{"id":680,"date":"2007-11-02T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T11:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=680"},"modified":"2007-11-02T05:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T11:57:00","slug":"david-leigh-on-the-future-of-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/11\/david-leigh-on-the-future-of-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"David Leigh on the future of reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Ironically, David doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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

Here is some of what he had to say:<\/p>\n

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<\/a> can pretend to live in Monaco, but still work four days a week in a London office. (The trick was that, when it\u2019s totting up residence days, the Inland Revenue doesn\u2019t count the day of travel out or the day of travel back. That made sense in the days of steam \u2013 but not when you can commute to London in 90 minutes.) The government now says it will stop up the loophole.<\/p>\n

We wrote some rather savage articles<\/a> about plans to restrict use of the Freedom of Information Act. They dropped the plans.<\/p>\n

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

And of course, Rob Evans and I wrote literally scores of articles<\/a> detailing the corrupt influence of the defence ministry\u2019s arms sales department on bribery overseas. The government now says it will shut the department down.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s only one reason why these stories have an effect. I like to think, of course, it\u2019s down to our own extreme personal brilliance. But it\u2019s not. It\u2019s because a story on the front page of the Guardian<\/span> carries clout.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s perhaps one of the biggest dangers of the media revolution. When the media fragment \u2013 as they will \u2013 and splinter into a thousand websites, a thousand digital channels \u2013 all weak financially \u2013 then we\u2019ll see a severe reduction in the power of each individual media outlet. The reporter\u2019s voice will struggle to be heard over the cacophony of a thousand other voices.<\/p>\n

And politicians will no longer fear us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If that sounds gloomy, be assured that David is not a doom-monger.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has like him, put life and livelihood on the line in righteous pursuit of journalistic prey, knows that our secular priesthood doesn\u2019t just need a congregation right now – it also needs its representatives to keep the faith.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t lecture to the masses at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","tag-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}