The stock question in the where’s-the-business-model debate seems to be, “How are we going to pay for the investigative journalism?” and that’s bothering me a bit.
Investigative journalism is important and I have a huge amount of respect for the small army of investigators who spend their days plodding through the records, compiling the data, facing down the guilty and bringing to light important issues and stories.
But, based on long years of looking at newspapers, deep, long-term investigative journalism seems to be one of the smallest parts of what they do (unfortunately, in many cases).
I wonder if newspaper folk who are wrapping themselves in the save-investigative-journalism cloak are not really asking, “Where’s the money that will allow us to keep doing what we’re doing now.”
If it’s really about saving the investigative journalism, why isn’t the question: “What of our shrinking resources can we allocate to the investigators?” That’s a question I haven’t heard, although that may be because I travel in the wrong circles.
Giving investigative journalism priority (the question suggests, or would have us believe, that that’s the case), should mean newspapers are willing to shed some of the stuff further down the list of priorities to make it happen. Maybe they could free up some money by dropping a columnist or two, losing some of the entertainment coverage that’s a replication of what’s already out there, or replacing some local coverage by aggregating the best local bloggers. Those suggestions might not amount to much, but it may be a start.
Those professing to defend investigative journalism can do themselves a favour by showing they truly are committed to it, through actions. Either that, or they need find a new stock question.
