The Investigation

This weeks law lecture was run Brian, who led us through the concept of Investigative Journalism. This refers to every day news and reports of this, including interviews with the people involved and/or people who have been affected. Ultimately investigative journalism can be seen as an off diary/set your own agenda type of journalism where you are investigating something that is not common knowledge (yet) and it may be something someone else doesn't want you to know. As described by Brian, many investigative journalists are often very awkward in the sense that they go out of their way to ask awkward questions in order to get an interesting answer.


An example of an investigative journalist is Louis Theroux. He is known for his 'gonzo journalism' which is another name for investigative. He has made such programmes as 'When Louis Met...' where he follows a British celebrity in their day to day life, whilst interviewing them about their life in general. He is also known for creating documentaries named 'Louis Theroux Weird Weekends' where he follows American subcultures such as Black nationalists, White supremacists and Porn Stars. Consequently, the classic 'investigations' done by investigative journalists are based upon serious issues which are often in the public interest.


Within investigative journalism, these journalists need to be careful of the two following things;
1. Malice
2. Conflict of interest
As previously to this lesson I did not know what conflict of interest was, I will attempt to explain. A prime example of conflict of interest is Jon Snow, the channel 4 newsreader refused to wear a Rememberance day poppy on air in protest of 'poppy fascism'. He said that he did respect the armed forces and continued to wear a poppy outside the studio however whilst on air, he believed it better to be without incase it made a particular statement to some viewers. Ultimately, this is because for many people, the poppy can mean many different things and he believed that by wearing this poppy and also reporting stories about this, it may create a statement for some viewers.


Miscarriage of Justice
The classic 'off agenda' is miscarriage of justice which is where people who are framed go to jail. This can be related to the innocence project where convicts who believe or (who actually are) innocent can write to the innocence project to ask the journalists working there to help them. After the bombing attacks such as the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, the Criminal case review commission (CCRC) was set up to investigate alleged cases of miscarriage of justice, however this is often not seen as being effective.
In a nut shell, when a Judge says to the alleged offender 'I serve you 20 years' that is the minimum sentence they get, however say if they misbehave in prison they can easily serve more. If someone maintains their innocence after getting convicted, they usually get released (if ever) many years after the should of. Consequently, if the convict attends such things as rehibilitation classes and admits they are guilty, they often get let go before or on their release date. In my opinion, the convict admitting they murdered several people should not allow them to be released any earlier. But hey ho, corruption is another story.