Investigating Wrongful Convictions

One of the most tangible ways investigative journalism can produce meaningful impact is through intensive inquiry into possible wrongful convictions.

In modern Canadian history, journalists have played an active role in this process since the 1950s. J.E. Belliveau of the Toronto Star questioned the conviction of Wilbert Coffin, who was hanged in Bordeaux jail in 1956 for the killing of an American hunter in Quebec three years earlier. Jacques Hébert also took up the investigation, leading to a royal commission and questions about the conviction that continue to today. Betty Lee of the Globe and Mail did a similar expose of the Arthur Lucas case. Lucas was executed in Toronto's Don Jail in 1962 for killing an FBI informant. But the most famous case of that era, of course, involved Steven Truscott.

Isabel LeBourdais spent years investigating Truscott's case and trying valiantly to persuade a media outlet or book publisher to run with her story of wrongful conviction. But there was timidity on the part of the publishing community, and a general feeling that the justice system could not be held to account as emphatically and stridently as LeBourdais proposed. She eventually went to a British publisher who agreed to put out her book, which had longstanding impact and led to a lengthy re-examination of Truscott's case -- a case that was not finally resolved until his recent exoneration.

All the early pioneering journalists played a crucial role in convincing Canadian authorities that capital punishment had to be abolished. In more recent times, journalists had a major hand in helping to clear wrongly convicted men such as David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and James Driskell, among others.

But mounting a thorough investigation into a wrongful conviction is a complicated endeavour. It can't be done on a daily deadline. Any journalist undertaking such an investigation has to devote serious time and resources to the project. In today's journalistic climate, that can be a challenge.

Throughout the US and in some Canadian cities, Innocence Projects have been formed. These are agencies, usually connected to universities, that investigate cases of wrongful convictions. The Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University in Chicago, for example, has freed 11 men, five of them on death row. In some cases, Innocence Projects have forged partnerships with journalists to share the work and ensure that cases are properly investigated and publicized.

One interesting partnership exists at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. Since 2001, the Innocence Institute there has completed more than a dozen investigations into possible wrongful convictions. Bill Moushey of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette organized the Innocence Institute and publishes articles on the results of the investigations in his newspaper.

It's a model that could prove useful to Canadian universities and media outlets. So far, Canada only has Innocence Projects in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and their main focus is on law schools rather than media agencies. But as many of the Canadian wrongful conviction examples demonstrate, media pressure was a crucial component in convincing justice systems to re-examine cases. The federal justice minister, for example, rejected David Milgaard's appeal, but reconsidered only after further media revelations and pressure mounted by Milgaard's supporters.

While it is difficult to state with certainty how many people are wrongly convicted, academic studies suggest the number could be anywhere between one and five per cent of all convictions, or higher. Only in recent years have serious flaws been noted in the fields of hair analysis, eye witness testimony, police interrogation methods and a host of other factors that were routinely unquestioned in past prosecutions. All of this has led to wrongful convictions, and many of them still remain to be discovered. The thought of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wrongly convicted people languishing in jails is offensive in any society that calls itself democratic. Investigative journalism, which has as one of its main aims to hold powerful institutions to account, needs to play a vigorous role in this field. Partnerships with universities might be a viable way to do so in the future.

A Good Day at the St. Petersburg Times

At a time of shrinking circulation and advertising cutbacks, newspapers don't often experience the kind of day that journalists at the St. Petersburg Times had on April 17.

First, a grand jury credited one of the newspaper's reporters with discovering that a former House Speaker had falsified documents for the benefit of a private developer. The jury said the issue would have gone unnoticed without the work of the reporter.

Back at the office, a team of reporters was finishing a special report on decades of abuse at a North Florida boys' reform school. The series began running on the newspaper's website that day.

That same day, the board of the Pulitzer Prizes announced that the Times had won two Pulitzer Prizes.

Not a bad day for the Florida newspaper that prides itself on quality work and a devotion to investigative journalism.

