The role of journalism in disruption corruption | Global Journalism Seminar with Jane Bradley

12:15PM Jan 11, 2023

Speakers:

Mitali Mukherjee

Keywords:

stories

journalists

corruption

big

uk

editors

money

question

people

investigative journalism

investigative

investigation

important

pitch

reporting

new york times

investigative journalist

organization

countries

russia

Reuters Institute were straight here in Oxford. We believe very, very strongly in the principles of journalism. That's what we speak to. That's what we work for every day and we're a small but very dedicated team that really works around some of those goals. My thanks first to Chris for persevering through the month of COVID, where it didn't seem like this hap would happen, and then some rushed calls across time zones where we finally did make it happen. And I'm very glad for that, for that to have taken place. I would, I would challenge the idea that journalists have not been part of revealing or exposing corrupt practices. In fact, I would stick my neck out without any data to say that every time they have been corruption at an institutional level, at an individual level or at a larger organization level, it has been carried on the shoulders of a journalist or a journalistic organization that has done that quite bravely, frankly, increasingly. So in the political environment that many of us live in for many of the countries that we come from. I would also add that I'm personally fascinated by the idea of public integrity, because I think so much of what a journalist can do, and so much of the bravery that a journalist absorbs is from the community itself. When Public Integrity is compromised for countries. It puts a journalist first and foremost at risk for doing their job and doing their job. Honestly. I think this is going to be a fascinating conversation. We're going to get some great input as well and I am conscious of wanting to get as much opinion from the room because that's the best part of not being not not seeing people just neck down, isn't it? It's great to have folks here in person and really pick up from the chemistry of the room as well. So let me without further ado, introduce our guest for today. Many many pictures of her which she doesn't seem to enjoy, but Jane Bradley is investigative reporter for the New York Times in London. She has been shortlisted for Pulitzers the Nobel Prize. A lot of her work has been focusing on crime corruption, really revealing much of that. And interestingly, Chang did so much work during the COVID period, I think, which showed up a lot of the flaws that exist in systems and and, and, and and I want to say this sort of shaky way that corruption seeps into every part of the systems that we live in today. So lots to talk to you about James, thank you very much for joining game. Let me start with perhaps a framework sort of question. What do you see as the importance of journalists in revealing and taking on corrupt practices?

I think the main role of journalists in that is simply to tell people it's happening, right. That's the first step. We have to put on public record, that there is this problem with corruption with getting money to expose it so that loads and power can't just turn around from the shoulder and say, well, we didn't do anything about it because we didn't know about it. So I think first and foremost, that is a journalists job to expose it to put on public record, that this is a problem. And I think that's really central to holding governments holding big corporations to account just simply having that transparency, that accountability that the public know about whatever dodgy business, whatever wrong has been happening. And I think investigative journalists in particular have an important role. To play in that. And one thing we kind of have the luxury of doing that daily news journalists who are constantly under the cosh and having to move from story to story don't always have is the ability to have the resources to follow up. Right. And I think that's a really important part of journalism. It's not enough these days, especially then if you guys have been following the British media British government scandal after scandal, mostly scandals and corruption scandals. Honestly, as a journalist, it's kind of a frustrating time because you publish a story that you think is really damning, and it's going to lead some change. And then there's another bloody scandal. And we've moved on. So all politicians and corporations have to do is keep quiet for a bit for the most part, and the new cycle just moves on. And so it's become increasingly hard for journalists to get impact from the stories of being in corruption and wrongdoing. And I think that's where the follow on is really important. So often, the biggest stories and biggest investigations that have changed something have just been someone publishing one stories in a series, and more often than not, the only ones that make an impact are when journalists kind of work together. Well. Other news outlets will keep up an original story, do their own reporting knew the story on and then I think you've got those in power saying, Okay, we're gonna have to do something about this. Because everyone's gonna back in. It's not going away.

No, absolutely. And aside from the UK, I think it's so timely because of the events over the weekend in Brazil. It's an indication of how corruption can start leaning so hard into positions of organization or authority and get completely compromised. I'm interested though, in a little bit of your journey, especially for folks joining in what led you down the investigative job? I'm sure you don't wake up one morning and say right, I'm going to switch to investigative journalism Now that's what I'm going to do because things seem boring. What led you to it?

No, I started off I mean, I was really annoying character. Precocious, sorry and knew I wanted to be a journalist and about 12 years old, but I wanted to be a music journalist. I wanted to go to gigs and like because I was interested in one day, I was in a sociology class at a level at my college. And we were shown this panorama documentary about institutional racism in the Met Police. And this journalist had gone on the cover at Met Police the biggest police force in the UK, and had basically exposes for rendus institutional racism in there. And it led to these huge reforms. I mean, I'm not sitting here and saying everything's been fixed and it's no racism in the police right now. But it was it was an insight for me into how powerful journalism can be and how it can change things that are wrong. And I guess I've always just been angry at wrongdoing and injustice. And I think that anger can be a good thing. If you're a journalist, you can kind of use it to try and expose the thing that you think's wrong and try and do some, you know, it might be tiny change for one family or something rather than a big systemic change. But really, it was that documentary when I was 1617. It made me think I want to be an investigative journalist. And since then, I've spent my whole career pissing off government press offices. Big corporations, getting legal letters, rather than invites to nice fancy events. So every now and then when I see my colleagues opposite me getting these lovely invites to these glamorous awards, these are things whenever they pick the right profession. So I think you've got to be a bit of a disruptor in the right type of trouble codes, and very stubborn for investigative journalism to work for you.

