[Q&A] Photo: Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Q&A: The investigator RACHEL Oldroyd is deputy editor at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a notfor-profit organisation which employs over 20 journalists and is funded by The David and Elaine Potter Foundation, donations and commercial income. The Bureau will celebrate its first birthday on 26 April. What’s been the Bureau’s biggest success? Being part of the WikiLeaks story put us on the map. Also we have had stories in all key media outlets: Panorama, Dispatches, Channel 4 News, the Today programme, a partnership with the FT, front page stories in The Independent and pieces in the Guardian. What do you think WikiLeaks has done for investigative journalism? It has changed the focus; it’s made data journalism very important. Our government is opening up the databases of Britain and journalists will have to deal with huge databases. If they don’t have the skills to interpret them they are not going to get the stories. Do you think all journalists are going to have to embrace data journalism? I don’t think all journalists as everyone has different specialisms, but certainly as somebody who might be looking to employ people data journalism is one of the areas I’d be looking for. Do you get paid for your journalism? We get paid to make television because it is very expensive to make. We haven’t been paid by any newspaper for our stories. Because we are not-for-profit, if we ever make any money it gets put straight back into the organisation. Is it feasible to be self-funding? That is one of the questions we are asking ourselves. Is there a financial self-sustaining
model for investigative journalism? I don’t know that we know the answer yet. Before you even start to ask that question you’ve got to be well established. Do you think there is a danger of society becoming too transparent? There are two opposing sides: one is the opening up of government and one is the closing down of personal privacy. While the cult of celebrity is top of the agenda, journalists are always going to be pushing the limits there because that’s where the stories are going to be. But if we get past the cult of celebrity then that won’t really be an issue anymore. What do you think of the proposal for notification prior to publishing? I totally understand why Max Moseley wants to see privacy laws tightened. But the press have the right to know when a person of influence is breaking the law or causing a human rights violation. The issue of introducing legislation that will protect an individual against the prying press is that it will obviously be used in cases where it shouldn’t be. Do you think there is room for investigative journalism on the internet? Niche. Possibly. No one is going to go to a certain place on the internet to read investigative pieces. They are too involved and too long. Investigative journalism works best in a mix, within a paper or a news programme. What are your plans for the BIJ for 2011? To build on what we achieved in 2010, to cement relationships and to further our recognition. We’ve got to a place where every newspaper and every media outlet knows who we are, but we need to keep reminding them that we are here and doing good journalism. Ianthe Butt
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rint journalism is not a profession, it’s a job, and there’s nothing you can learn at university that you can’t learn in one week on a local or regional paper. You cover a car crash, what’s there to know? University may be enjoyable: you make friends, drink a lot and occasionally turn up to lectures but you don’t need any of those things to be a journalist. You’re meant to be the nasty boy in the corner throwing the bread rolls. You’re there to discover a world that people won’t tell you about. So why not leave school at 18 and go straight in? Steve Jobs dropped out of university, as did Bill Gates. If you’ve got anything about you don’t bother with it, unless you want to get into the hedge fund business. Then by all means, go. In 1999, 7,400 students were on undergraduate media courses. Ten years later there were 25,400. Yet the number of jobs in the UK news industry has shrunk by 30-40 per cent since 2001, so why do so many people want to train as journalists when there are no jobs? I can tell you why. Because working in the media is not like working. It attracts everybody because it’s a bloody fantastic job but it has become too fashionable. Print is going to be like the hotel and security