Exposing Dirty Media Tricks: "It helps that Murdoch is a bastard"

Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter who broke the phone hacking scandal in Britain, described a remarkably simple technique for doing good journalism as he addressed a room full of investigative reporters in Kiev yesterday.

He calls it the "hang on a minute" moment. It's the act of identifying and then doggedly investigating the part of a story that just doesn't seem to add up.

Davies had one of those moments when he thought about the phone hacking prosecution in 2007 of a reporter for News of the World. The newspaper's royal correspondent, along with a private investigator, were charged with hacking into the messages of royal family members. The Murdoch-owned newspaper said it was an isolated practice. 

During the investigation, police had seized material from the investigator. Davies wanted to know exactly what that was, and whether it went beyond the case at hand. He asked to know how many cell phone pin-codes had been found in the private investigator's possession. After months of stonewalling, authorities finally provided an answer: 91. 

That told Davies the hacking was widespread, and it was the start of dozens of stories revealing dirty tricks and unethical practices that were known at the highest levels of the Murdoch empire, he said. 

There was another interesting technique Davies used in his investigation. He convinced a number of the victims to sue, in the hopes of getting further disclosures as a result of the court cases. That's exactly what happened, and it provided Davies with proof that senior editorial bosses were involved in the practice. 

Davies is the author of Flat Earth News, in which he critiques modern journalism as "churnalism" that repeats public relations lies and generally does not serve readers' interests. He blames cutbacks and commercialism that have forced reporters to churn out far too many stories a day, leaving them no time to check for the truth, and making them prey to corporate and government spin doctors. 

There is also a chapter in his book on the "dark arts" used by many British media institutions. These include phone hacking, adopting identities to misappropriate other people's personal information, conducting questionable sting operations, hunting through garbage bins, and generally doing whatever it takes to find a scoop.

Davies was unrestrained in his criticism of Rupert Murdoch as he addressed delegates to the Global Investigative Journalism Conference.  "Murdoch's people lie for a living," he said. "You cannot become as rich and powerful as Rupert Murdoch unless you are greedy," and leave a trail of enemies in your wake. That provided plenty of disaffected people for Davies to interview. "It certainly helps that Murdoch is a bastard."

Murdoch's power extends right into the prime minister's office, and Davies noted that a series of administrations have been in thrall to the media baron's influence. "You can't govern Britain unless Rupert says you can."

Davies continues to get tips about other dirty tricks in the newspaper business. Last week, he broke a story about how the Murdoch empire was using a scam to inflate circulation figures for it's Wall Street Journal in Europe. 

David Leigh, investigations editor at the Guardian, said Davies was instrumental in staying on the story and bringing it to its historic conclusion. "He has done something none of us thought was possible. He has shaken the media empire of Rupert Murdoch."

Davies said arguably the best skill a reporter can develop is mastering the office politics of bargaining for sufficient time to work on important stories. Time is crucial for good reporting, and avoiding the imperative of churning out volume over quality is crucial. 

Working with WikiLeaks -- the Rewards and the Frustrations

   "I personally would not work with Julian Assange or WikiLeaks ever again."

   That was the blunt judgment of David Leigh, investigations editor at The Guardian and one of the original mainstream media partners with the whistleblowing website. "He is impossible to work with. Hackers and journalists don't really mix."

   Leigh was one of four journalists who described their techniques, strategies and frustrations in dealing with WikiLeaks during a fascinating panel discussion Thursday at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Kiev.

   Journalists at the New York Times, the Guardian, Oslo's Aftenposten and Nigeria's Next newspaper were all involved in trying to analyze and verify thousands of documents dealing with U.S. diplomatic traffic and war reports. It forced all of them to develop new methods so they could make sense of such a massive dump of raw information.

   "For an old man like me, having to deal with all that data was something new," said Leigh. The Guardian was handed four massive datasets, and one of the newspaper's first steps was to build a searchable database of the documents.

   The newspaper quickly realized that there were many important revelations, but that not everything in the documents was true. Verifying, analyzing and weighing the evidence became the most important exercise. It turned out that some of the documents labelled Secret or designated as not for foreign eyes were less interesting than cables merely coded as confidential.

   "The old skills of journalism I learned as a young man are still relevant," Leigh added, noting that follow-up freedom of information requests were important in verifying some of the stories. 

   The original five media partners working with WikiLeaks weren't unanimous in their assessment of the cables. Leigh said Bill Keller of the New York Times accused the Guardian of being too focused on stories dealing the war dead because of its left-wing leanings.

   Leigh eventually fell out with Assange over disagreements about how the material was handled and Assange's objections to the Guardian's coverage of sexual assault allegations in Sweden, among other things.

   Andy Lehren, one of the key New York Times journalists working on the material, said his initial assignment was to analyze the documents and look at a one-day story.  The newspaper ultimately formed a large, secret team to make sense of the material, much of which constituted single-source stories and incomplete accounts, he said.

   The Times brought in other datasets, such as a database of private security contractors, to  compare to the WikiLeaks documents. In some cases,  a single cable told an entire story, but in many other instances it was necessary to do considerably more analysis and reporting.

   Lehren said the diplomatic cables continue to live on, providing more insight as new world developments take place. He still spends time sifting through and reading them regularly.

   Jan Gunnar Furuly, with Oslo's Aftenposten, said his newspaper managed to get the full set of diplomatic cables without entering into a formal relationship with WikiLeaks. "Thanks to a genius guy in our IT department" the newspaper had a searchable database operating within short order, enabling journalists to search for relevant documents.

   The newspaper then formed a coalition with about 75 European journalists so the material could spread as widely as possible. Aftenposten printed important stories that the major WikiLeaks partners hadn't yet touched.

   Musikilu Mojeed, of Nigeria's Next newspaper, received exclusive access to the Nigeria-related WikiLeaks cables in February of this year. He said they adopted a cautious and skeptical approach, treating the cables not as gospel truth but as the basis for further research and interviews. Providing additional context was an important objective for each report.

   Though the leaks led to several major scoops and revelations, Mojeed acknowledged that they blundered by reporting a claim from a cable that their president had voted four times in the 2007 election. This subsequently turned out to be false, and the newspaper had to cover its face in shame for the error, he said.

   Leigh and Lehren both said pressure from the U.S. State department and other government officials did not force them to back down on printing any important stories. While both were careful to protect identities of sources named in the documents, they didn't suppress pertinent information only because it was embarrassing to some.

   Leigh said the newspaper was asked not to publish anything on the situation in Yemen because of the sensitive state of affairs there, but he paid no heed. Mojeed added that some officials in the Nigerian administration wanted inside information on the contents of the documents, even offering to pay for it.

   Despite the treasure-trove of information, and weeks of exclusive reports filed by all the newspapers, there were many strained relationships along the way. Leigh left no doubt about his disdain for Assange's tactics and ethics.

"He tried to double cross us over and over again."

More than 500 journalists are at the conference. Assange was invited, but did not attend.