Rage Rage Against the Machine, right. In our previous chats, you did mention that you've actually seen and this is interesting for me a change in audiences and a change in audience engagement, particularly post COVID and post Ukraine towards the idea of corruption. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Yeah. When I was kind of first starting out in journalism, I didn't have any speciality in following the money or corruption stuff at all and like a lot of the room here. It just seemed to me that this was a really underreported issue, and a lot of journalists just weren't good at following the money at reading numbers, even on a kind of basic level. And when I was first pitching these stories I've been see at the time, that a lot of the answers would be a response would be from editors would just be one boring story that people care about money like it's just finance, where are the human stories were like the victims. Where's the like? I just saw a boring number story, basically, and it was really hard. When I was making a pitch I'd always have to go these extra 10 miles to kind of explain to editors why this mattered, that there was a victim in this just because it wasn't, you know, an immediate victim firsthand. If you follow the money through, you would see the harm it was doing. So it was really a tough slog to get these corruption these financial stories over the commissioning bar. And then I think I noticed like you said a real change Firstly, when the COVID pandemic hit, because in the UK and elsewhere in the world, suddenly you had this. You can see this real well impact on in the UK we have this big government corruption scandal with PP detection equipment and procurement and also testing on a lesser level. And what you saw were all these firms kind of profiteering and saying okay, here's an opportunity for me to get rich. I can win these million pound government contracts. And it quickly became apparent that you know, these firms we did a big me and my colleagues did a big analysis of all the firms that have been awarded these contracts and found that, you know, a vast majority had no experience in the health industry on protective equipment. Some of them had been set up like a week before they were awarded a contract. And then we learned about the distance with the VIP lanes. So companies directors with no experience in it in the field, winning these huge contracts because they knew someone Matt Hancock or someone like that. What it showed and they were producing these gallons that didn't work and it's protected. That didn't work. So it showed up kind of in really stark detail the link between corrupt or questionable financial decisions procurement decisions and people's lives effectively. And suddenly, people got it and it was a lot easier to get these stories about profiteering about corruption over the bar. And I think that increasing fervor following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because then the whole world responded by what by clamping down on money on sanctioning whoever, finally sanctioning in the UK use case, big Russian oligarchs and companies that for years it avoided and what the mess what message it sent was that okay, there is again this direct correlation between money and harm in this place, people in Ukraine and the war on funding the Kremlin war machine. And since then, there's been more and more of an understanding of why, why corruption and why money stories matters. And I think the public gets more and editors getting more.

You know, I'm intrigued by that because just yesterday Reuters released sort of trends and predictions for the year going ahead. And one of the takeaways there from amongst the news leaders that we spoke to was that 70% were worried about news avoidance going into this year, and the two issues that they were mostly worried about where they felt the audience was flagging and really couldn't take any more was exactly this COVID and Ukraine, perhaps the optimist in me would wonder whether the campus is moving towards corrupt practices under you know, under both these categories, but compare that because I'm, you know, I'd love to hear your experience the Russian story, for example, it's not something you sort of started reporting on now. You've been working on this since 2015. Did you see a sea change in how people were responding to your stories when you release them then versus now? Oh, 100%

back in 2015, when we released our investigation into the suspected risks of Russian assassinations on British soil, I mean, firstly, I was at BuzzFeed. So there was a lot of people going, Oh, it's just the cat people. They don't really know what we're talking about little serious investigation. Let's just ignore them. But also other than the death and the poisoning of Alexander pepper, literally there hadn't been many proven documented cases of Russian or attempt to Britain assassinations on UK soil. So at the time, it kind of felt like fringe and everyone was talking about it. We spent two years on this investigation. We published it, and almost nobody picked it up. Like none of the media picked it up. No politicians picked it up nothing and it was a bit devastating, to be honest, they would put a lot of time and effort into this. And that's a risk of pursuing an investigation that's not already on the news agenda. And then suddenly, everything changed. When was the poisoning the attempted poisoning of Sergei skripal in Salisbury. Back in 2018, I think it was, and suddenly, I mean, it was such a bad job and the evidence was so clearly there that there was no denying it was Richard and then suddenly there was a sea change and thinking, Oh, okay, maybe we should take the threat from Russia seriously and before then, I mean, even up till, to be honest war, you still had all these MPs on both sides, but particularly the conservatives, taking millions, hundreds of 1000s from Russian oligarchs from Kremlin officials. Putin's right hand, man, you had people in the House of Lords with appointments. On huge Russian corporations. So the flow of money from Russia UK was huge and no one wanted to kind of put a stop to that and it was only was such a kind of brazen attack on British soil with clear evidence that the tide kind of change and people suddenly you know, we got shortlisted for Pulitzer, everyone wanted us on every TV station, say, oh, maybe those cat people were actually onto a couple of years ago, but I definitely there has been a change. I think it's interesting that you said people are getting kind of weary of that. And I think there is an element to that and when people pitch me COVID stories now I'm kind of like it's been done keeping the kind of bored of it. And I think you're right moves on to covering it as just like a breaking news story, like the events of what's happening. And I think now actually, it's more important than ever, that in particular investigators and investigative journalists, don't give up and move away that public scrutiny on Russia and on the money flows, particularly to the west, because I think that's what a lot of people are counting on the media is paid the public's hired. So I think there's a higher bar for what stories are interesting now and I think the corruption side of thing is particularly going to be a big issue. The money the corruption over the next year. Yeah.