The newspaper has a fascinating and unique history which positions it to do excellent work. Former publisher Nelson Poynter died in 1978, and left the controlling stock of the company in the hands of a non-profit institution that was charged with teaching journalism and promoting excellence. The Poynter Institute provides training to many journalists annually, and also conducts research that is valuable to all practitioners.

One of the newspaper's Pulitzers was awarded to PolitiFact, a website that was created in August 2007 to check the accuracy of statements made by the presidential candidates. Today, reporters and editors fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups. Then they rate them on a "Truth-O-Meter". They are also tracking more than 500 of Barack Obama’s campaign promises and recording the results on an Obameter.

It's an innovative way to sort through the noise that political discourse often creates. Instead of merely being content with reporting who said what, and collecting opinions from different sources both pro and con, the newspaper tries to figure out the truth of the statements.

For example, Michelle Bachmann, a Republican member of Congress from Minnesota, recently said: "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Politifact points out that the scare started in February 1976 at Fort Dix, N.J., when the president was Republican Gerald Ford. And Bachmann also forgot to mention a 1988 swine flu death under another Republican administration. Having noted the truth, the PolitiFact journalists aren't afraid to voice their opinion.

"So Bachmann is wrong about a Democrat being in charge during the 1976 outbreak and she fails to note the swine flu death in 1988. Hmmm. Two swine flu incidents during Republican administrations. By Bachmann's logic, we should find that 'interesting.' But we don't. It's ridiculous for her to suggest a partisan link with a deadly disease. That's not just a mistake, that's absurdly false. So we'll get out the lighter (after we wash our hands!) and set the Truth-O-Meter ablaze. This one's a Pants on Fire."

It's a simple example of the journalism of reminder, and it also shows a devotion to getting "the real story" on a political assertion, something not every media outlet has the time or inclination to gather. If the St. Petersburg Times can afford to devote the time and resources to projects like these, it's reasonable to assume other media outlets could arrange their budgets to do likewise.

Why Alternative Journalism Matters

Chris Atton of Edinburgh Napier University raises some provocative questions in the latest issue of Journalism with his paper entitled "Why alternative journalism matters."

While considerable attention has been paid to citizen-based journalism and its growth, there has been little said about the everyday routines and processes that are involved. "It is at the practices of alternative journalism that we should look most closely, not least because they raise challenges to the dominant practices of professionalized journalism," he says. "They offer a critique in action that can encourage educators, students and journalists to think epistemologically about journalism - an activity that has been found lacking in craft-based journalism programmes."

In my history of investigative journalism in Canada, I devote a chapter to alternative journalism called "Out of the Mainstream." This is because the 1960s saw a huge increase in alternative journalism, and it is undeniable that this genre had a major impact on the subsequent growth of investigative reporting. Mainstream media of the 1950s and 60s were still operating largely within the limitations of official journalism. There was an institutional timidity in many organizations when it came to challenging the status quo, unless sources deemed reliable and official could be found to do so. I don't mean to diminish the excellent work done by some newspaper and broadcast journalists of this era. Some of the work by journalists at programs like Close-Up, Document and This Hour Has Seven Days was particularly influential in the development of investigative reporting. But the overall reticence to do challenging work was extensive. Nothing illustrates this better, in my view, than the inability of Seymour Hersh to interest any mainstream organizations in his groundbreaking expose of the My Lai affair. It was left to his neighbour, who ran a tiny alternative news service, to distribute the story.

Alternative magazines and newspapers, many run by students and left-wing organizations in the 1960s, produced some probing work. In the US, Ramparts was particularly influential. In Canada, Dimension, the 4th Estate and The Last Post offered similar examples. Political groups ran investigative articles in their own publications. Soon the mainstream was paying attention. By the early 1970s, it was becoming fashionable in many mainstream organizations to form teams to engage in muckraking.

