Friends of Anthony Sampson gathered last night to hear the new professor who has a chair in his name, David Leigh of the Guardian. There were over four hundred people packing the venue – standing room only – for his inaugural lecture, The End of the Reporter.

Ironically, David doesn’t lecture to the masses at all in real life. He runs small workshops and classes, coaching and mentoring a new generation in the techniques of investigative reporting.

These are valuable skills, once sustained by newspapers and television companies, now – in part – by donors, and not-for-profit institutions like universities.

Here is some of what he had to say:

I was quite surprised the other day, when totting up the stuff I personally do in newspapers, to realize that the reporter does have a bit of an influence. We wrote about the way that tax-dodgers with private jets can pretend to live in Monaco, but still work four days a week in a London office. (The trick was that, when it’s totting up residence days, the Inland Revenue doesn’t count the day of travel out or the day of travel back. That made sense in the days of steam – but not when you can commute to London in 90 minutes.) The government now says it will stop up the loophole.

We wrote some rather savage articles about plans to restrict use of the Freedom of Information Act. They dropped the plans.

We explained how NHS patient records were going to be put on a national database with no right to opt out. The scheme was reformed.

And of course, Rob Evans and I wrote literally scores of articles detailing the corrupt influence of the defence ministry’s arms sales department on bribery overseas. The government now says it will shut the department down.

There’s only one reason why these stories have an effect. I like to think, of course, it’s down to our own extreme personal brilliance. But it’s not. It’s because a story on the front page of the Guardian carries clout.

…

And that’s perhaps one of the biggest dangers of the media revolution. When the media fragment – as they will – and splinter into a thousand websites, a thousand digital channels – all weak financially – then we’ll see a severe reduction in the power of each individual media outlet. The reporter’s voice will struggle to be heard over the cacophony of a thousand other voices.

And politicians will no longer fear us.

If that sounds gloomy, be assured that David is not a doom-monger.

Anyone who has like him, put life and livelihood on the line in righteous pursuit of journalistic prey, knows that our secular priesthood doesn’t just need a congregation right now – it also needs its representatives to keep the faith.