It's a good segue to ask you about the idea of public integrity as well as a journalist, you know, because as you said, you you put your heart and soul into the story, you place it into the world. And then frankly, it's on to your universe of you know, readers or viewers and where they take it from, how how does one cross that barrier from having created this story or at least worked on this story, and then sort of igniting it amongst public consciousness?

It's a really good question. It's one we think about a lot. I think in journalism, particularly investigative journalism, there's always this kind of tension between straight up reporting something and campaigning right. And there's different schools of thought journalists can debate for ages on what we should be doing. Personally, you know, I was trained at the BBC. I know it's a New York Times. I'm a school that we should be as balanced, as impartial as possible. And we should simply be reporting what's happening, and then leaving it to the campaigners or politicians to then act on it. Our job is to tell people what's happening, not to try and lobby for something to happen in response. However, having said that, what I think we can do what I do a lot of stories is making sure our reporting is read by the right people, people who can influence change. So when I published a story a couple of months ago, looking at basically racial inequalities in the UK criminal justice system, particularly looking at this law called joint enterprise using a lot of gang prosecutions. We published a story, but what I did is made sure the right politicians in Parliament knew that it had been published, knew, you know what we hadn't been able to get what we tried to get some of the data the Prosecution Service refused to give us or we weren't able to get. And they then were able to ask questions in Parliament and get some answers from government that we weren't able to do. And also it means you know, it's then reported in Parliament's seven Parliament you protected under parliamentary privilege. So legally, the rest of the media can then pick it up if they want to, and it's much easier to report a story as well as it just gaining a wider audience. And same with things with Transparency International witness, I often talk to them about stories and then we'll ask, we'll have we make talking background about stuff we haven't been able to report that that they think is important with some legislation or bill of vision board, and things like that. So for me, I think our job is to report what's happened, but then pass it on to the people and make sure it's got to the right people who can influence change and bring about change.

You did talk about Russian oligarchs, but is there a story that comes to mind where it was a surprising response, either in terms of you know, the sea of support that you got, or that it went another way does anything stand out in the last few years?

Obviously, all last year, it's been a whole year working on this big criminal justice story that we put our heart and soul into, and then the Queen sadly passes so then everyone wants a royal story. And my editors are desperate and we're story I mean, the Americans are obsessed with the royal family anyway. Even Yeah, I wonder

Can they just wanted a quick turnaround story just something on the royal family or anything it's that kind of pitch as an investigative journalists or requests you kind of dread games it's like, just give me something 24 hours and make it like scooping new but you've only got 24 hours. But you do have to do this stories as well as a longer burn. So I did this story. It wasn't a great, like steeple, great investigation that basically I did a deep dive looking at how can now King Charles has kind of built this billion dollar empire out of, you know, the duchies and all the royal estate and stuff, particularly against the backdrop of austerity in the UK. So all I did was kind of a lot of other newsroom to kind of looked at, you know, individual accounts like that. But I just looked at all the accounts out there and pulled it together into kind of this in depth analysis looking at basically the pot of money that the royal family had and how they built it up. And it honestly wasn't, I think a great piece of journalism, but it was the most read by far of any story I've done. It's nearly 2 million viewers, and I was so annoying, because I knew that, you know, criminal justice story, not on the news agenda would get a quarter of that. But I think what it showed was at the time we published it timing is a big thing, right? It was already on the news agenda. So if you've got and this isn't a corruption story, I want to make this clear. This is just following the money story. But if you've got a story like that, that taps into something already on the news agenda, you've automatically got a huge audience for it because people are just interested at the time and secondly, we were offering something different that the rest of the media British and otherwise wasn't doing because it was soon after the Queen's death maybe a few days after and all of the coverage was basically you know, incredibly positive and almost falling and the New York Times had a lot of incredibly positive coverage as well. But this story, I mean, honestly, it was very light on that scrutiny very light critical look basically like a glowing PR release compared to what I normally do, but it was slightly critical. And I think it was a lot of you know people who don't believe in Monica you wanted that. You didn't want this kind of rose tinted view and all unwanted a bit of critical thinking. So it did really well for us, unfortunately, and I'll probably have to do more Royals, but not about but I think that's just the power even as an investigative journalist, you know, we do these long form stories. It's long term stories, but there is also a value in doing those quick turnaround stories on something that's already in the news that's maybe offering a deeper reporting or a different take than what's already out there.

You know, in the last few weeks, there's been a lot of pushback against the UK government for their climate decisions that you know, they're taking steps back, just tried to leave he did absolutely it was the fastest way apparently trains don't exist. What was funny though, was that I saw on Twitter climate reporter writer tweeting what I loved about the Harry and Megan episode was and then inserted his climate story so maybe maybe there's a tip there for stuff that we work on and we want to get the attention that we think our story deserves. Financial financial corruption reporting gene that's, you know, it's a tricky one because it's so onerous trying to get all that data together. And sometimes at least, you know, in some of the countries that have reported in the, the end result is not exactly what you want it to be that you don't see the sort of serious consequences that you think should be associated with that kind of fraud. Has that been your experience? What is it seemed like with financial corruption reporting?

