Source: BBC Radio 4, The Media Show
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06bp3z2
Date: 23/09/2015
Event: "Greenpeace has set up its own investigative journalism unit"
Credit: BBC Radio 4, The Media Show
People:
Steve Hewlett: Now, investigative journalism can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive, but when it works, also capable of breaking really big and important stories - think MPs' expenses, cash for questions and the phone-hacking scandal, to name but a few recent examples. And it's mostly been commissioned and paid for by big media organisations - newspapers and TV. Well now, environmental campaigning group Greenpeace has set up its own investigative journalism unit to support its campaigning operations. But can campaigning and journalism work together in this way? And if Greenpeace do it, should it really be called journalism at all? Meirion Jones is an investigative journalist, who's spent many years here at the BBC, on Panorama and Newsnight, most notably as the producer of the original Savile investigation the BBC chose not to proceed with. Yes, that one. He's since left the BBC and is now working with Greenpeace as a consultant. Meirion, thank you very much indeed for coming. Just help us out, here - I mean, I know you don't speak for Greenpeace, you're a consultant to them. But what are Greenpeace actually doing?
Meirion Jones: Well, what they're trying to do is take the work that they're doing, on investigations - and they've been doing that for years, for instance things like finding products in the shops here and tracing back to something illegal or unfair that's going on in the Third World supplier - and deal with that sort of stuff and look at it from more from a point of view of journalism, and try and bring in some of the skills from investigative journalism, to put with the very good investigative campaigners that they've already got.
Steve Hewlett: And so what are you doing for them?
Meirion Jones: I'm advising them on how you go about that, on techniques, how you would do that stuff, what sort of things would make a good TV story, what sort of things would make a good newspaper story, and also trying to introduce a bit of that sort of culture, which is a different culture from a campaigning culture.
Steve Hewlett: Go on.
Meirion Jones: Well, campaigners have to make, sometimes - and I'm not just talking about Greenpeace, here but any campaign - they have to make the strongest possible claim that they can, to try and achieve their aim in a campaign. This is trying to say "This has to be done in a slightly different way, that you've got some really good stories there which may well help your campaigns but they have to be dealt with in a rigorous way, in a way that investigative journalists would."
Steve Hewlett: I mean that, I suppose, points straight at the obvious question - and I'm sure this would have occurred to you - that they are, of course, in the end, owned, controlled and are part of an organisation with a particular campaigning purpose. Nothing wrong with that. But is journalism compatible with - or being sited, if you like, existing in that kind of environment?
Meirion Jones: Well, you know, I've been a campaigning journalist for years - I know you're not supposed to be that, at the BBC, but I managed to do that, not on a party-political basis or anything like that but issues that I thought were important - toxic waste dumping, the Trafigura story, all those sorts of things. I mean, the first environmental investigation I did was for New Scientist in 1988, you know, I've been doing that for years. Er, so -
Steve Hewlett: But being a campaigning journalist is not the same as being in a - working for, being paid for and supported by a campaigning organisation.
Meirion Jones: No, I agree with that. But you could say that the Daily Telegraph has an agenda, the Daily Mail has an agenda, and journalists who work for all those organisations have to be aware of that agenda.
Steve Hewlett: But, I mean - that's true, but they are media organisations, nonetheless, and they have, you know, they have their codes, as it were, of ethics - you kind of know what to expect. I mean, can Greenpeace ever hope to be regarded as duly impartial, on any of the stories that they might do?
Meirion Jones: No, not at all. No, they can't be regarded as impartial, but what you can do is set up a unit there, which deals with some of the great potential they have, getting stories - I mean, you know, effectively they've got people all over the world, you know, on the oceans, everywhere, who can get you the stuff, but then when it's brought together, it needs to be dealt with in that proper, rigorous way, so that other media outlets - the BBC or Channel 4 or the newspapers, all of whom are being talked to at the moment - can, er, can work with them, that they know that right to replies are being put in, you know, all these sorts of things that we would think of as being compliant, if you like.
Steve Hewlett: I read something somewhere that one of the people involved said that this unit had editorial independence, within Greenpeace. Now that must be nonsense, surely?
Meirion Jones: Yes, I mean that - that wasn't me saying that -
Steve Hewlett: No, I know it wasn't.
Meirion Jones: I think what they mean is that, um, Greenpeace won't be able to say "You have to go ahead with this story, you have to put this story out", if that unit is saying the story doesn't stand up. I think that's what they really mean, there. Er, so -
Steve Hewlett: And what about hypothetic stories they might come across, which are not particularly good for Greenpeace?
Meirion Jones: Er, well, certainly in my case, you know that just because my employer might think that a story is not good for it, it doesn't necessarily stop me doing it. Um -
Steve Hewlett: But you're a consultant to Greenpeace, aren't you -
Meirion Jones: Yes.
Steve Hewlett: - I mean, in terms of the operation they've set up, I mean, one of the things is: once these NGOs doing more things that look like journalism, but are actually, sort of, brands of PR, I suppose. And if you support the cause, you say "Well, fair enough, why not?" But if you look at it from a journalistic point of view, you might say "Well actually, what's the difference? Where does the journalism stop and the PR begin?" And when you mix them up, you're playing with fire, really.
Meirion Jones: No, I get that, totally. But this will only work, and media outlets will only trust this unit, if it does behave in that way, if it behaves more like a media organisation and is rigorous.
Steve Hewlett: But do you think people will ever do that? I mean, one of the top guys at Greenpeace, I read, was quoted as saying that, you know, the thing about investigative journalism, he said, in terms of campaign tactics, was it had the capacity to change the dynamics around an issue. Now, of course, they're not going to want it to change the dynamics around some issues -
Meirion Jones: No.
Steve Hewlett: - but only others. So it's never going to be, it's never going to appear, is it, on some BBC commissoner's desk as entirely straightforward.
Meirion Jones: No, and, you know, you would expect other media outlets to become very involved, ask those questions, but you would expect this unit to be able to answer those questions, and show how it had gone about stuff, in a way that would be credible. I mean, we're already talking to Channel 4, various newspapers - that process is already going on.
Steve Hewlett: So do you think that, in one sense, they're already filling a gap?
Meirion Jones: Yes. I think what's happened here is that - well, you know, yourself, Steve, that there's been a retreat in television from doing risky stories, stories where there's only a one in three, one in four chance of it coming off. People like Greenpeace can do that, and if the story comes off, they can then go to the media and say "It's working".
Steve Hewlett: I imagine that people in TV, both at the BBC and Channel 4 and even ITV, would probably want to argue with you, on that point.
Meirion Jones: I'm not sure that most people would. I mean, maybe if you went to the head honcho and said "Give me the party line" but I think most people would say that's happened [?]. And interestingly, some of the newspapers have stepped into that gap, so, you know, various newspapers that never had investigative units - the Mail, Telegraph - have introduced that, over the last few years. We're seeing other areas coming in to replace that.
Steve Hewlett: Okay. Meirion Jones, many thanks indeed.