Today, the alternative media aren't nearly as mysterious or exotic as they might have seemed 40 years ago. Random surfing produces site after site of journalistic endeavours. Some barely earn the right to be called journalism, but others are delving into areas that the mainstream don't or won't cover. The work methods and editorial policies of the organizations practicing these forms of journalism are worth studying. Chris Atton argues that many aspects of modern alternative journalism have a social basis that links writer and audience together in a stronger way than conventional journalism does. He offers the following conclusion, along with some pointed advice for journalism schools: "Studies of the practices of alternative journalism and the embedding of those practices into teaching programmes might go some way to re-establishing the often shaky connection between professional journalists and their audiences."

Kick-starting Investigative Journalism

Seymour Hersh was a young and little-known journalist when he approached the newly-created Fund for Investigative Journalism in 1969 for help. He wanted assistance to investigate reports of a civilian massacre perpetrated by US soldiers in Vietnam. He was awarded a $250 grant. A subsequent grant of $2,000 allowed him to finish reporting the story. Hersh's My Lai expose became one of the seminal examples of investigative journalism in the Vietnam era.

Since then, the fund has given away more than $1.5 million in grants to freelance reporters, writers and small publications. That has leveraged the publication of more than 700 stories and about 50 books.

The fund was started by Philip M. Stern, a philanthropist with a sense of social justice. According to the fund's website, "Stern was convinced small amounts of money invested in the work of determined journalists would yield enormous results in the fight against racism, poverty, corporate greed and governmental corruption." Stern was understandably proud of his initial contribution to Hersh's groundbreaking work. "Think of it," he wrote, "a mere $2,250 in fund grants enabled Seymour Hersh to leverage a whiff into a colossal stink and contribute mightily to the change in how Americans viewed the war in Vietnam."

In its latest disbursement, the fund gave $57,000 to 15 journalists. In keeping with its practice, it didn't name the recipients or explain exactly what their projects were. But in general, it said they concerned "government wrongdoing, improper medical experimentation, the economics of immigration, environmental conservation efforts, education and past U.S. activities in Vietnam and in the development of the atomic bomb." In addition to stories in the US, the recipients will be investigating stories in Cambodia, India, Uganda, Mexico, Afghanistan, Jordan and Kenya.

While Canada has its Atkinson and Michener-Deacon fellowships, there is no exact parallel to the US-based investigative fund. The Centre for Investigative Journalism (later renamed the Canadian Association of Journalists) began a similar program when it was founded in the late 1970s, but it didn't last long.

A sampling of stories that were kick-started by the Fund for Investigative Journalism is available on the fund's website.

Is History Repeating Itself?

Those of us old enough to remember the economic situation of the early 1980s may be wondering: is history repeating itself in the way the media are valuing investigative journalism?

The 1970s witnessed an explosion of investigative work. The social forces of the ‘60s put many people into motion, and the public was growing increasingly skeptical about governments and institutions. Various alternative media institutions demonstrated that intensive inquiry could lead to revealing exposes. According to journalism professor Mark Feldstein’s muckraking model, the demand for investigative reporting was increased by an aroused public hungry for exposes in times of turmoil. Supply was spurred on by new technologies and media competition. Then along came Watergate, and the idea that a couple of young reporters relentlessly working a story could bring down a president. Newspapers formed teams, television networks created programs, and investigative journalism became the darling of Hollywood. Time magazine declared 1974 The Year of the Muckrakers.

The growth curve seemed limitless, but the new decade brought harder economic times. Newspaper chains began consolidating, shutting down the Ottawa Journal and Winnipeg Tribune. Budget cuts and hiring freezes became the norm. Investigative reporting, seen as expensive and time-consuming by some media outlets, began to suffer. “Investigative reporting on the country’s dailies, always in fragile health, is wheezing worse than ever as the strangle is put to editorial budgets,” wrote Barry Zwicker in the Fall 1982 issue of the CIJ (Centre for Investigative Journalism) Bulletin. In fact, the CIJ dubbed its 1983 conference “Hard News: Hard Times.” The result of all this downsizing was a process that can still be felt in many organizations today. Fewer reporters began to cover legislatures, city halls, Parliament and other key institutions. Decreased scrutiny inevitably means less enterprise and fewer opportunities to learn the truth about important events as they are happening.