Oh, it's always the biggest example the latest example I can think of is I did a story last year about the former Conservative Party chairman, one of their biggest donors who was suspected of secretly funneling half a million pounds from a Russian bank account directly to the Conservative Party. And you can rarely tell their stories because you can't get inside bank accounts and things like this, but in this case, I've managed to see a report filed by his bank to the National Crime Agency, Britain's FBI. Obviously a confidential document you don't know we get that insight. And what it showed was that bank investigators said they trace the money directly through you know, the usual offshore accounts, multiple pinging backwards and forwards from one account to the other all the way back to the account of his father in law in Russia, who was a pro Kremlin politician who had a lot of business interests in Crimea. And it publishes story, you know, it created a massive bus it kind of went viral. It was debated in Parliament. And the Charity Commission and the National Crime Agency said they were going to review the evidence right, the classic will review but we're not going to reopen investigation. So and then two days later, it was it was almost it was around two days. Later, both got back saying we've decided we didn't find any evidence of wrongdoing. So we're not going to open an investigation, which kind of seemed odd because like how can you not find evidence of wrongdoing if you haven't investigated? And privately I spoke to some National Crime Agency officers who themselves to be fair or frustrated by it, but they basically said, look, the laws around money, particularly political donations in the UK are just not strong enough for us to do anything. Yes, the lawyers basically have admitted and we've got evidence that the money initially came from this Russian bank account. However for us to bring a criminal case we've got to show that the money was transferred with the intent that being political donation so what world unless you're incredibly lucky, lucky investigator you're gonna find direct evidence showing Oh, I'm sending you this like an email I'm gonna send you this money so you can donate it to the Tories let me know when it comes to, you're just not going to get it. So even in this case, where the evidence was so strong and you had, you know, a bank that was able to follow the money. They still basically held the hands up and was like, you know, we can't we can't do anything about it because the laws and regulations aren't strong enough.

Do you think that diversity in a newsroom is also important when covering stories of corruption and how do you think it sort of adds to that process? Yeah,

I think diversity in the newsroom is incredibly important. I would start off by saying that investigative journalism, at least in the UK has a huge diversity problem is one of the least diverse sectors of our industry. It's mostly white male and posh. In every new team I've worked in. I've been the device diverse how hire and I'm just just for being a young woman mixed race. And if I'm the most diverse hire, I think you've got a problem. And time and time again, it shows in the stories that they pitch, because obviously you're going to pitch stories about corruption in communities you have sources in or communities where you're hearing, it's having an impact, right? So if you're only publishing stories, or pitching stories, about corruption that are impacting your communities as a posh white man, for example, you're not going to be telling half the stories that you shouldn't be and you're not going to be engaging readers. You shouldn't be and you're only really getting reports justice, giving a platform to a very small section of society. And I think it's really important as journalism is such an important industry. It's such an important tool in a democracy that we are representative of the people who, who live in the country and people who read us. And I do think things are changing, like my new team at the New York Times. We just set up a few months ago, basically brand new international investigations team before it's always been run out of New York. And it's the first time we've done this. And on my team, there are three women of color and it's the first time I've been on a team so diverse. And in a couple of weeks time we have our big annual summit where correspondents from all over the world come in, and we basically pitch to editors and talk about what we think the big stories will be in our countries in our beats and what you want to cover and reading through the pitch list. Now having such a diverse investigation team is so interesting, because suddenly these are just stories from Washington from London. There are amazing stories and pitches from Sri Lanka from India from Hong Kong. So I think already I can see the difference it makes and having a more diversity, diversity investigations in particular, and I think it's something our industry needs to tackle as a whole. But one other point, I would say on diversity, you hear a lot of talk as we should about gender about race. But one thing we don't talk about as much as class and that also I think is a huge issue. There was the latest report on diversity in industry show that things are improving in terms of race and gender, but the only sector where it's actually got worse is class. And 80% of journalists in the UK are from professional or upper class industries. More than half went to private schools compared to 7% of the UK population who went to private school. And I would like to see progress being made on that as well as race and gender. The whole picture.

I completely echo that and I think that's a challenge. Across newsrooms, frankly, in the world. You've been quite on the money with picking topics that that have sort of led the story, whether it's Russia or whether it's COVID. In Charles, what do you think for 2023 might be the key strands to watch out for in terms of investigative journalism?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm very keen to hear this, as well. But from my perspective, I think a big theme again, this kind of money, power and ethics because that has just been a big recurring issue for the past year. I think the sector's or their areas, I think it'd be really interesting to dig into and I'd like to see more than one is climate. And I think there's a lot of good climate reporting, but little or I would like to see more investigative climate reporting, particularly around corruption. Because I just think it's an it's something we don't do as an industry is that well, at the moment, I'm sure there are exceptions around here. I also think I'm checking my list here. I also think that politics is going to continue to be a big issue, particularly in the UK. There's a lot of talk now obviously labour polling high. There's a lot of talk about the next government and waiting and a lot of sources I speak to in this kind of corruption sector in Western society. Look, when you're looking at change of government. You've got current ministers already, you know, trying to lobby for jobs. So approaching companies for work, they're thinking, what's my next job going to be? Who am I going to work for? So it's really interesting time I think to look at lobbying, conflicts of interest, revolving door, stuff like that. And I'm afraid so I think Russia is still going to be a big story. On a corruption level, a big question I'm interested in is, you know, are the West sanctions actually working and I think the sort of question mark over that outside all the political rhetoric and if they are where is going to be the New London grad, if you'd like to buy Turkey Cyprus, if they are actually working, where is Russian money flowing to it finally taking it out of London and the UK Those are three areas. I think it's going to be quite big, obviously. You know, I think anything that kind of highlights wealth inequality is going to be really key because of the cost of living crisis. The kind of the wealth inequities we're seeing domestically, but also what COVID kind of highlighted globally. So I think so anything about that, so corruption in the energy sector, the oil sector, things like that. And also, finally, the NHS I think is going to be a big story domestically, and rightly so. Yeah, rightly so. And I think it's going to be a big news story. Without a doubt. What I'm trying to figure out in my head is what the kind of investigative lines are the kind of corruption of the money stories to follow rather than, you know, what will be widely covered and it shouldn't be about waiting lists and things like that. I'm interested if there are any money stories about from the NHS perspective,

