Investigative Journalism Project Reveals Problem at Core of Mainstream Journalism

Investigative journalism project reveals problem at core of mainstream

journalism

By Robert Jensen

Created Jan 29 2008 - 9:11am

(published in the German magazine Message: internationale Fachzeitschrift

fuer Journalismus, January 2008)

Pro Publica, an initiative launched last month in the United States to help

revitalize investigative journalism, is a great idea trapped by the worst

aspects of the best instincts in contemporary corporate commercial

journalism. The project reminds us of important values at the core of the

craft of journalism, but also exposes the common political confusions of

mainstream journalists that so often undermine their best efforts.

Launched with a multi-million dollar grant from Herbert M. and Marion O.

Sandler, who made their fortune with the Golden West Financial Corp. they

sold in 2006, Pro Publica's goal is to provide serious investigate work that

is increasingly rare in a mass-media system more focused on the bottom line

than on higher values. Paul E. Steiger, who stepped down as managing editor

of The Wall Street Journal this spring, will be the editor-in-chief.

Pro Publica plans to function as an independent newsroom staffed by some of

the country's top journalists, offering stories to a variety of media

outlets under various distribution arrangements. There are potential

complications in how the project's journalists will work with commercial

media -- which will continue, of course, to operate in a competitive

environment that tends to discourage cooperative ventures -- but those will

likely be worked out if the project produces quality journalism.

So far, so good. There's a problem: Managers of the profit-hungry

corporations that produce most of the country's journalism have fewer

resources to do their jobs, which predictably leads to less of the

investigative journalism that requires time and money. The proposed

solution: Committed journalists, backed by well-intentioned benefactors,

step in to fill the gap through Pro Publica.

But the more vexing problem -- and what may make the project, in the end,

largely irrelevant -- becomes clear in reading the mission statement of the

group, which includes these crucial two paragraphs:

This newsroom will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories

with "moral force." We will do this by producing journalism that shines a

light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those

with power to vindicate the trust placed in them. In so doing, in the best

traditions of American journalism in the public service, we will stimulate

positive change. We will uncover unsavory practices in order to stimulate

reform.

We will do this in an entirely non-partisan and non-ideological manner,

adhering to the strictest standards of journalistic impartiality. We won't

lobby. We won't ally with politicians or advocacy groups. We will look hard

at the critical functions of business and of government, the two biggest

centers of power, in areas ranging from product safety to securities fraud,

from flaws in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine

fair elections. But we will also focus on such institutions as unions,

universities, hospitals, foundations and on the media when they constitute

the strong exploiting or oppressing the weak, or when they are abusing the

public trust. [http://www.propublica.org/whatwelldo.html [1]]

This articulation of the "comfort the afflicted/afflict the comfortable"

mission of journalism is fine. But the mission statement makes it clear that

the focus will be to "uncover unsavory practices" that and can lead to

"reform." But what if the crucial questions that the contemporary world

faces are not rooted in practices but in systems? What if we should focus

not on the unsavory actions of people wor king in institutions, but on the

nature of those institutions themselves? What if the goal should be not

reform but a radical transformation of the hierarchical systems in which we

live? What if, instead of chasing the latest scandal, the real work of

investigative journalism should be a sustained critique of First-World

imperialism and predatory corporate capitalism in the context of white

supremacy and patriarchy? What if that's the analysis that really gets to

the core of an unjust and unsustainable world?

Those questions reflect my politics and ideology, my way of understanding

how the world works. Maybe I'm right, and maybe I'm not. I don't claim to be

non-partisan or non-ideological. But no one else can make such a claim

either, and therein lies the failure of Pro Publica and contemporary

journalism more generally. Mainstream journalists typically will not

understand their work as inherently political and ideological, even though

that is the case of any attempt to understand how the world works. This

invocation of "journalistic impartiality" is simply a reminder that most of

contemporary corporate commercial journalism is trapped within those

dominant systems of power.

Some critics have expressed concern that the Sandlers' past support of

Democratic Party candidates and liberal causes will skew the coverage of Pro

Publica, [see Jack Shafer, "What Do Herbert and Marion Sandler Want?

Investigating the funders of ProPublica, the new investigative journalism

outfit [2]," Slate, October 15, 2007.] but that misses the point, for two

reasons. First, there's no more reason to doubt the group's commitment to an

editorial agenda independent of a particular party or politician than there

would be for any commercial media outlet, in which journalists are beholden

to owners. Second, the assumptions about power behind the liberal politics

of people like the Sandlers are well within the conventional wisdom that

embraces corporate capitalism and U.S. "leadership in the world" (which

really means "domination of") as the natural order; if not the mission

statement of Pro Publica would have been quite different.

By detaching from the need to make a profit, Pro Publica takes the first

step of freeing journalists from the constraints that so often limit the

craft. But journalists cannot spring the trap unless they abandon the

naivete that leads to the idea that they can hover above politics --

understood not merely as the struggles between competing configurations of

elites but more basic questions about the distribution of power.

Yes, it's important for journalists not to become shills for a particular

party or cause; independence is at the core of modern journalism. Yes,

journalists should always avoid dogmatism; ideological positions can easily

calcify and inhibit critical inquiry. But if we understand politics and

ideology as a feature of human thought and always present -- everyone works

from a set of assumptions about the nature of people and power, and everyone

has an ideology whether or not they acknowledge it -- then we can see the

limits of this approach. Journalists' claims to be outside politics and

ideology simply mean that they will be trapped within conventional politics

and captured by the dominant ideology.

I think Pro Publica is correct in focusing on business and government, "the

two biggest centers of power." But instead of seeing the problems as ranging

from "product safety to securities fraud," what if the group investigated

the commodification of everything in a capitalist system and the fundamental

illegitimacy of corporate structures? What if instead of pointing at "flaws

in our system of criminal justice to practices that undermine fair

elections," Pro Publica journalists covered how the law legitimizes the

everyday crimes of the powerful and how money-dominated pseudo-elections

eliminate meaningful democracy?

Again, maybe my analysis of an appropriate mission for journalism is right,

maybe it's wrong. But it's no more or less political and ideological than

Pro Publica's.

Some may argue that this critique is unfair. After all, the problems we face

in the United States are hardly the fault of journalists, and one can't

expect journalists alone to solve them. I agree -- a degraded political

culture has to be addressed at many levels. I believe that independent

journalism has a role to play, but only if journalism as an institution

abandons illusions of neutrality, confronts its place in a corporate

commercial system, and makes clear its own political commitments.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson