another libel lawyer offered this advice to journalists as a news conference, "Always question the reliability of your source. Log each step you take in an investigation. Get independent corroboration, and-above all-put the allegations to the accused".

One other key part of investigative journalism is the protection of your sources. Protection of confidential sources of information is perhaps the key professional duty of journalist because it is like a journalist's code of conduct, and if you give an undertaking you are required by the code to honour that, and you need to take the dientity of the source to the grave. Refusal by journalists to reveal sources of confidential information can lead to prosecution for contempt of court if the journalist defies a court order to reveal those sources.

Subterfuge is simply claiming to be someone you are not. However the in depths points on subterfuge follow here:

• Normally you must always clearly identify that you are a reporter and that anything said to you could be published.
• The 'on the record' and 'off the record' debate. 'Off the record' is not really much use, though it is sometimes useful to understand something and get a background briefing, yet you have no choice but to honour an off record undertaking because of the protection of your sources.
• Taping-the rules are stark-if there is consent then everything said could be quoted. The consent, though, must be explicit and if it is, then a dictaphone in an interview face to face or on the phone (for example, "Do you mind if I tape this?") If the consent is explicit then it is moreorless the equivalent to a signed statement allowing you to tape. Chapter 19 of McNae's explains more about signed statements, claiming that if a journalist is working on a story that has the potential to be taken to court, then they should do their very best to obtain a signed statement from their witness with time and date of the interview (page 332)
  
• Finally as journalists, we must not selectively quote and in a dispute. The other person or third parties involved have the right to hear the whole tape-but if there is no consent then we canot use it at all as evidence but we can indeed quote it.

Do look up Donal MacIntyre. I've done a bit of research on him, and he's quite an interesting person to read about and even study if necessary. Enjoy your weekends.

G.M