Secrets, Strategies and Whistleblowers

Earlier this month I took part in a discussion at the University of Manitoba about the ethics of Wikileaks. During the debate, I thought it was important to outline how investigative reports – particularly those that involve whistleblower allegations – are often greeted by the targets of the investigation.

The first reaction is often silence. By refusing to comment, some people hope the report won’t be picked up by other media outlets and will just fade away. Luckily for many targets of investigations, media rivalries often work in their favour. If one newspaper or broadcast outlet gets a scoop, others may try to ignore it. And if no one seems interested, the original media outlet may get discouraged. The story ends up having no legs, and a potentially important investigation may get curtailed.

A second strategy is often a studied indifference. The investigation is labelled old news, or it is disparaged as not really revealing anything of consequence. The strategy once again is to convince other media outlets, and news consumers, that there is nothing to the report. If it is in the power of the target to create a distraction, or a competing announcement, this can also serve to divert attention from the report.

Strategy Number Three involves attacking the messenger. The whistleblower who provided the media with information is labelled evil, corrupt, perhaps even mentally ill. As for the media outlet itself, it is called a dupe of the whistleblower, perhaps part of a conspiracy to smear the targets of the investigation. This strategy can get nasty. Whistleblowers can be slapped with lawsuits, and reporters can be thrown in jail for refusing to reveal sources, or for inducing sources to smear their former employers. If you have seen the movie The Insider, about allegations against Big Tobacco, you know the strategy well.

Of course in some countries, it can get more extreme. Journalists can get shot, even murdered. It has happened around the world. Call it Strategy Number Four, the ultimate one.

So in many ways, what has happened with the Wikileaks story is not altogether surprising, though the scope of the revelations and the ferocity of the reactions verge on the unprecedented.

Wikileaks has been around since 2006, but despite many fascinating early revelations, Strategy Number One was in place. It was largely ignored, and many people never heard of the website until 2010, when the disclosures really started ramping up.

Then came the revelations last fall about the Iraq war, showing evidence of 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths in Iraq. The U.S. and Britain were saying up to this point that there were no official counts of casualties in Iraq. The documents instead showed meticulous records and an exact toll of 66,081 non-combatant deaths over a five-year period.

So Strategy Number 2 kicked in. A Pentagon spokesman called the release of these documents “mundane”, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that they contained nothing new.

But that couldn’t hold up for long, especially when the UN chief investigator on torture said: "In relation to what now has been revealed by WikiLeaks, it confirms what we have heard about the brutality and the torture that were systematically practiced by Iraqi security forces and irregular militias.” And another top United Nations official called on the Obama administration to investigate the role of U.S. forces in human rights abuses in Iraq.

Things have escalated exponentially since then, of course. Arguably, Strategy Nunber 3 is in place. Now there’s talk of charging Assange under the Espionage Act in the US, and there have even been a few calls, joking and otherwise, for his assassination.

It is useful to compare the entire Wikileaks saga with the Pentagon Papers, as it reveals a number of similarities in strategy.

Daniel Ellsberg was a US establishment insider. He worked for the Pentagon, then the State Department, and then for a think tank analyzing the Vietnam War. He decided to leak an exhaustive internal analysis of that war. His aim was to bring an end to the war.

This was in 1971, and Richard Nixon was president. Interestingly, Nixon at first wanted to take the indifferent approach. The revelations went up to 1967, and mostly concerned Democratic presidents. But the US was so fearful of a culture of continued leaks that it chose to ramp up the strategy to the next level: smears and threats.

The most colourful part of the strategy, of course, was the creation of a secret unit called The Plumbers, a covert team that broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in an attempt to get files that would discredit him. This is where G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt and other shadowy characters made their first appearance. All of this was subsequently revealed, and became part and parcel of the scandal that eventually forced Nixon from office. But in the meantime the attack on Ellsberg continued.

Ellsberg provided the papers to the New York Times, which consulted its lawyers, who advised not to publish them. But the newspaper decided to proceed, amid risks of injunctions, lawsuits and threats of worse. Ellsberg was threatened with prosecution under the 1917 Espionage Act, the same law Assange is being targeted for. He was eventually charged with theft and being in possession of secret documents. But the dirty tricks campaign, and other tainted evidence, led to the dismissal of all charges. On the question of whether the New York Times and other newspapers had the right to publish the material, the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the press. Here is what Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said:

“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people, and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. … The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”

It’s interesting that many people who find fault with Assange have said they support the publication of the Pentagon Papers. At the time, though, Ellsberg and his media partners faced many of the same strategies and attacks that Wikileaks is now enduring.

How should investigative journalists assess the Wikileaks phenomenon? We can debate the sincerity or appropriateness of Julian Assange’s motivations, just as we can examine every aspect of his private life, down to the choices he makes or alleged improprieties he may commit in individual sexual encounters. It seems clear, though, that it is far more important to assess the value of the information he has helped to publicize. Does it help us get any closer to the truth of important issues? Does it assist us in holding powerful institutions to account? Those are the issues people in the U.S., Britain, Tunisia, Egypt and many other countries are grappling with today.

Media Law for Canadian Journalists

Dean Jobb's newly-revised book on media law is an invaluable tool for anyone practising journalism in Canada.

Jobb is an associate professor at King's College School of Journalism in Halifax. He has specialized in covering and studying the courts and legal issues. The second edition of Media Law for Canadian Journalists covers all the essential legal topics journalists need to know.

Keeping up with all the new decisions and nuances of media law can be a full-time job. But the author carefully tracks the developments and puts them into context for reporters. From using Twitter inside a courtroom to avoiding defamatory remarks on Facebook, Jobb also provides useful advice on handling social media tools in a legally responsible manner.

Because Jobb has extensive reporting experience, he has a good appreciation of the often blurry boundaries between ethics, law and good taste. His book has a separate chapter on ethics and professional responsibility, and he isn't afraid to offer his opinion on the propriety of different types of reporting.

This is an important book, and whether you're a professional journalist or an occasional blogger, you won't regret getting a copy. It is published by Emond Montgomery Publications.

Exposing International Tax Havens

The CBC and the Globe and Mail have been following the case of tax havens in Switzerland that have attracted Canadian investors. There is an interesting complementary investigation that looks at how some people use the desire of international investors to hide assets to their own advantage.

Reporters with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which covers the Balkans and Eastern Europe, looked at schemes that stretched from
Eastern Europe to New Zealand, Cyprus, Seychelles islands and to the US state of Delaware.

Part of the investigation used undercover work that eventually led to the arrest of a man alleged to be involved in a money-laundering scheme. The project exposed schemes that helped people hide company ownership, avoid taxes, and skirt monopoly laws.

The full series is on their website.

Exoneration 101

Investigative journalism, almost by definition, requires a significant commitment of time and resources – commodities that are in short supply at most news organizations.

That’s why it makes perfectly good sense to harness the talents of students to help with the research work that any good investigative project entails. Properly trained and mentored, a team of students can provide the research muscle for any ambitious project.

