Richard Herr

My apology is for an apathetic public that has been a serious modern impediment to quality reporting in all aspects of journalism. Chris Masters’ 2002 book Not for Publication points the accusing finger at the overwhelming number of people who claim they hate sensationalism but have stopped buying the quality press in favour of tabloids. He is right and I regret this bitterly for the implications it has had on the maintenance of an effective civic culture. Media owners and managers could not sell sensationalist drivel if we consumers did not buy it!
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Admitting that the consumers of investigative journalism are not all that discriminating helps to explain how public expectations have worked to “dumb down” journalistic outputs, but it does not excuse journalistic laxity. There is a lack of leadership from the Fourth Estate that aids and abets those in politics and the media who prefer a disinterested, lotus-eating public.
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The mismatch in resources available. It is widely agreed that Governments have hired “spin doctors” from the front ranks of journalism in order to have the strength of the profession working for them rather than against them. This leaves a smaller cohort of more junior or less accomplished journalists to match wits with the phalanx of well-paid, well-resourced Government minders. Moreover, the enormous expansion of former journalists working for Government as advisers and spin doctors distorts the career ambitions of journalists who pull their punches rather than alienate possible future employers.

The reduction in the size of the Parliament. Since 1998, the Parliament has been seriously crippled in its capacity to do its traditional job of investigating and contesting with Government on relatively equal terms. This circumstance makes the need for robust investigative journalism all the more urgent today. The committees of the Parliament are not well resourced and rely on far too many Government members to fill out their numbers to be fully effective as a mechanism of accountability.

I AM participating in this Writer’s Forum panel on investigative journalism as an avid consumer of the output of the media.

And, I’ll admit that I share with many a special addiction to the scandal and spice of investigative journalism. This does not necessarily mean an uncritical appreciation of this specialised form of reporting, however. I am aware that many, with images of Woodward and Bernstein in mind, see investigative journalism as the Fourth Estate at its best. And, perhaps it is but I hope not for two very good reasons.

The first is that investigative journalism is only worthwhile when there are scandals, frauds and corruption to expose. This would make the extremes of politics the benchmark for good journalism. As such it tends to focus attention away from the largest share of public life, including politics, that is routine and ordinary but necessary to make democracy effective.

My second reason is that investigative journalism is a qualified phrase. It is made up two words but the base word is journalism. An investigative journalist cannot be a good investigator without first being a good journalist. As such the search for journalistic yardsticks should focus on professional reporting, at least in the first instance. This begins with the competency to understand the issues under scrutiny before claiming a right to investigate them.

This is not to disparage investigative journalism. As a committed supporter of an open, transparent and honest democratic system, I am a grateful and enthusiastic consumer of the work that investigative journalists produce. Indeed, the tragedy is that more is needed than is being delivered.

Before I deliver the homily attacking the weaknesses in investigative journalism that many of you may expect, let me plead mea culpa on behalf of the consumers’ group for which I am a self appointed representative today.

My apology is for an apathetic public that has been a serious modern impediment to quality reporting in all aspects of journalism. Chris Masters’ 2002 book Not for Publication points the accusing finger at the overwhelming number of people who claim they hate sensationalism but have stopped buying the quality press in favour of tabloids. He is right and I regret this bitterly for the implications it has had on the maintenance of an effective civic culture. Media owners and managers could not sell sensationalist drivel if we consumers did not buy it!

A lack of leadership

Admitting that the consumers of investigative journalism are not all that discriminating helps to explain how public expectations have worked to “dumb down” journalistic outputs, but it does not excuse journalistic laxity. There is a lack of leadership from the Fourth Estate that aids and abets those in politics and the media who prefer a disinterested, lotus-eating public.

There are other — less flattering — phrases to describe some of the things that investigative journalists do. Historically these have included: “yellow journalism”, “muckraking” and [most unimaginatively but accurately] “pseudo-investigative journalism”. The characteristics of these perversions of investigative journalism include:
• publishing too quickly partially formed stories,
• deliberating reporting only half the story to sensationalise it,
• promoting unsubstantiated speculations as fact
• the excessive use of unnamed sources.
• ignoring ethical and/or professional standards.

[I have to say however that the “muckrakers” were the ancestral source of modern investigative journalism and so often were seen in more pejorative terms than is fair historically. Rather than lauding those willing to rake through the “muck” of society to find its origins and expose its creators as was the case a century ago, the term is used today legitimately to characterise those who get down in the gutter with the detritus of the community simply to spread this around as news.]

This brings me to my primary question this morning — why is there such a serious under-supply of investigative journalism in Tasmania relative to the need (if not always the demand) for it? The other panelists have given their own answers and I can do little more than underscore these while adding a few more of my own.

Those that particularly concern me include the following:

1) Increasingly serious weaknesses in daily news reporting. This is an important factor because if issues are dealt with early they are less likely to fester into a scandal requiring the special skills of investigative journalism to uncover. Far too many issues that perhaps need to be subject to investigation today could have been defused by more careful reporting in the first place. [The rise and fall of Spirit of Tasmania III might be an example of this.]

2) The mismatch in resources available. It is widely agreed that Governments have hired “spin doctors” from the front ranks of journalism in order to have the strength of the profession working for them rather than against them. This leaves a smaller cohort of more junior or less accomplished journalists to match wits with the phalanx of well-paid, well-resourced Government minders. Moreover, the enormous expansion of former journalists working for Government as advisers and spin doctors distorts the career ambitions of journalists who pull their punches rather than alienate possible future employers.

3) The reduction in the size of the Parliament. Since 1998, the Parliament has been seriously crippled in its capacity to do its traditional job of investigating and contesting with Government on relatively equal terms. This circumstance makes the need for robust investigative journalism all the more urgent today. The committees of the Parliament are not well resourced and rely on far too many Government members to fill out their numbers to be fully effective as a mechanism of accountability.

4) An emphasis on personality politics. There seems to be more of a hunt for “political scalps” than for a real story in much of what is presented as investigation. At one level, this may not be all that surprising given the role personality has always played in Tasmanian politics. However, as was evident in the Butler affair, personalising an alleged scandal may well lead the investigator away from the real and substantive issues behind the scandal.

5) Sensationalism at the expense of a fully formed story. Investigative journalism is supposed to pursue fact finding to reveal the whole story not to serialise a confected political drama. The tactic of presenting one side of an issue with a sensationalist exposé one day and the injured party’s rejoinder the next is not within the best standards of investigative journalism but a reversion to yellow journalism. It seeks to generate “a good story” by creating an appearance of conflict rather than a true uncovering of a genuine scandal. The alleged Jim Cox “bribery” scandal is just such an example. Even a cursory investigation of the allegations would have killed the story within a few hours not the fruitless five days wasted on it.

Tasmania needs quality analytical reporting today more than ever. Unfortunately, all too often it is getting pseudo-investigative journalism instead. Contrary to Shakespeare, the fault for this is in ourselves not in the stars, alas. The Tasmanian voters as consumers of the media are not demanding enough and the media as producers are not always as professional as they should be. Both producers and consumers will need to accept greater responsibility if the supply and demand for good investigative journalism is to be brought back into balance.

Richard Herr spoke as a panel member on investigative journalism at the Writers’ Festival, Saturday, August 12.