Investigative Journalism today
The first thought
All the President’s Men, Karl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s masterpiece, may be the first case which comes up in our minds when we talk about Investigative Journalism.
Two Washington Post reporters discovered proofs,
witnesses, and the intricate logic behind the 1972 Watergate break-in.
Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
Secret
sources and anonymity appear
fundamentals for this career.
But is all this still
possible in the high technological era we live in?
Computers, tablets, and smartphones occupy the major
part of our days. Every app requires our agreement to locate the device where
it has been downloaded. Even the most innocent website trace our visits.
Secrets seem to have very short lives and deeper
researches are difficult to be hidden from the Big Brother’s eye of the Intelligence.
And yet investigative
journalists still exist and they are even more necessary than in the past.
Increasingly more watched – recent facts
Russia- Europe
On the 14th November the Presidential Library in Russia launched the project for anational Encyclopaedia. The new online resource aims to substitute Wikipedia, which, as an analysis showed, doesn’t provide
reliable information about the country.
Critics and people against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, saw their websites
blocked in March. Moreover, the bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers
were forced in August to register with the mass media regulator.
The Presidential Library plan seems a further move
for controlling the web.
The country was again at the centre of the media on
the 20th of November, when articles were published about the surveillance of English people through
webcams. The UK planned the closure of a Russian website that streamed footages
from British cameras.
USA- World
Citizenfour,
the documentary film by Laura Poitras,
has been released in October. The movie concerns Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency spying
activity, which became public last year. Snowden
is currently in Russia, with a three-years residency permit. The director
Poitras, instead, is in Berlin.
Definition
Investigative,
whenever referred to Journalism, means: “inquiring intensively into and seeking
to expose malpractice, the miscarriage of justice, or other controversial
issues”, according to the Oxford Dictionary online.
The Logan Symposium - An opportunity to talk about it
Building an Alliance against Secrecy, Surveillance
and Censorship.
Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
The event was organised by the Centre for Investigative Journalism – a charity which support the
education and the training of media people towards deep researches – and funded
by The Reva and David Logan Foundation– that promote social justice through many sectors such as arts, reporting, and
development communities.
Conferences, lectures, and workshops aimed
to highlight and try to solve some of the problems that a journalist in this
field has to face.
Transparency reports, Thunderbird, email encryption
are just some of the elements not-to-forget to live more peacefully. There are
many tricks to learn to not be traced, many precautions to take to assure top
secrecy to the sources.
Laura Poitras
– Citizenfour’s director – and Sarah
Harrison – WikiLeaks journalist who took part of the operation for moving
Snowden to Moscow – participated via video chat, because suggested not to enter
UK. In the country, indeed, Terrorism Act 2000, schedule 7, prevents them from moving.
Even Julian
Assange have reached the audience via video chat.
John Pilger Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
“Journalism is a craft, regardless of the means, regardless of the obstacles”, said John Pilger, during the session What We
Do Not See in the first day afternoon.
To discover the truth and make the public aware –
for what regards matters of public
interest – should be the priority for a journalist, even if the technological advance and terrorist attacks made it more and more difficult.
Experiences from the others and from the past may help in the initial learning process.
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