This lesson has been grasped well at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, where a team of students and faculty won an Emmy award this year for a documentary about electronic waste. And a recent initiative by the school to partner with law students could play a significant role in uncovering new cases of wrongful convictions in Canada.

Earlier this month, the school announced a partnership with UBC’s law faculty to investigate miscarriages of justice in BC. Since 2007, the law faculty has run an Innocence Project that has been looking into more than 20 murder cases. The joint-venture is the first of its kind in Canada.

UBC’s Innocence Project is one of three across the country. The others are at Osgoode Hall and McGill, and all involve law faculties. Merging the talents of law and journalism students seems like a no-brainer, but no one has done it before in Canada. So it is encouraging to see such a partnership come to fruition.

Tamara Levy, a law professor and director of the UBC project, says on the university’s website that the journalism students “bring unique skills that will help us shed some light on our investigations and move them forward more quickly.” Mary Lynn Young, director of the journalism school, sees it as “a great opportunity for students to learn investigative journalism skills” in collaboration with the law faculty.

Students have played a pivotal role in overturning convictions in the U.S. for years. Most famously, the Medill journalism school in Chicago developed evidence that has freed 11 innocent men, five of them from death row, since 1996. Former Illinois governor George Ryan credited the school with helping provide the impetus for his moratorium on the death penalty in 2000.

One of the most memorable and gratifying projects in my own career involved an investigation into the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard. Through news stories, documentaries and eventually a book, we were able to document an extraordinary case of a man who spent 23 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Seeing how that work impacted both the justice system, and one man’s eventual freedom, was humbling.

What better training could there be for journalism students than to be involved in a similar pursuit? To get some idea of how life-changing those experiences can be, you just have to peruse the stories of Medill alumni and read their descriptions of watching an innocent man walk free – in part, because of their work.

There will be no shortage of cases in Canada to investigate. It’s estimated that as many as five per cent of convictions could be faulty. It is only the fortunate few who link up with a lawyer, family member or journalist who are persistent enough to spend the time and resources to investigate their case.

The UBC project says it hopes to put forward its first case for ministerial review by the end of the year. With the new potent partnership of law and journalism students, there is little doubt that we will soon be learning about new cases of wrongful convictions from British Columbia.

WikiLeaks: Transparency or Treason?

Investigative journalists spend a lot of time thinking about whistleblowers.

They encourage them to come forward, persuade them to talk, promise them anonymity, and sometimes they even risk going to jail to prevent their identities from being known. Whistleblowers have been key to many important exposes over the years, and they are a crucial component to investigative journalism.

That’s why the current debate over WikiLeaks is both perplexing and troubling. The website, founded in 2006, is devoted to soliciting and publicizing important information from whistleblowers. So why are so many journalists, including some investigative reporters, raising questions about what WikiLeaks is doing?

WikiLeaks has broken many stories in its brief history, posting everything from secret detention documents at Guantanamo Bay to a video showing American Apache helicopters firing at civilians in Baghdad. The stories have not endeared the site to U.S. authorities.

But whistleblowers rarely lead a placid life after they make their information known, and media that transmit the information also often find themselves targeted for retribution. Just ask Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times, both of whom faced threats, injunctions and prosecutions for their role in publishing the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers.

This year, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange raised the stakes by publishing more than 77,000 classified Pentagon documents on the war in Afghanistan. He followed that up recently with a further release of about 400,000 documents on the war in Iraq.

The Pentagon was predictably not happy. It said the Afghan documents endangered lives of people whose names had not been redacted, though no concrete evidence has yet surfaced of reprisals against anyone. Its reaction to the Iraq documents has been twofold: on the one hand, it says they reveal little new, while it also feels their release may be grounds to charge the people who leaked and publicized the documents with treason.

It is generally accepted that the release showed evidence of about 15,000 previously unreported and undocumented civilian deaths in Iraq, a remarkable fact given the difficulty of concealing such a large number of casualties in today’s plugged-in world. It also called into question previous U.S. and British claims that there were no official counts of casualties in Iraq. The documents instead showed meticulous records and an exact toll of 66,081 non-combatant deaths over a five-year period.

Assange also maintains the records show the U.S. failed to investigate hundreds of reports of rapes, assaults, and even murders by Iraqi police and armed soldiers over the years, a charge the Americans deny.

What has been the response of the journalism community to WikiLeaks? Surprisingly, there have been many reporters sniping from the sidelines. Reporters Without Borders criticized the site for publishing names of Afghans acting as informers for the U.S., while other journalists have supported the Pentagon’s analysis that the site is playing into the hands of terrorists.

Marc Thiessen, former White House staffer and a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, was blunt: “Let's be clear: WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a criminal enterprise. Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies.”

Assange himself now finds himself living like a virtual fugitive. Originally from Australia, he is looking for a safe haven were he won’t be subject to a possible prosecution under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act, the same legislation that was used to prosecute Ellsberg.

This seems odd, since a Pentagon spokesman has called the latest release “mundane”, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that it contained nothing new. Some have argued that authorities simply want to ensure future leaks are plugged before they can cause any further embarrassment.

Nevertheless, the level of international intrigue surrounding Assange seems to grow daily. He applied for Swedish residency, but shortly afterwards was accused of molestation and rape by two women there. Assange maintains it was a set-up, but whatever the case, it torpedoed his attempt to settle there. He is now looking at Switzerland as a possible new home. A former professional hacker, he protects the security of the site by routing his servers through a maze of complex connections in safe locations.

In response to the backlash, especially from some sectors of the reporting community, a group of international investigative journalists is now coming to the defence of Assange and WikiLeaks. A statement of support, signed by members and associates of a global investigative journalism association, seeks to defend the principle and practice of the site.

“We believe that Mr Assange has made an outstanding contribution to transparency and accountability on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, subjects where transparency and accountability has been severely restricted by government secrecy and media control,” the statement says. “He is being attacked for releasing information that should never have been withheld from the public.”

The statement, which has already been signed by journalists from more than 40 countries, defends WikiLeaks’ right to post confidential military documents. “If it is espionage to publish documents provided by whistle blowers, then every journalist will eventually be guilty of that crime. Mr Assange deserves our support and encouragement in the face of the attacks.”

Investigative journalism seeks to hold powerful people and interests to account, and that inevitably means challenging the status quo. The history of such reporting shows that those same powerful interests often strike back, launching counter-offensives. How this current battle will end is unknown, but it is fascinating to see how members of the journalism community are aligning themselves in the process.

The full statement in support of WikiLeaks is available at the Global Investigative Journalism Network website.

The Future of Investigative Journalism

Brant Houston, Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, has written a useful summary of current issues in the field of U.S. investigative journalism.

Houston chronicles the downsizing that has taken place in conventional media outlets, and the simultaneous rise of new, mostly publicly-funded models.

Houston notes that a study last year showed that since 2005, foundations have contributed $56 million to investigative centres and projects in the U.S. That is a signifcant infusion of dollars and it has already reaped equally significant results.

The report is reprinted on the university's College of Media website.