The cutbacks weren’t universal. But as companies in other industries have learned, cutting capacity in critical areas can often impede the process of building back that capacity when conditions improve. By the mid 1980s, economic conditions in Canada had strengthened, but many newspapers that had curtailed investigative work did not reinvest back to the original levels.

The atmosphere today feels similar. With the current economic crisis, some local television stations across North America are downsizing and eliminating their I-Teams. These teams have been a regular staple of many local television stations for more than 25 years. They vary greatly in quality. Some do genuinely important enterprise and investigative work, while others employ gimmicks and chase after easy-to-get gotcha stories. But they all try to achieve something beyond conventional, daily reporting. Many newspapers as well are concentrating more on breaking and daily news than investigative work. It’s a trend that is prompting some experienced investigative reporters to leave such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal in search of a Plan B.

The American Journalism Review has a good column on this trend in its latest issue. Bill Lord of WJLA in Washington, DC expresses a common sentiment as he justifies cutting back on his I-Team. "I've got to do newscasts before I can do specialty items," Lord tells the AJR.

But can investigative work really be seen as a "specialty item?" Holding the powerful to account is a constant need for journalism, not something to be dropped when economic times get tough. Arguably it's at times like these when hard-hitting, watchdog journalism is needed most. I have heard many American journalists criticize themselves for not being tough enough in their scrutiny of government following 9/11. There have been many mea culpas from the press for not investigating more thoroughly the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It’s crucial that investigative reporting take place at the moment events are unfolding, not in hindsight or years after the fact. The public demands and deserves a media that is constantly looking out for its interests, challenging conventional wisdoms, holding power to account.


The situation isn’t entirely bleak. The Toronto Star has a full-time investigative unit of five journalists. The Globe and Mail has a talented group of investigative reporters uncovering important elements in many stories. The CBC conducts strong investigative work in its news service, in many of its regional centres, and through current affairs programs like the fifth estate and Marketplace. CTV continues to pursue investigative work at W-FIVE. Journalists at many other media outlets across the country, both in the mainstream and alternative media, do important work. But the economic pressure on media institutions is posing a challenge to this form of journalism. Individual media outlets will all be faced with choices in this regard over the coming months and years. They should all consider the history of the early 1980s, and take care not to make decisions that will be difficult to reverse. The AJR column mentioned earlier has one last quote worth repeating. It’s from WFOR-TV, a Miami-based station that maintains a nine-member I-Team. "We feel that, now more than ever, we need investigative reporting," news director Adrienne Roark said. "It's what sets you apart from all the other noise out there."

National Endowments for Journalism?

"The internet is well suited to detect scandals that require lots of bloggers to spend a little bit of time searching for bits of incriminating evidence. But it's no substitute for serious investigative reporting that requires weeks of intelligent inquiry to get to the heart of the problem. Without Woodwards and Bernsteins, there will be even more Nixons and Madoffs raining mayhem and destruction."

That's an excerpt from a provocative article in the Guardian by Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres. Their solution to declining newspapers and mass reporter layoffs? A national endowment for journalism.

Full article

Global Investigative Journalism Conference Handouts

There is a terrific archive of handout material available from last year's Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Lillehammer, Norway. Presenters have offered either a transcript of their talk or a copy of their Powerpoint presentation. Here is just a sample of the materials that can be downloaded:

How to get people to talk
John Nicol, CBC

Exposing political parties and their strategies
Nicky Hager, freelance, New Zealand

20 Steps to Dig into the American Secret Archives
Alexenia Dimitrova, 24 Hours, Bulgaria

How to present your investigation on TV - and giving your crazy ideas a go!
Trojkan: Fredrik Laurin, Joachim Dyfvermark and Sven Bergman.

Investigating the nuclear threat
Igor Kudrik/Aleksander Nikitin, Bellona, Norway/Russia.