fascinating. Maybe we can broad base that and I can get John alanine, he runs Africa uncensored, which is also an investigative platform in Kenya. What do you think, John? What do you think might be do a trends and predictions for us, if you will, on investigative journalism for the,

for the at least in Kenya in different parts of predictions in terms of course, but one of the big topics that I think one wouldn't be covering a lot is that there's a number of countries or countries are now suffering, the impacts of very expensive borrowing, and what the impact that the university's

climate change is huge

on the continent, not just because possibly, I think seven out of 10 of the climate change hotspots are the worst impacts in Africa. But also, based on the kinds of discussions that happened in the last call. There's a lot of money because we want to try and understand what is money Exactly. And I think in the there's possibly something investigated, both from a corruption lens and what people do in response to the very difficult situations that will take place in Israel. So the rise or the emergence of different kinds of cartels and organized crime, transnational crime, especially as relates to the cost of living goods, services, etc. and human trafficking. Finally, its government government's trying to re establish or establish control of their citizens in a very different age. The number of elections are very important. So Nigeria and a few others are possibly very important to watch. And, you know, in Kenya, we haven't seen all of our leaders aren't the same.

So if something happens in Kenya or somewhere else please copy and paste them forward to them. We often learn from each other in these different ways. So that's kind of broad.

Thank you for that.

Well, you run idea reporters in Cairo, would you agree because it's it seems more and more that the focus will be on governments and institutions rather than individual level investigative pieces.

Well, first of all, I don't think that's a very wise talk about issues that are current current and I bet they will continue to be current soon. So those issues that be Latin America, remain extremely important. In no particular order. Organized crime, which is so huge, gigantic in America, and has lots of different phases of the regions from let's say the Sinaloa Cartel. To the submersible Bucha to the commander of NATO in Brussels. tremendous differences, tremendous impact on the life of Latin America as well. Environmental and extractive extractive activities put together, which is a huge has been and will continue to grow and is under under investigated, I should be much better not Virginia studied. for Latin America, we thought that the US not anymore. We have to take into account the ascendancy of the radical right. various shades in Latin America, together with the precarious victories of the lens in Brazil, Colombia and Chile, and with other unstable reviews, such as my own country, and so you will have a lot of stories regarding major

corruption. Whether it will be regression,

in not in every country, but in in several countries going from old fashioned ruthless repression such in Nicaragua. Today, two more cryptocurrency regressions such as the potential for failure in Salado samples, migration together with human rights charges, we have a human rebirth flowing mostly towards you know, but also a lot especially from everyone. All kinds of stories that have come together with this kind of anguish, migration because of extreme situations, you know, in Europe, and the other thing is that quite a bit of the most challenging human reporting with human rights will be carried out from the app site. So let's say God was available tomorrow from a CI will from Nicaragua we arrived from from exile. Carlos Zara Libero with us right from Mexico. And they just Polly so can never just one others will also write different things about about insurance. And yes, with all the tremendous challenges that that imposes, I am sure that they will, they will be storing on

it. So we will have

lots of stories. Lots of stories, tremendous difficulties. You will see. I've certainly done very similar to that in Mexico, continuing her topic disappeared far more than you know either towards in Argentina in Mexico and all of that risking everything every day. And they would continue. Thank you for that.

I think that's incredibly well put even though it's so scary corruption layered with repression, which is probably what most countries and many continents indeed are looking at today. I'm going to pivot to some questions. Now. I wish this font size was a bit larger for my own eyes, but I will give it a shot. Hygiene thanks for the insight. I wanted to know what you would have for an early career journalists looking at getting into investigative journalism.

That's a good question. Um, honestly, I get the advice time and time again, but it's just stories are your currency even if you have brand new journalists, and you don't have the years of experience that you know others might have. You can find stories that others aren't telling. Even if you don't have experience and for me getting into investigative journalism. That's how I started out I was a news journalist. I didn't have a special investigative beat. But on my evenings on weekends, I would try and find my own stories and I would pitch them and they said you get to pitch them, you get to work on them. So it was kind of a way to kind of build a CV that was more investigative despite only working on news. And that makes you stand out. You're not only just doing the day job filing what you expected to file, but you're making yourself stand out by bringing something extra to the museum so I would you save, find original stories, as best you can. And don't be afraid to go right up to editors and pitch that not always impressed by someone who takes the initiative to go out and find a piece of original investigative journalism.