Encouraging Signs: Is Investigative Journalism on the Rise Again?

While tough times generally put intense pressure on investigative journalism, the last two weeks have provided evidence that solid reporting can still create significant impact across the country.

A number of reports probed deeply into such diverse issues as daycare conditions, retirement homes, charitable donations, tax evasion and international terrorism investigations. Each of the stories did what good investigative journalism ought to do: hold institutions that wield power to account, and employ solid research methods.

There’s another factor that is harder to quantify and hasn’t been well-studied. Competition among media outlets can give rise to more investigative projects, as the urge to create impact and distinctiveness in the marketplace can lead to greater investment in this kind of reporting.

The Globe and Mail chose the day of its major re-design to highlight an investigative piece about a global manhunt for three University of Manitoba students who allegedly disappeared into al-Qaeda controlled territory in Waziristan. Despite a major effort on the part of CSIS and the RCMP, as well as other intelligence agencies, the case was a secret until the newspaper broke the news.

Six reporters were credited with working on the story, and it has now spurred many others to begin asking questions.

The same day, the Toronto Star’s front page featured the headline: “How Can This Happen?” The newspaper sent reporter Dale Brazao undercover to a Toronto retirement home while Moira Welsh checked the home’s health and court records. They documented dirty conditions, bad food and poorly trained and underpaid staff.

The CBC has also been active on the investigative front, with a major report by Diana Swain on the Canadian connection to a list of 80,000 secret HSBC Private Bank accounts in Switzerland. The report, a joint project with the Globe, says more than 1,700 Canadians had accounts in the bank, and the Canada Revenue Agency is probing possible tax evasion.

A week earlier the CBC revealed the results of an investigation into registered charities that employ external fundraising companies. The national picture showed that over five years, those fundraisers had earned more than $760 million. Individual stories from across the country revealed many examples of charities paying more than 50 per cent of their proceeds to fundraising companies (Disclosure: I was part of the team that reported this story).

And there were other examples. Radio-Canada showed how easy it was to sell illegal stun guns in Canada, while a joint CBC/Radio-Canada probe revealed that many Quebec children are being cared for in daycares that are either illegal or don't have the necessary permits. The investigative program Enquete also revealed that officials at a Montreal college turned a blind eye to allegations of sexual abuse in the 1960s and 1970s.

Canadian Press continues to be one of the leading journalistic users of the Access to Information Act, mining the legislation for important stories. Last week Dean Beeby pried loose an internal study from Justice Canada that showed aboriginal people and those in remote communities are spending more time in remand than others.

There is little question that hard economic times usually translate into less investigative reporting. The examples I have cited above are from the country’s biggest media institutions. Smaller newspapers and media outlets are struggling to maintain staff, and investigative reporting finds it difficult to flourish in an atmosphere of slashed resources and bare-bones reporting.

But it is encouraging to see renewed commitments being made by some media outlets to investigative work, both at national and regional levels. Reporters who possess the investigative impulse, no matter where they work, should take this as a cue to press their employers for the time and resources needed to join the fray.

Interrogation, Sensory Deprivation and the CIA: A Canadian Connection

Thirty-six years ago, Donald Capri was driving across the Redwood Bridge in Winnipeg when he spotted a body floating in the Red River. Police later identified the victim as Prof. John Zubek, a distinguished psychologist at the University of Manitoba. Cause of death was determined to be suicide by drowning. Zubek was 49.

Zubek’s mysterious life and death has a direct and largely unexplored relationship with the CIA’s methodology of interrogation. Zubek devoted his life’s work to researching sensory deprivation. In a special isolation chamber at the University of Manitoba, he conducted experiments on more than 500 people over 15 years, depriving them of all sensations for up to two weeks. The research was begun at a time when the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program was spending millions to understand how manipulating human behaviour could assist interrogations.

Zubek, who was funded by the Canadian defence department and the US government, was considered a world leader in sensory deprivation research, elaborating the covert work begun by colleague Donald Hebb at McGill University -- work he assisted, according to documents in Zubek's personal papers.

Despite his death in 1974, Zubek’s legacy endures in the methods used at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other detention centres. The notorious photo of a hooded prisoner in Abu Ghraib, standing on a box with arms extended, shows the importance of sensory deprivation in the CIA’s methods. So does the declassified Foreign Affairs document that reveals how Omar Khadr was placed on the “frequent flyer” program at Guantanamo, constantly moved from cell to cell and denied uninterrupted sleep. “He will soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again,” says the once-secret 2004 memo. In his influential book A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy argues that the “no-touch torture” technique of sensory deprivation is critical to the US interrogation paradigm.

I have examined Zubek's archives at the University of Manitoba and written a lengthy article about his activities for the current issue of Canada's History magazine.

Getting Closer to the Truth in the Mulroney-Schreiber Affair

Harvey Cashore has a new book on the stands about the Airbus Affair. It's called : The Truth Shows Up: A Reporter's Fifteen-Year Odyssey Tracking Down the Truth About Mulroney, Schreiber and the Airbus Scandal.

I have reviewed it in the July/August issue of the Literary Review of Canada. Here is a portion of that review:

Cashore’s book is an engaging and instructive roadmap for any aspiring reporter. And he succeeds in revealing more of the truth behind the story than anyone else has to date. He takes the reader on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes journey of a complex journalistic investigation. The stakes are always high, because at the heart of the story is the suggestion that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney may have benefited from commissions paid by Airbus to secure a sale of jets to Air Canada.

The secrets held by prime ministers and presidents are rarely, if ever, fully revealed. Last year, at a speech to the annual conference of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward described a dinner he recently had with former vice-president Al Gore. How much does the public know about what really went on in the Clinton White House, Woodward asked his dinner guest. Gore thought for a moment before replying: “About one percent.” Add to the equation potential illegal behaviour on the part of a prime minister, and the odds for revelation of the truth become far smaller.

When Air Canada decided to buy 34 jets from Airbus in 1988, Karlheinz Schreiber received about $500,000 in secret commissions per plane. Reporters with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine began chasing the story in 1994, and soon they were in partnership with CBC’s the fifth estate. Cashore was assigned to research the story for the program, and over the years his research produced a number of important documentaries and books about the affair.

Cashore brought with him a specific journalistic methodology he had learned from his mentor, former newspaper reporter and author John Sawatsky. In his groundbreaking investigation of the RCMP security service in the 1970s and 1980s, Sawatsky learned the importance of taping and transcribing all conversations. By studying his own questions and the answers they produced, and analyzing the questions posed by his colleagues and students, Sawatsky deduced that the quality of information was often directly related to the precise language employed in the questioning. He came up with a unique methodology of interviewing, and he stressed the value of maintaining a chronology of events in every story he worked on. Sawatsky also believed in maintaining a militant neutrality in his approach, always keeping an open mind and allowing for disconfirmatory evidence to be heard.

As a researcher for Sawatsky’s biography of Mulroney, The Politics of Ambition, Cashore learned the methodology well and adopted it for his own inquiries. Much of the book’s rich detail comes in the transcripts of Cashore’s taped interviews.

