On The Project Management of Investigative Journalism

[danieldwilliam]

I am genuinely curious about what is actually driving the timing of the news reports about Russell Brand.

I very definitely do not mean, what Establishment Secrets or Deep Truth was Brand about to reveal that meant that he needed to be silenced.

I mean, what’s been the project plan for the investigative journalism, the investigation and research, interviews, verification, editorial and legal review. How does that all work. Why has the story broken this weekend and not a weekend last spring or next spring?

Comments

[mountainkiss]

I think the bottom line is “they publish when their lawyers let them”. So then the interesting q becomes “what would be the tipping point for the lawyers?”

Starting guess: (1) number of accusers (2) level of detail and consistency in accounts making them more unassailable in the face of legal challenge (3) nature of correspondence between accusers and Brand, and how reliably this can be proven to have originated from him (4) possibly supporting evidence eg cab firm records, gifts, testimony from friends including correspondence from the time, contemporaneous medical evidence (5) other things I haven’t thought of. So then the role of the investigative team is to maximise the volume and quality of each until such time as the lawyers deem the risk acceptable. This is a completely invented answer and could be wrong in every respect.

[dewline]

Based on my understanding of how news services operate when operated competently, you are not wrong.

[mountainkiss]

One significant gate must surely be input from either police or CPS.

[danieldwilliam]

Which I think operates in more than one direction. If the police and CPS were close to making an arrest you might not want to run the story for fear of fouling the proscecution or you might draw comfort from the fact that they thought the evidence was strong. If they weren't going to proscecute that might actually make you more keen to run the story to get the victims' heard.

[mountainkiss]

Yes, this must be so. In this case part of the intention of the story must be to catalyse or maximise likelihood of prosecution, at least in part to validate and signal-boost the story but also I am sure that (whatever their other motives might be) the reporters must feel some sense of responsibility for the girls and the desire that they not suffer from or regret going public.

In other cases this is clearly more complicated, e.g. partygate.

[danieldwilliam]

The counter-balance to some lawyerly caution is likely to be some journalistic courage and solidarity.

[mountainkiss]

Yes and you must have to make some very good choices in the people you hire to be a press lawyer. They can’t just operate from the mindset of “the safest aeroplane is the one that never leaves the ground”.

[danieldwilliam]

And also I think accept that the cost of getting it wrong occassionally is part of the cost of doing business.

[danieldwilliam]

If you are correct (and I think you are) then, yes that's the interesting question.

It would make the project schedule really contingent and judgemental. If the main driver of publishing or not is whether the lawyers are comfortable that publishing the story won't lead to big legal liabilities then the timetable is in the lap of their judgement and any contingent items that they consider important. Those feel like they are going to be bespoke to each set of stories and not necessarily linear. Three cross-corroborating accounts might be sufficient but perhaps not if you have doubts about whether one of the complainers will stick the course or might not be a credible witness in court. Four might enough to publish today but if you think a fifth complainer is close to agreeing to be included you might hang off until they are committed.

You could spend months finding 4 or 5 or 6 complainers and then very quickly get them to a point where they are all comfortable or (more likely) have to spend many many more months winning trust in a complex network of mutual support and journalistic and editorial credibility.