That sounds great. Maybe before I go to these questions, I should pivot to Chris and get some of his thoughts in on the conversation.

I just feel a huge fan of your stories and I think the the pieces not really it's not really a corruption story directly but you're a piece about I know the piece you did on racial bias in the criminal justice system and the joint enterprise cases. I talked to a number of UK journalists after that came out and said how come the New York Times is writing the story about racial bias in the UK? And you're not telling and they said no, we we already covered the joint enterprise thing a few months ago. Of course, we didn't do the race and we did it about white defense. So maybe we should have made a blind spot. So I'm wondering about, about those blind spots that you've talked about your role in exposing corruption. And you've talked about the relationship between playing not deliberately but accidentally playing on popular interests in your audience and the intersection with your with your issues. But are you also thinking about your role as a corrective in journalism itself? That is looking for stories that were misfired or miss the issue you cared about? And so you're coming back sometimes to stories with a different with a different lens than that you're trying to play a corrective role.

It's really interesting question. I don't know if I see it completely as corrective. But I definitely see it. I mean, the benefit of work for the New York Times, right? I mean, we're a big beast and no one's gonna say we're an underdog but we are an outsider in the UK. We don't rely on the same access. We don't think about things the same way. And often when we look at stories like the joint enterprise story, we're trying to do it in a different way from a different angle than the British press has done. Sometimes it might be to correct maybe a stereotype or a sensationalist kind of angle that they often use. But more often than not, it's trying to dive deeper and take a more systemic look like it was a lot of even on the COVID stuff. Right. Going back to that there was a lot of good news reporting about kind of individual dodgy companies winning these contracts. But when I pitched the story, it was because no one had taken a systemic look at the time at kind of the awarding of these contracts and the corruption and all of that so it's a combination of kind of trying to just look at it from a more global perspective. And I know I work for Americans by global they just need America generally. But we are changing that inside the New York Times. And it will compare it to kind of other countries. Okay. And why why is why is the UK to be honest with you, if it was happening, handling it so badly. Why is the death rates so much higher? What's going on? And that was kind of a big question. And because we have these correspondents all over the world that we're very lucky to be able to pull on their insights on you can maybe question the perceived wisdom or kind of see something from an outside perspective. And in that racial justice piece, actually, a theory sorry, I think the biggest example of maybe the correct development you were speaking of didn't come from me it came from my very talented colleagues salaam who is American but originally from Ethiopia, and is not British at all. hasn't spent in the UK couple of years, but she had a very different take on there's been a big scandal I'm sure we live in the UK we've had about about county lines drug dealing. Huge issue is recruiting a lot of young teenagers from across the world could basically deal across the UK sorry to deal drugs across different counties. It's a real issue. It's a real problem. But what she looked at was how the authorities were using this legislation to perhaps go after, you know, mid ranking or junior drug dealers who themselves were victims actually, but have been treated as perpetrators. And you know, if they don't cooperate with the police, suddenly, oh, you're not going to be a victim. We're going to prosecute you for being like a kingpin. And that was the most contentious and got the biggest backlash actually because the British media have for years rightly, you know, reported on it in a very black and white perspective as it just being a problem and the police are doing a great job and not questioning the use of the new law brought in to tackle

it was a great series. Great.

Thank you. Awesome people, but

maybe we can take questions from the audience now. Minnaar Why don't you tell us where you're from? Menara is one of our Reuters fellows and she has

was removed from Jordan. I read a little bit application, but it was kind of part of my country. My My question is, how can a journalist have the balance working on an investigation that was corruption without exposing themselves to danger?

That's a really good question. I wonder if it's better. suited to I think it's too much. Okay, I'll talk about from a UK perspective. But I do want to caveat that in you know, when I hear journalists that you guys talk about the work you do and like I'm not doing real dangerous work, like it's very different reporting and investigating corruption somewhere like the UK. Yes, it exists, but I'm not being threatened by governments or the police. So I have an easy job compared to a lot of journalists across the world. I would say, in my experience, when I'm reporting on corruption, particularly if it's organized crime, or the talking about anything to do with intelligence services, there are kind of multiple steps we take to keep ourselves safe. So the Russia assassination investigation is the big example I have so that we were talking about Russian organised criminals and we were talking about intelligence services in the USA, UK and Russia. So we were like a big, big mark for being targeted. And we had my editor had someone in a blacktop vehicle parked outside her house for three weeks, just watching her neighbors would tell it when turned up. A colleague of mine was followed from a meeting. I started having very weird hacks on my personal email address coming from Russia or Ukraine, IP addresses. So the steps we took, getting back to a question was best kind of on an electronic technical perspective, we would only talk on signal, an encrypted messaging app and have disappearing messages turned on. For anything super sensitive. We use what's called a band and laptop. So it's really old, like be a laptop, which couldn't connect to the Wi Fi and hadn't been connected to any Wi Fi and we would score the key documents on that. Whenever we would go for source meetings. We all add each other on to a tracking app. Or would you can just get on your iPhone I think we use five point my phone even so we could keep track and have an agreement if you didn't check in in half an hour you'd check in with them. So when we check in with them, see how they're getting on. And we got trained in kind of anti surveillance tactics by former my six officers former couplers so we could basically keep ourselves safe and make sure we weren't being followed. So those were kind of the key steps we took, which I think are relevant in lots of different stories, but like I say, I'm sure there are others more qualified to talk about this.