Exposing the Dangers of Asbestos

For most people, asbestos is the stuff we desperately try to remove from old buildings because of its cancer-causing properties. But in much of the developing world, asbestos continues to be used, causing an estimated 100,000 deaths per year.

Canada plays a role in this situation by continuing to mine asbestos and export it around the world. Even though 52 countries ban the use of asbestos, Canada exports it to India, China, Mexico and other countries, where controls on its use have been shown to be lacking.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, working with the BBC and journalists around the world, recently released an expose on the problem called Dangers in the Dust: Inside the Global Asbestos Trade.

Among other things, the series looks at a global network of lobby groups that has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the market for asbestos. It exposes relationships between governments, industry and scientists to promote the continued production and export of asbestos.

One of those lobby groups is Canada's Chrysotile Institute, based in Montreal. Asbestos mining has been a traditional industry in Quebec, one which governments continue to support.

The ICIJ report says Canada exported 153,000 tonnes of chrysotile, or white asbestos, to India, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the UAR. Only a small fraction of that amount is used back home.

There is currently a debate over enhanced funding for the expansion of an asebstos mine in Quebec. The Canadian and Quebec governments support the production and export of asbestos, while arguing that end users need to ensure the product is handled safely. The Canadian Cancer Society is urging government not to extend loan guarantees to the Jeffrey Asbestos Mine. The town of Asbestos in Quebec retaliated by cancelling support for the society's Relay for Life fundraising effort next year.

The ICIJ works collaboratively with reporters in many countries to produce investigative reports. This expose involved reporters in eight countries, though Canada was conspicuously absent.

A year ago, the CBC broadcast a powerful documentary on the asbestos issue called Canada's Ugly Secret. Reporter Mellissa Fung showed how workers in India handled Canadian asbestos with virtually no protection, exposing them to long-term health hazards.

Fire the Editors, and Work Till You Die: Seymour Hersh

For the last few months, I had been looking forward to attending the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva. This is the sixth meeting of a group that brings together muckrakers from dozens of countries.

Unfortunately, the Icelandic volcano had a say in my travel plans, and I had to cancel at the last moment. But that didn't stop me from following some of the proceedings online, including a keynote speech by the always provocative and entertaining Seymour Hersh.

No one has had a more illustrious career in investigative work than Hersh. He came to international prominence with his story about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Later, working for the New York Times, he broke many of the important stories during the Nixon administration. And he has kept on working, breaking the Abu Ghraib detainee scandal and many other exclusive stories about Iraq and Iran. Hersh's books are also fine examples of his investigative reporting.

Hersh began his remarks in Geneva by describing how difficult the life of an investigative journalist can be, chasing relcutant sources, and struggling with the moral dilemma of trying to convince people to talk, while knowing that their participation might ultimately damage their own interests. And then there is the question of editors.

"The better the story, the more they hate it," he said, only half-jokingly. Hersh repeated a line I have heard him use before. We could lose 70 per cent of the top editors at newspapers and networks, and be better off. The reason: people who get promoted into the upper echelons tend to be among the most cautious and conservative.

To the relief of many in the audience, he acknowledged there are a small contingent of editors who demand accurate sourcing and work with reporters to make their stories better. But then he turned his attention to governments.

"Governments lie," he said, echoing maverick journalist I.F. Stone's most famous dictum. "We don't. We make mistakes. There's a big difference."

In fact, Hersh said the biggest danger he sees in the collapse of the conventional journalism model is the potential for unchecked corruption at the local and regional levels. Without vigorous teams of investigative reporters operating at a local level, politicians will have a field day at the public's expense, he said. The rise of foundation-based journalism models, together with mass distribution possibilities of the Internet, could well pave the way for a promising future for the genre.

After trashing editors and government, Hersh turned his attention to journalism schools. He wasn't that impressed with them, noting that they often concentrate too heavily on newspaper layout and other technical tasks to the detriment of real journalistic skills. Even the live streaming version of the speech showed that the moderator of the session -- Brant Houston of the University of Illinois -- squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.

When asked about how much longer he could continue doing this kind of work, the 73-year-old Hersh seemed amused.

"This is a lifetime job," he said. "Illegal and immoral wars are good for my career."

A Milestone for Non-Profit Investigative Journalism

Alternative journalism used to be a kind of slur in mainstream media circles, a phrase describing journalists who couldn't or wouldn't adhere to conventional norms.

In truth, alternative journalists have produced some of the most groundbreaking stories throughout the history of investigative journalism. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was the alternative newspapers and magazines that dragged mainstream media outlets into a prolific era of muckraking work.

Today, as the economic crisis cuts deeply into the heart of the U.S. media mainstream, the alternative sphere has a whole new texture. Some outstanding journalists from leading media outlets have either quit or have been laid off, providing a strong pool for independent organizations to draw on. And such organizations have been proliferating in recent years, raising money from foundations and universities to practice a brand of investigative work that doesn't place the profit motive at the head of the list of objectives.

This week one of those organizations, ProPublica, won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. It is a significant milestone that everyone needs to appreciate and try to analyze. In many ways, it marks an important turning point for American investigative journalism.

The Pulitzer went to Sheri Fink, who wrote a 13,000-word article called The Deadly Choices at Memorial. It chronicled one hospital's activities in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and how some doctors gave lethal injections to patients they thought could not be evacuated.

Fink's article appeared first on ProPublica's website. Two days later, it was published in The New York Times Magazine. This was an example of the organization's method of work, in which it researches an investigative story and then partners with one or more media outlets to ensure widespread circulation.

ProPublica is perhaps the biggest and best-funded example of the new breed of non-profit and non-partisan investigative institutes. With a significant endowment from the Sandler Foundation and support from other foundations, it has built an impressive team led by a former Wall Street Journal managing editor and a former investigations editor at the New York Times. With a newsroom in Manhattan, it has assembled a formidable staff of 32 journalists, some of them award-winning reporters and researchers from mainstream organizations.

In 2009, ProPublica produced 138 stories and partnered with 38 print, broadcast and online media organizations. The Pulitzer was the crowning achievement of the year, but there were other awards as well, including a George Polk Award, a Selden Ring Award and wins at the Investigative Reporters and Editors competition.

"The honors are gratifying, and we deeply appreciate them, but they are not a goal in themselves," wrote managing editor Paul Steiger on the group's website. "We view them as a sign that our nonprofit, nonpartisan model -- publishing both on our own Web site and in partnership with major print, video, audio and online news organizations -- can make a meaningful contribution to the information needs of the American people in an era of explosive change in newspapers and other media."

The awards will almost certainly provide a boost to similar groups that have sprung up across America, and are only now trying to grow in Canada. But they are by no means a guarantee of the long-term success for the model. Grants from foundations, like other charitable contributions, are subject to economic and political considerations, and can be withdrawn as easily as they are awarded.

Those non-profits that forge close links with ordinary readers, listeners and viewers -- audiences that are willing to pay for a high-quality product in one way or another -- will likely be the ones to succeed in the long run.

