Transparency and independence

The Sunday Times and Dispatches scoop is an old-fashioned sting.

You'd never get a conviction in the courts off the back of an operation like this, of course. But the court of public opinion has no due process.

And then, BBC Home Editor Mark Easton's investigation into junkets and jollies fell like a fist on an old bruise - unlike in ByersHewittHoonMorangate, the rules on declaring fact-finding trips are crystal clear. 

A few weeks before the 2010 General Election, the image of MPs couldn't be lower in the public mind. Conservative blogger Iain Dale put it like this at the weekend:

"... so the reputation of politics and politicians sinks to an even greater depth. Quite where it will be by 6 May is anyone's guess.

Good luck to those who have to pick up the pieces afterwards. I'm almost beginning to thank my lucky stars I won't be one of them. Because I wonder if it is actually possible."

Monitoring power is one of the most important functions of journalism. Monitoring the behaviour of those who use the power we lend them at elections is just as important. The BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson put it succinctly on Radio 4's Today:

"If you know who someone is being paid by, you can then make a judgment about what they do and why ... When you see a member of parliament speak or hear them. When you see them table a question in parliament, you should be clear that that is on behalf of people who elected them. Not someone who's paying their bills."

Couldn't be clearer.

But here's a thought. As it happens, I'm doing some work on a book written in 2001 by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It's called The Elements of Journalism - a must-read for all journalists, even those in the UK. It deals, among other things, with the transparency and independence ... of journalists.

Elements was written by journalists concerned for the survival of journalism - literally so; they founded at the same time the Committee of Concerned Journalists.

Their strictures on transparency and independence are tough but designed to reassure citizen audiences that journalists are acting in their, citizens', interests and not those of the journalist or news organisation.

And so journalists, they argue, should be transparent about their sources. Where is this story from? What exactly did all the sources say? What do you, the audience, need to know about them to make up your mind about their testimony? Who didn't we speak to? What didn't we find out?

As for independence - independence of faction, Elements calls it - the question boils down to this. Are you revealing this story in this way in the citizens' interest? Or is there another interest in play? A political or commercial agenda?

Now, there's no question of any kind that the Sunday Times/Dispatches story or the BBC's junket story were investigated in anything other than the public interest. The journalists involved in them were executing excellent examples of accountability journalism; transparently and independently.

But of course, once their original stories are out there, they become public property. And we read 'analysis' and 'commentary' by a much broader range of journalists ... all of whom are independent of 'faction' or commercial interest??? Transparently so??? 

And what about journalists' other interests? Not those of the journalists working on the original stories but of the much broader group who've chased down follow-up angles or questioned guests in broadcast interviews?

How much do we know of their 'outside interests'? As much as we now demand of our MPs? And if independent regulation is the only answer for 'cleaning up politics', shouldn't the same reasoning apply to another largely untrusted group of players in our democracy: journalists?

To paraphrase Nick Robinson:

"When I see a journalist speak or hear them or read their articles, should I not be clear that their work is done on behalf of citizens and in the interests of self-government and not in the interest of whoever is paying their bills?"