Well will that work for anything else? Implication one loss of projection down so costing what? actually walking?

Your story is lawyer

second thing is, of course, your testimony. Kind of risk assessments that you need to enter to

ensure that

what especially in the context of smaller independent media, but also broadly speaking for countries like ours, and media, it's important to think about which kinds of collaborations and you can have different organizations that perhaps working, working advocacy. Also other media elders to amplify that kind of story. So that that kind of public safety that moves but on the off chance that it doesn't then have a very, very clear plan about how you're going to be able to recreate when you're going out on and hopefully you know

I'm gonna quickly summarize for our online audience because I think the audio isn't that clear. So essentially, what Shawn indicated was your personal safety first and foremost knowing that you have a safe place, allying and reaching out to organizations that can support and of course, as he said lawyering your story properly, ensuring that the legal implications don't put you down to stop.

First of all, investigative journalism in corrupt countries I think everywhere, but especially in corrupt countries is inherently dangerous. Everybody who says you should take that into account. And I think that most journalists before undertaking investigative journalism should be very clear with themselves that it might impact them,, and one has to be prepared. That being said, once you close a group and begin doing that, there are many things that you have to do to move a lot of thinking and activity to a safety matters and they range from physical safety. In the organization, I found it for spiritual self defense classes training is compulsory, not not optional. All the way to cybersecurity, and how to avoid being followed and how to detect you're being tracked and follow and all of that. And especially in today's environment, everything related with communication safety with communication you all know about how the technology for for wiretapping has evolved. So you need to be very conscious about that. In taking all of that into account, and especially for small nonprofit organizations such as ours, I think that perhaps we're going to talk further about it, that networking has been decisive. For instance, all the trade taking in cybersecurity has been brought by the colleagues in our network, the servers where we were we have an obligation, they are in Scandinavia. And and that's among many other things that they can do. We can access, also legal support, in cases that we would confront nature lawsuits, and all that. And as Jonathan said, especially when you undertake dangerous subjects, you should have very well planned and you should have all kinds of contingency planning for almost everything. That might be and use common sense and act with strategic audacity, and a lot of tactical caution. Can I just pick up one point?

I think there are kind of two types of protection we can talk about, obviously, personal protection colleagues, protection, but also really important is Source Protection, particularly if you're contacting potential sources in you know, countries with autocratic regimes and things like that. So when I'm contacting sources who, you know, bake might lose a job, their pet health, their personal safety might be at risk. I'm always very careful how I make that initial reach out. You know, if it's, if it's on LinkedIn, go with like a very broad approach. That's not going to be an awesome message, lots of other people so it kind of just looks like a generic approach, and it's not going to get them in too. much heat or little notice anything, obviously using cryptic messages and disappearing messages, maybe meet in person. And also you have to protect the sources from themselves sometimes like I've had stories where I've taken out all these steps to anonymize someone, and then we tweet the story and they get involved in an argument with someone in the tweets underneath. They're like, Oh, you can trust Jerry mentioned my name. And then they they've mentioned the Nigerian charities and that being a mold for the person we're investigating and it's gone straight back to PR. So I think you have a duty to kind of also go really fine protecting your sources, but being straight with them about what you can and can't do, like often sources will ask me, Oh, will you? Can you guarantee that you will pay for lots of pay for a lawyer if I get personally sued? Or can you guarantee no one will find out my identity and I'm always very unfair. I can't guarantee either of those things. I can promise you I will not reveal your identity in the article. These are the steps we're taking. And legally, I mean, most cases, particularly in legacy or the New York Times, we we you know I'm protected and the detention within the organization itself if you're going to sue and jump sometimes they might. They might see sources, it's very rare. And a legacy org may step in, but generally they don't do it that way. They tend to come from New York, but you can't guarantee you're gonna get some legal representation if they are sued. So I think you've got a duty to be straight about the risks as well as what you

can up to.

Yeah, please go ahead. Because

if you're going to do really strong in that industry, reporting will expose powerful people in organizations, you can almost bet that you will be subjected to disinformation campaigns on the spread. And quite often, in many cases, the intensity of those campaigns for pimps, some of them some physical that was the case for instance, have definitely got one of the month before the activity here at SSC nation you are subjected to a winter is very big so information goes both ways. And regardless of the fact that investigative reporting has grown enormously in terms of efficacy. This information also has has grown I would say even more

Yeah, no, I agree completely. And I would just add as a journalist from India, it's extremely important to build a community something that Reuters tries to do. A lot of the smaller, scrappier organizations in India are the only ones doing investigative work now, and it's often not even the journalist community that stands up and supports you so it's important to build an international community BE PART of international investigative pieces, such as Pegasus, for example, where you are adding credence to your work and gaining some support so that when you are in trouble, there are voices that stand up and support you. This is an anonymous question I might add we're going to go with questions for about 10 minutes break for coffee and then we're coming back and having an off the record session. So there's a lot more we can discuss. This is an anonymous question, but I think it's important. How do you keep morale up faced with unsympathetic editors, fatigue of working on distressing topics, and potentially not having the readership you want it? It's interesting with feeling. John, would you like to have a go first.

And this might be taken by journalists, but have a very good friend of mine who's a sounding board oftentimes the kinds of stories and and he asked him you, pretty simple, but what important question he asked me how many times do you go home and sit down and watch an investigative documentary? Is it every day is it twice a day? Is it three times a day? And for a person who's hyper interested in that kind of content? Probably twice a day. And then now he asked me, of course, the obvious question, which is, how do you think the public is going to react to your content? Because we deal with such very serious, heavy topics. It's not easy for people to constantly be engaged and be at the coalface just like, right. And so you shouldn't have I think you should, you should start to abandon that expectation that people are going to like your work simply because you put a lot of effort into it. It's interesting, or because it is interesting. The way not just algorithms but the world works is that many times the the labor that you invest so much time in, is to create this kind of library of institutional memory of the kinds of words that you saw that as was the Russia investigation. People can return to that and see that there's actually been quite a bit of work and to build this body of knowledge. So on that in terms of the public see, that's out with with sympathetic is really now the Congress visitors persistence, you need to constantly be active and ensure that they never forget. At the very least, was that picking up your code? Just like what being a journalist your job isn't like, your job isn't to be you know, isn't to be the guy in the room. Like you know, the expression if you want everyone is like you sell ice cream, right? That's not your job. Your job is to get the job. Bottom line might mean being unnecessarily unpleasant to people who are constantly being rude, especially if it comes to especially when it comes to work that is

established. Where would you rate yourself on the sympathy chart as an editor?

One of the good things of becoming old is the fact that you'll be condemned and so I completely agree with John. As an editor, do you have to be Mr. Singleton? No, not at all. As an editor you must be demanding. But at the same time, you must be protective. You This is what I learned from the journalists, memory surcharge, the most. You should learn dude, you should teach to practice. You shouldn't preach, you should show and then of course, you should be very demanding when editing but letting both opportunities for for journalists to to go. One of the things I have to say that still I find a little bit difficult to reconcile within many generations that came after me especially because what is the fact that when I began Java is most of the a lot of computer journalist. Great readers. They read the notes they were secret writers if not overt writers. And slow they have a lot of knowledge. It is difficult now. To find journals to read books. Of course, not I am not talking about Instagram, all of that. Reading was written to me it is it is one of the things I continue preaching. I continue, I think one expresses perception itself much better, the more the more you have and this is the one thing I don't know how sympathetic I

am. It's a fair question, though. I mean, because many of these questions many of these stories actually die either at the editors door or by the decision that the organization may have based on their commercial interests. How how do you take that

on? I've been looking I've never had to have a story killed because of commercial interests. I mean, I worked at BBC BuzzFeed. Before I came to New York Times I've never had that but I did have when I first starting out as an investigative journalist and you know before you have got more reputation or more of a track record, it can be harder to get editors to take you seriously or believe that you can kind of learn the big story or have the skills to so I think kind of as what John just suggested, I just kept banging on doors about not the story about what What mystery well about this story until they finally give you a chance and can see that okay, you can learn the stories as well by also learn important lesson if for any young journalists here is when I first started out, I would always pitch ideas too soon and too big. So the more experienced journalists would say to me manage editors expectations, so don't go in and be like, I've got this huge story and it's going to be good. And it's going to take down a government be like go to them once you've got the fly back rather than you've got an idea to file and fly for example. And kind of just not to be like I've got this or maybe I could get that but let's just this is a base level we're starting at because then they trust you and if you're kind of cautious and not don't overblow the pitch as a journalist I think they trust you. Jan is more than that. You'll deliver rather than if you go there I did. When I was 21 and wide. I didn't overselling it but promising. Now I'll be the one again now we can't do that but I'll try and I think find a mentor if you're able to. So when I was first starting out and I didn't really know how to pitch I was getting a lot of editors kind of closing doors in my face just saying you're too young or you need to get your basic news experience from what you do. mitigations I would always find my my friend in the newsroom who really liked investigations and would take the time to do the same show and not just tell and would help me add Car Talk to pictures and I'd be like, That's interesting. That's less interesting. And we'd work on pictures together or they'd be like, Okay, why don't have you thought about who what voices you'd get and things like that. So basically go so I'd be going in there with a stronger pitch which is more likely to be commissioned. So and if you have someone who can be a sounding board is more experienced, who will champion you or your work. I think having that Ally can really help if possible, and if you're not getting anywhere, you know I got to this point. The BBC is a great organization. But when I was there, panorama in particular, it was just very cautious. We had a new editor who came from a less investigative background more than us the guy and just wasn't that interested in like a big risky investigation that the BBC was getting a lot of heat at the moment with the licence fee. And they just wanted to do kind of more factory stuff. And I was like, these are the stories I want to do. And also I'm not going to wait 10 years like indirect my own films and tell my own stories. I'm going to lead so also just having the guts to be like Okay, it's time to go elsewhere, get some more experience and if I want to I can come back but I'm just not getting the getting to do the stories they wanted. To hear

on solid advice. we're winding down on this part of the conversation. So please join me in thanking Jane for this fantastic chat today. Thank you John and was Tavo for weighing in as well. Quick coffee break and quick coffee break and then we gather back and Chris and I will moderate the second part of the conversation which will be perhaps even more free flowing than this one. Thank you. All. Thank you