Should the National Enquirer Win a Pulitzer for Investigative Journalism?

Some days -- if not most days -- the line between celebrity gossip, rumour and journalism becomes increasingly difficult to discern.

When most of the Western world drops everything to see how Tiger will explain himself, mainstream journalism outlets can no longer smugly stay out of the fray. To avoid irrelevance, they must cover the story. But then the question becomes: how much attention, resource, prominence and seriousness should they attach to the story, or stories like it?

This question was put squarely on the table of the Pulitzer Prize board recently when the National Enquirer decided to enter its John Edwards story in two categories: investigative reporting and national reporting. The supermarket tabloid, known for its celebrity gossip and bizarre news stories, cites its three-year long pursuit of presidential candidate Edwards and his extra-marital affair as worthy of American journalism's highest honour.

The entry has stoked much debate in journalism circles, with mainstream publications questioning whether the Enquirer belonged in the elite club, and a variety of bloggers cheering the supermarket paper on. Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler initially tried to block the entry. He said the Enquirer was really a magazine, and not a newspaper, and that the publication violates conventional journalism ethics by paying subjects for their interviews. But conventional media did eventually match the Edwards story, and the Pulitzers have finally said they will allow the entry to stand.

If the spate of recent sex scandals has you confused about this one, let me rehash the basic facts. Edwards tried for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2008, and was dogged by stories that he had an extra-marital affair with campaign worker Rielle Hunter. The National Enquirer did indeed lead the way on this coverage. It was also reported that the two had a child. Edwards finally admitted all earlier this year, leaving his family life and career in tatters.

Sensationalism and gossip have always been a feature of journalism, even in publications that pride themselves on serious coverage. But the private lives of powerful people have been receiving unprecedented attention lately. Whether it's Bill Clinton or Maxime Bernier, politicians are now on notice that their sex lives may be carefully scrutinized, sometimes even more rigorously than their policy stances.

But should that be the case? While I would salute any reporter for a good scoop, I would also ask any news organization whether it is worth the time and effort to devote three years to dig into John Edwards' sex life. The U.S. has no shortage of important topics to investigate, many of them far more urgent than a DNA analysis of the Edwards love child. This factor needs to be considered by any jury assessing prizes for investigative journalism.

Many news organizations explicitly cite the need to prioritize investigative work, given the amount of time and effort needed to do a good job on this front. The CBC, for instance, says investigative journalism involves the vigorous and intensive examination of matters that touch upon public policy or issues that affect a large portion of the population. 'Investigative journalism should bear in mind the relative importance of an issue and should not be exclusively concerned with the revelation of errors, injustice or wrongdoing. Minor matters should not be treated when more significant topics warrant attention," says the CBC's policy book.

Several years ago, I heard renowned American journalist Seymour Hersh discuss his excellent account of the Kennedy years, The Dark Side of Camelot. One of the chapters details John F. Kennedy's now famous predilection for extra-marital affairs. In some quarters, Hersh was criticized for including this detail. But he argued convincingly that when private matters begin to impinge on public policy, the public needs to know. The mere fact that Kennedy had sex with women other than his wife shouldn't necessarily be relevant to an assessment of his political life, Hersh said. But when some of those women were also connected with gangland figures, it's essential for this to be reported.

An even bigger question, in my view, is the priority we must establish in investigative work. I have heard countless American reporters lamenting their lack of enterprise and initiative in the years leading up to, and following, the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They are self-critical about believing presidential arguments that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. They wish they had done more challenging and investigative work at the time. They promise to do better in the future. But how much better can they do if their budgets are devoted to breaking the best angles on Tiger Woods or John Edwards?

The war in Afghanistan is rife with opportunities for investigative work, in Canada and the U.S. Allegations of torture and government complicity in abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are still worth exploring. How many more Toyota episodes would come to light if journalists would devote more time and effort to such a vital question as automobile safety?

So the Pulitzer jury will have its work cut out as it considers this year's entries. It may want to check out the National Enquirer's website, which proudly announces that it pays big bucks for story tips and interviews (In the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, it had to retract a story after its tipsters admitted to fabricating a fantastic account of a family sex-ring connection to the matter). The jury will also want to consider what kind of message it sends journalism students and practitioners as to the type of investigative journalism it wants to honour.

A Magazine is Silenced

In a country like Colombia, investigative journalism is practised only by the most courageous reporters.

One of the most daring publications was the weekly magazine Cambio. It broke numerous stories that challenged government, including an expose of illegal wiretapping by the country's intelligence agency of opposition politicians, activists and even Supreme Court judges. It also exposed how the army passed off young civilian casualties in the counter-insurgency war as guerrillas.

But Cambio was acquired by a new ownership group with close ties to the government, and not surprisingly, investigative journalism is no longer a piority. Cambio's top two editors have been dismissed, and the magazine will be converted into a general interest monthly.

Read more details here.

Could Iceland Become a Journalism Haven?

Iceland could have used the services of more incisive investigative journalists over the last few years. Very few reporters foresaw the breadth or severity of that country's financial collapse, which has witnessed the failure of major banks and devaluation of the currency.

Now comes word that a proposal to be filed with Iceland's parliament could make the country a haven for investigative journalism.

The idea, backed by some journalists and parliamentarians, would reform Iceland's media laws to make the country an attractive place for investigative journalists.

See the BBC report on this story.

What Exactly is Responsible Journalism?

Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has established a new defence to defamation -- responsible communication on a matter of public importance -- it will be interesting to see how much journalistic consensus develops on exactly what constitutes responsible communication.

There is no question that the court's ruling modernizes Canada's defamation law and provides greater leeway for journalists to probe matters of public importance. But it also places a greater burden on individual journalists and news organizations to debate and constantly perfect methods and principles. This is particularly true when it comes to investigative journalism.

For example, is it responsible for news organizations to use hidden cameras? Some do, others don't. Is it responsible for journalists to misrepresent themselves in the gathering of information? Some do, others don't. What about engaging in the so-called ambush or doorstop interview? Will the courts deem that to be fair game?

Even when it comes to more routine decision-making in the journalistic process, there are differences between organizations. Some city editors and news directors will publish the names of anyone charged with a criminal offence. Others will suppress the names of people accused of sex crimes. Some will publish names of the accused only if they intend to follow up the story to ensure that an eventual acquittal or dropping of charges isn't missed. Which of these approaches is the most responsible one?

And exactly how far should journalists go in exposing every last detail of the Tiger Woods saga?

Not every news organization in Canada has an established code of ethics, and I would suspect that not too many bloggers have one either. The absence of a written policy or set of guidelines can lead to ad-hoc decisions when it comes to determining what is responsible and what isn't. Some journalists tend to make it up as they go along, arguing that their gut is the best test for what feels right.

Even when a written set of journalistic practices exists, there are grey areas. While certain practices are frowned upon, they can be seen as acceptable in exceptional circumstances. Just what those circumstances are becomes a matter of subjective interpretation. It would be hard to imagine an absolute bible of journalistic laws that provided a clearcut answer every time on whether an act was responsible or not.