Corporate Spies : How private security companies are secretly watching NGO’s/Journalists
Jean-Philippe Ceppi – Producer « Temps Présent », Swiss Broadcasting Corporation

Download Handouts

Community Funded Investigative Reporting

New models are springing up all the time for funding different kinds of reporting. Because investigative work is particularly labour-intensive and generally costly, it can be difficult to practice without support from established media organizations or foundations.

Sites like The Real News are attempting to raise grassroots funding from users and subscribers to sustain their journalism. Other groups are forging relationships with universities or other non-profit centres. And there is Spot.Us, a unique experiment in California's Bay Area to see if a community-funded model based on specific story ideas can work.

According to its website: "Through Spot.Us the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. All donations are tax deductible and if a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, your donation will be reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to all through a Creative Commons license. It’s a marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate."

In fact, readers can suggest topics, and freelance journalists can make pitches. Readers then pledge credits towards the cost of the story. If enough is raised, the story is commissioned, and an effort is made to sell the story to a media outlet. It's an intriguing idea.

Spot.Us

African Investigative Journalism

The Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR) has a website highlighting investigative reports from the continent.

Some of the headlines of recent reports offer an intriguing glimpse into the work being done:

KENYA: Tough working conditions and risky sex on tea plantations
Massive exports deplete fish stocks in Lake Victoria
Environment criminals build $10bn empire on ivory, timber and skins
Region Awash With Fake Malaria Medicine

On a more practical level, the site also offers a service that identifies affiliated reporters in different African countries. This can help journalists around the world to link up with an investigative reporter on the ground in Africa.

Forum for African Investigative Reporters

Endangered I-Teams

I-Teams have been a regular staple of local television stations in North America for more than 25 years. They vary greatly in quality. Some do genuinely important enterprise and investigative work, while others employ gimmicks and chase after easy-to-get gotcha stories.

With the current economic crisis, some stations are downsizing and eliminating their I-Teams. The American Journalism Review has a good column on this trend in its latest issue. Bill Lord of WJLA in Washington, DC expresses a common sentiment as he justifies cutting back on his I-Team. "I've got to do newscasts before I can do specialty items," Lord tells the AJR.

Those who have studied some journalism history know that viewing investigative journalism as a "specialty item" misses the significance and purpose of this genre. Holding the powerful to account is a constant need for journalism, not something to be dropped when economic times get tough. Arguably it's at times like these when hard-hitting, watchdog journalism is needed most. Miami's WFOR-TV is taking a different view. It maintains a nine-member I-Team. "We feel that, now more than ever, we need investigative reporting," News Director Adrienne Roark tells AJR. "It's what sets you apart from all the other noise out there."

Here is the full AJR column by Deborah Potter

Berkeley Conference on Investigative Reporting

There is an annual symposium on investigative reporting at the University of California-Berkeley, organized by Lowell Bergman. Unfortunately it's an invitation-only event. Luckily, Mark Glaser attended this year's conference and provided some impressive live blogging. Here it is:

Berkeley conference on investigative reporting

Muckraking Movies

This is an interesting premise.

What are the best muckraking movies?

Here is a top 10 list. There are many more out there as well.

Muckraking Movies: Top 10 List

The Business of Bribes

FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World are unfolding an online investigation of international bribery. Covering a practice estimated at $1 trillion worldwide, the team will report on some of the largest bribery investigations in corporate history, leading up to a FRONTLINE documentary, Black Money, airing April 7th.

Lowell Bergman presents the story.

Frontline website

Wobbing

Wobbing is Dutch slang for getting documents through Freedom of Information Legislation.

The wobbing website is a wonderful resource for information on how to use European Freedom of Information Acts. If you want to keep up to date on access issues across Europe, this is a good place to visit.

Wobbing website

Some of the material is in Dutch only, but quite a bit is translated into English.

Huffington Post launches investigative journalism effort

Here is a remarkable development from the Huffington Post. Does anyone in Canada have $1.75 million for a similar venture?

NEW YORK — The Huffington Post said Sunday that it will bankroll a group of investigative journalists, directing them at first to look at stories about the nation's economy.