Not even the Supreme Court is willing to say definitively which practices are responsible and which are not. For instance, here is what it had to say about the controversial question of confidential sources:

"It may be responsible to rely on confidential sources, depending on the circumstances; a defendant may properly be unwilling or unable to reveal a source in order to advance the defence. On the other hand, it is not difficult to see how publishing slurs from unidentified 'sources' could, depending on the circumstances, be irresponsible." (Para. 115, Grant v. Torstar).

This is a groundbreaking statement from Canada's highest court that the reliance on confidential sources might be a proper journalistic practice. To date, journalists have had no substantial judicial protection when it comes to refusing to reveal sources. Some lawsuits have been lost as a result, and in some cases journalists have gone to jail for refusing to reveal their sources. But there is still no certainty here. The court is reserving its right to decide this question "depending on the circumstances," which is what many questions of journalistic ethics tend to revolve around.

Still, I believe an articulated set of standards is far better -- and in light of the Supreme Court's decision, now far more crucial -- than nothing at all. It allows readers and viewers the opportunity to see what the news organization's thinking is when it comes to journalistic methodology. It guards against arbitrary decision-making, and it gives people a basis to complain if they feel the organization has overstepped its bounds.

Whether a formal code exists or not, I believe every news organization should use the Supreme Court ruling as an opportunity to widen the debate about methods and practices. The public at large needs to be drawn into the discussion. And there have to be ways to hold journalists and their organizations accountable both for their guidelines and how journalists put those practices into action on a daily basis.

Many news organizations have seen their credibility plummet in recent years, as people grow tired of journalistic methods they don't understand or trust. When managing editors or news directors take arbitrary decisions on newsgathering practices, or are vague about explaining their rationale, it only adds to the mistrust. A free-ranging, inclusive, ongoing and transparent discussion would be a healthy development.

Should reporters be deputies for the police?

A ruling by the Manitoba Court of Appeal this week has some important lessons for police and the media, and the troubling tendency on the part of police agencies to use media to further their investigations.

Five years ago, police forces were given a new tool called the production order. Though it bears some similarities to a search warrant, a production order can compel someone who is not the subject of an investigation to turn over documents and video tape to the police.

When a media outlet is served with a production order, a series of important questions touching on freedom of the press are raised. These can be particularly vexing when it comes to investigative journalism, but the principles involved are important for all types of reporting.

In April 2008, RCMP were attempting to arrest Terrence Yellowback following an alleged assault in God's River, Manitoba. Police allege he charged an officer with a weapon, at which point he was shot in the hip.

The weapon turned out to be a table leg. When the officer realized Yellowback wasn't brandishing a gun, she resorted to her Taser to immobilize him.

Later that month, the Manto Sipi Cree Nation called a press conference to criticize RCMP for its decision to investigate the circumstances of the shooting itself. Yellowback also spoke at the press conference, calling for an independent inquiry into the shooting. The press conference was covered widely in the media.

Instead of responding to the call for an independent inquiry, the RCMP decided to ratchet up its own investigation. Police were granted an ex parte hearing before a provincial court judge. The judge issued production orders which would force CBC, CTV, Global and APTN to turn over all their videotaped material from the press conference and the one-on-one interviews that followed.

And everything about these production orders was to remain a secret. Here is the provision as it applied to the CBC:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and any employee, servant or agent shall not directly or indirectly disclose or permit disclosure of the content, existence or operation of this order, in any manner, or to any person except as may be necessary for the purposes of compliance with its terms or obtaining the advice or assistance of legal counsel unless otherwise ordered by a Court of competent jurisdiction.

Two other media outlets, Global Winnipeg and APTN, complied with the production orders and turned over their tape to the police. But RCMP still insisted the other stations do the same, hoping they would get additional information from interviews that might appear on the tapes.

The law creating production orders came into force in 2004. Unlike search warrants, they can force people who aren't under investigation to produce documents, or even to prepare documents based on data already in existence, where those materials might pertain to the commission of a crime.

Failing to comply with a production order carries a fine of up to $250,000, or a six-month jail term.

CBC and CTV refused to comply with the orders and took the matter to court, where Justice Glenn Joyal of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench quashed the orders. He ruled that the production orders constituted an unreasonable search of a media organization pursuant to section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Attorney General of Manitoba and Canada both appealed that decision to the Manitoba Court of Appeal. Earlier this week, the appeal court upheld Justice Joyal's judgment and dismissed the government's appeals.

The original judge's ruling said the RCMP knew about the press conference in advance and could have tried to attend if it wanted to, but chose not to. Instead, it tried to deputize the media after the fact, and use them as part of its investigative machinery.

"Production orders against the media casually given can have a chilling effect on the appearance of independence and on future actions of members of the public and the press," the appeal court ruled. "There may be a resulting loss of credibility and appearance of impartiality."

How Will Non-Profit Investigative Journalism Survive?

The U.S. has seen an explosion of non-profit efforts aimed at providing investigative journalism to communities that are witnessing cutbacks in conventional media operations.

In most cases, private foundations have provided the start-up funds to hire journalists and launch the operations, many of which have their primary presence on the web. Universities are also partners in many of the enterprises.

As these organizations mature and enter their second and third years, they all have to figure out a sustainable business model. Although a number of foundations have been very generous and have pledged multi-year support, it is not at all clear that these commitments will continue indefinitely. In short, the question will soon be: how will these ventures survive?

Perhaps the largest start-up is called ProPublica. Under a tab that says "steal our stories," it announces: "You can republish our articles and graphics for free, so long as you credit us, link to us, and don’t edit our material or sell it separately." With headquarters in Manhattan, ProPublica employs 32 journalists and has generous support from the Sandler Foundation and a host of other philanthropic groups.

Voiceofsandiego.org bills itself as the only professionally-staffed, non-profit provider or online local news in the state. It has a funding model very different from ProPublica's, relying on a mix of revenue from foundations, private individuals and advertisers on its website.

The Texas Tribune doesn't accept advertising, but it has already raised more than $3.6 million from foundations and corporations. It doesn't hurt that its chairman has been a venture capitalist in Austin, Texas for nearly 30 years. It claims to be non partisan, and its focus is exclusively on public policy, politics, and government. "Because we’re non-profit, we don’t have to sacrifice our mission at the altar of commercial considerations." A surprising sentiment from a Texas venture capitalist.

One of the new players on the scene is California Watch, a Sacramento-based venture that will launch in earnest next month as a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting. They too have lined up significant start-up money from foundations, but their strategy is not to give away their content or invite anyone to steal it. Their hope is to syndicate the material to news outlets that wish to buy it.

In September, California Watch whetted the appetite of news outlets by distributing a successful package of stories on homeland security spending. It charged just a nominal fee for stories that reached 1.8 million newspaper subscribers and millions more on TV and online. But that was just a teaser.

"The mission of California Watch is to distribute high-impact investigative and enterprise journalism," it says on its website. "But we won’t last long if we give it away. Over the coming months we plan to explore all types of distribution models. The goal will be to develop an equitable payment structure that works for us and for our partners. No one knows exactly what that will look like."

Of course, reliance on advertising and commercial models may eventually land the new ventures back to the same problems that are currently hurting conventional media outlets. When success is defined by the number of eyeballs that can be delivered to an advertiser, the founding principles of some of the outlets might take on less importance. It is the same conundrum that non-profits in many fields face.

But if a non-profit news venture is truly filling an important niche, and doing a consistently good job at it, there is reason to believe it could rely on ongoing support from charitable foundations that believe in the work. A good example is stateline.org, which has published online every weekday since Jan. 25, 1999. It was founded by the Pew Charitable Trusts in response to shrinking news coverage of state government in the U.S.

Ten years later, the site remains a thriving and credible source of news about state governments. There is no reason to think the same pattern couldn't hold true for investigative journalism sites.

Investigating climate change

Frontline/World and the Center for Investigative Reporting have announced a unique joint project which will encompass radio, print, television and online reports.

Over the next year, they will report on what they call the "soon to be trillion-dollar carbon trading market." They promise to look into the hidden interests behind the various carbon emission reduction plans.

With climate change such a pressing issue in the world today, this shapes up to be an important and ambitious year-long collaboration. I am looking forward to seeing whether there will be any Canadian aspects to the reporting.

All of the findings will be available here:

Frontline/World

Protecting the Identity of Whistleblowers

In the fall of 1999, from his home in Hull, Globe and Mail reporter Daniel Leblanc spotted a giant hot air balloon in the shape of a Mountie on a horse, making an appearance at a Gatineau festival.

It struck the inquisitive reporter as strange. The RCMP was in serious financial straits at the time, and was asking government for an increased budget. Why was it spending money on giant balloons?

Leblanc filed an access to information request to find out more. He learned the balloon had been built in England at a cost of about $100,000, but the government had paid $324,000 to rent in for 11 months. A marketing firm based in Ottawa, which had contributed to the ruling Liberal party, owned the balloon. Leblanc had a front page story.

That's as far as the story might have gone, but the article encouraged insiders to begin feeding Leblanc more information about other unusual marketing schemes. It finally led to the revelation of the sponsorship scandal, an affair that arguably played the biggest role in the federal Liberal party's eventual fall from power. Leblanc's best source was a female whistleblower who identified herself only as MaChouette, or "my dear." Her identity remains secret to this day.

But lawyers for advertising company Le Groupe Polygone Editeurs Inc. want Leblanc to reveal his sources, and the Quebec Superior Court has agreed. Yesterday, lawyers for the Globe and Mail appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which has reserved its decision.

Leblanc has indicated he would go to jail rather than be forced to reveal his sources.

The case parallels another fight over sources in the Shawinigate affair. Former National Post reporter Andrew McIntosh, who led the coverage, also received confidential information from sources. The RCMP secured a warrant and an assistance order to seize a leaked document from McIntosh so they could perform forensic tests and determine if the whistleblower had broken any law. McIntosh refused to hand the document over.

The case went to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, where Justice Mary Lou Benotto quashed the warrant and order, and issued a landmark ruling. Among other things, she said: "If the journalist-informant relationship is undermined, society as a whole is affected. It is through confidential sources that matters of great public importance are made known. As corporate and public power increase, the ability of the average ctizen to affect his or her world depends upon the information disseminated by the press. To deprive the media of an important tool in the gathering of news would affect society as a whole. The relationship is one that should be fostered."

But the Ontario Court of Appeal later overturned that ruling. "We do not diminish the press's important role in uncovering and reporting an alleged wrongdoing," the court said. "But in our society, it is the police who are charged with the crucial role of investigating and prosecuting crime." The case also now rests with the Supreme Court.

Protecting confidential sources is one of the most important yet vexing issues for investigative journalists. Often a whistleblower turns to the media as a last resort, the only path to correct a wrong after all other avenues have failed. But if the whistleblower fears that the media will be unable to protect his or her identity, then even the last resort will be lost.

Media lawyers have argued that confidential sources were important in many of the most important pieces of journalism over the last half century. But journalists in this country currently have no legal right to protect the identity of sources.

Journalists will be carefully watching the Supreme Court's judgments when they come, as will future whistleblowers. If the situation governing source protection remains unchanged, one has to wonder how many scandals might go unreported in the future as a result.

Fighting for Access to Tommy Douglas' Files

Tommy Douglas has been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, movies and debates that finally crowned him, in a CBC competition, as the Greatest Canadian.

But the federal government is still reluctant to tell Canadians everything they know about the man.

Canadian Press reporter Jim Bronskill, who knows the Access to Information Act better than most any other journalist in Canada, has tried and so far failed to pry the information loose. He filed an access request in 2005, getting a file that showed the RCMP secretly monitored the former NDP leader's speeches and even eavesdropped on private conversations. But much of the file was blacked out.

Now Canadian Press is taking the federal government to court to force disclosure of hundreds of pages of material they have so far withheld.

Standing Up to Corporate Bullying

The BBC wasn't mincing its words last May when it reported on a shocking incident involving a multinational corporation and one of the poorest countries on earth.

"It is the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century," the public broadcaster said, "the type of environmental vandalism that international treaties are supposed to prevent. Now Newsnight can reveal the truth about the waste that was illegally tipped on Ivory Coast's biggest city, Abidjan."

The story involved the giant oil and mineral-trading firm Trafigura, which was attempting to treat and dispose of hundreds of tons of toxic sulphur sludge. In the dead of night on August 18, 2006, the waste was off-loaded in Abidjan and dumped all over the city. Residents picked through debris, looking for anything of value. Thousands later got sick.

The BBC interviewed Fidel Kouadio, eight months pregnant when the fumes invaded her home. She gave birth prematurely and her baby died within a day. According to some reports, nearly 100,000 people eventually sought hospital treatment, and more than 30,000 launched a lawsuit against the company, citing breathing problems, diarrhea and other health issues.

Ever since the episode had begun in 2006, Trafigura tried to deflect responsibility for the dumping and argued that the materials weren't particularly dangerous anyway, only that they smelled bad. The company also launched a comprehensive public relations campaign to counteract negative publicity. And they aggressively threatened to sue media outlets who waded into the story.

According to the Guardian newspaper, whenever journalists tried to write critically about the company, they were pressured by Carter-Ruck, London's most aggressive libel lawyers. The BBC was slapped with a libel writ for its reporting, and other journalists in the Netherlands and Norway were put on notice as well.

Last month, the story took another twist when the Guardian and BBC revealed internal company emails showing that Trafigura knew the waste dumped in Abidjan was so toxic it was banned across Europe. The emails revealed an effort to profit from suspect methods of treating the waste. As the story was breaking, Trafigura countered with compensation offers to the thousands of people who had initiated the lawsuit against it.