The popular blog is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

full story

Watchdog Journalism Conference

On March 12 and 13, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism hosted Enlarging the Space for Watchdog Journalism, a conference focused on the state and future of investigative journalism.

There is a good site detailing the sessions. It includes audio recordings of the panels.

Columbia Conference

Plan B: A New Trend?

This is an interesting article about the Wall Street Journal. Two respected reporters have quit to do investigative journalism for private clients. There is also interesting information about the WSJ's emphasis on breaking news.

Plan B

Computer-Assisted Reporting Summer School

This is from Fred Vallance-Jones of King's College School of Journalism:

The University of King's College School of Journalism is proud to announce the second annual Summer School in Computer-Assisted Reporting, once again sponsored by the Canadian Newspaper Association. The 2009 school will be held June 22 to 26 in Halifax.

The 2008 school was an unqualified success and with the economic crisis, skills that distinguish you from the pack are even more important.

To assist in tough times, we are offering special lower rates if you sign up early. The standard registration fee is $475 for the five days but you pay only $375 if you register before April 30. Students, freelancers and those who work for publications with Saturday circulations of less than 30,000 (or weeklies below 30,000) pay a reduced rate of $350, or $250 before April 30.

These are unbelievable rates for five days of intensive training by the country's top CAR practitioners, plus evening social events. Registration for this year's school entitles you to a free copy of Computer-Assisted Reporting, A Comprehensive Primer from Oxford University Press, a $55 value (plus tax). The book will serve as text for the course, and will be an invaluable reference on your desktop for years to come.
As last year, rooms are available at modest cost in the King's residence, or you can get a special rate of $149 plus tax at the nearby Lord Nelson Hotel. We'll post the registration pamphlet soon. In the meantime, for more information and to register using a major credit card, contact Kelly Goldenberg at kelly.goldenberg@ukings.ns.ca or 902-422-1271.

Word Cloud

Here is a word cloud based on the preface of my book.
Created by Wordle. www.wordle.net

Foundations and Journalism

Foundations are playing a bigger and bigger role in funding journalistic projects, particularly in the US. But what do the foundations get from the relationship? Do the contributions come with no strings attached? What exactly do the journalists have to do to keep the foundations happy?

We don't often hear from the foundations on this question. Here is one article which throws some light on the issue.

NiemanJournalismLab

Web Sites as Watchdogs

This is an interesting article on the phenomenon in the US.

Web sites that dig for news rise as watchdogs

How many of these sites do we have in Canada?

Investigative Journalism Book List

There are not too many bibliographies of investigative journalism books in Canada. (Maybe that's because there are not too many investigative journalism books in Canada.) Here is one list. Actually, it is the bibliography from Behind the Headlines, with a couple of additions. Books in bold are examples of investigative work, while the others discuss or relate to the genre in one way or another. As with any list, it is completely subjective. Please suggest additions.

Book List

Protecting Sources

Daniel Leblanc broke many of the major aspects of the sponsorship scandal. Now he may be forced to reveal his sources.

Reporter next up in court

It would be deeply ironic, if not the height of absurdity, should Daniel Leblanc wind up going to jail for his part in the sponsorship scandal

Montreal Gazette article

Manitoba Book Awards

The Association of Manitoba Book Publishers has just announced the Manitoba Book Awards shortlists. The awards will be presented at a gala event on Saturday, April 25.

The shortlists and award winners are selected by a variety of juries comprised of writers, publishers and other book industry professionals from across the country.

Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction

• Behind the Headlines: A History of Investigative Journalism in Canada by Cecil Rosner, published by Oxford University Press
• Head Space: Five Decades of Bruce Head, essays by Patricia E. Bovey and Amy Karlinsky, published by The Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Lord Selkirk: A Life by J.M. Bumsted, published by University of Manitoba Press
• Politics in Manitoba: Parties, Leaders, and Voters by Christopher Adams, published by University of Manitoba Press
• Subconscious City, curated by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, essays by various contributors