The damning internal emails had been gathered by a group of agencies including Greenpeace and Amnesty and shared with reporters at different media outlets. The Guardian said the effort was a good example of international co-operation among media outlets. Spokesmen for Greenpeace said they noticed many media outlets shying away from the story in the early going because of fears they would be sued. But the eventual release of the emails gave the story a different complexion.

Even the UN human rights special rapporteur, Okechukwu Ibeanu, criticized the company for potentially stifling independent reporting and public criticism in a report Trafigura ironically tried to prevent being published as well. Trafigura maintains the settlement of the court case vindicates its position, and it continues to deny direct responsibility for the dumping, which was done by a sub-contractor.

What are the lessons for investigative journalists from this episode? For one thing, it demonstrates that even in an age of international awareness of human rights and environmental concerns, there can be disturbing cases of illegal activities that affect so many thousands of people. What is equally disturbing is how little coverage the case has received in North America.

Secondly, the case is another reminder of the courage that journalists need to show in the face of intense pressures. Threats of lawsuits and gag orders can weigh heavily on individual journalists and their organizations. The BBC responded with a fighting defence, arguing that Trafigura's denials lacked candour and credibility, and accusing the company of a cover-up.

Even though Trafigura has agreed to pay about $50 million to settle compensation claims, and an additional $160 million to the Ivory Coast government for the cleanup, the case is not over. Greenpeace now wants to prosecute Trafigura in the British courts for manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm.

Checking Under the Sheets -- A New Kind of Undercover Reporting

Investigative journalism aims to hold powerful institutions to account, and it does so with a method that is methodologically sound and free of bias.

But it also has to tackle subjects worthy of public attention. Do hotel reviews qualify?

The creators of Oyster Hotel Reviews seem to think so. They have assembled an impressive team of reporter/photographers to stage undercover visits of hotel rooms and provide unbiased reviews of what they see. The result is easy to dismiss as inconsequential. But you might change your mind if you're about to embark on a trip and need a hotel room.

Searching on the Internet for hotel rooms can be frustrating. Just about any property can be made to look clean and luxurious, and the reality sometimes doesn't present itself until it's too late. Even sites that offer user reviews can be suspect. It is impossible to know whether establishments are somehow pumping up their own venues with planted reviews, or dissing the competition.

The team that created Oyster sensed an opportunity. They put together more than $10 million in financing, hired about 20 reporters, and set up an ambitious project that is labour-intensive and financially risky. They send reporters to hotels around the U.S. and the Caribbean at their own expense, where the employees anonymously check out every aspect of the property and their rooms. Then the reporters file exhaustive reviews, often with hundreds of photos detailing everything from the shower stall to the coffee maker.

The reviews are rigorous. Reporters have to follow a 60-page manual, allowing readers to compare amenities precisely. At the end, in addition to the length review, reporters provide a condensed bottom-line assessment and a 0-5 rating.

The reporters' credentials are listed for all to see, though the site coyly protects their identities by just giving first names and initials for the surname.Most are former journalists at places like the New York Times, the Village Voice, BBC World Service and other large mainstream organizations. One has investigative experience with the New York police department. Some are former financial services reporters.

The site highlights one of the distinctions between professional journalism and user-generated content. While travel sites such as TripAdvisor can be useful if there are large numbers of reviews on single properties, their value becomes less clear when the numbers of comments are sparse. Anyone who regularly wades through comments on online news stories knows the ranting and uninformed discourse that can dominate. Oyster is offering a far-more unbiased and professional approach.

So far, there are no ads on the site. And the expenses are huge. Oyster pays its reporters full-time salaries and sends them on all-expense paid trips. Still, they believe the business model will eventually become clear. Owners hope to keep building the reporting team and expanding the coverage areas. The goal is to become the largest U.S. travel media outlet by the end of this year.

OK, I confess to clicking on the Jobs portion of the site to see if there are any opportunities for journalists. Could this be the dream job, travelling to exotic locations with the onerous responsibility of jumping on the mattress and photographing the shampoo bottles? I couldn't find any current opening for a reporter. But I did notice one for editorial assistant. One of the job benefits? A catered lunch.

Investigative Journalism at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

It has been more than two years in the making, but the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is about to unveil its first foray into investigative journalism with the premiere of APTN Investigates on Sept. 18.

Executive producer Paul Barnsley said the Winnipeg-based program is something the network's chief executive officer, Jean LaRose, has wanted to do for a long time. Barnsley arrived at the aboriginal network two years ago from Windspeaker, an Edmonton-based newspaper, with the mandate to create an investigative show. He has assembled a team that will create 11 half-hour shows this season.

"There are many stories in the aboriginal community people don't like to talk about. We're hoping to shine a light in those places," he said. The primary focus of the program will be on aboriginal social, political and legal issues, but Barnsley said it won't necessarily be limited to those areas.

While the program can't afford to be seen as an advocate or crusader for a point of view, Barnsley said it will still challenge conventional media stereotypes of aboriginal people. At the same time, he said it won't be afraid to hold aboriginal chiefs accountable in an aggressive way for their actions.

One of the half-hour investigations aims to follow a dollar from Treasury Board as it goes to Indian Affairs, through the system and ultimately to a First Nation citizen. The program will attempt to show how much of that dollar ends up in the citizen's hands. In the first episode, the show takes a second look at the case in Thunder Bay where an aboriginal boy's hair was cut involuntarily at his school, and the consequences that followed.

A team of seven works on the show, including host Cheryl McKenzie and a number of interesting newcomers to the world of investigative journalism. One of them is Darrell Doxtdator, a lawyer who has seen the world of First Nations politics from the inside. Doxtdator, a graduate of Osgoode Hall, refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen when he was originally admitted to the bar in Ontario. More recently he acted as a senior political advisor to the elected Six Nations chief.

In creating the program, Barnsley researched investigative reporting methodology and spent some time at W-FIVE examining the work process. He concedes that the task of doing in-depth investigative work is daunting and will improve as the program's team develops more contacts. But by starting modestly, the program is making a statement that the network is committed to telling stories that might otherwise not be told.

Barnsley says the mainstream media has a limited understanding of the complexity of issues in First Nations affairs. But until now, he says there hasn't been a significant amount of hard-hitting investigation into many of those issues. He promises the program will not respect any sacred cows. One of the stories it will tackle, for instance, is the perception of widespread corruption at certain levels of First Nations communities. It will also routinely hold government and other powerful institutions accountable for their questionable practices with respect to aboriginal people.

"We have the opportunity to perform a really important function here," he says.

APTN Investigates begins Sept. 18 at 6:30 pm ET and runs every second Friday.

Non-Profit Investigative Work in California

A decade ago there were more than 80 reporters based in Sacramento, scrutinizing the state government. Now the number has declined to about 25.

That is why a new non-profit organization called California Watch was founded. Created by the Center for Investigative Reporting, it hired a dozen journalists with the help of foundations and sponsors. This makes it the biggest investigative team in the state.

This week it distributed its first major investigation, a look at waste and mismanagement in the state's homeland security spending. Versions of the story have already run in more than two dozen news organizations.

It's just the latest example of how investigative reporting is migrating from the private to the public sector in the U.S.