Investigative journalism is deemed by the political classes as a necessary evil in democracy. But only if your investigations are targeted and focused on accepted norms of corruption. They want the brown-paper bag stuffed with cash journalism...
(CONT.)

If you expose systemic corruption, though - one where you write about donors paying for access to a walled garden of quiet conversations where they are then bestowed with honours and the baubles of State affirmation - then the appetite for your journalism is lessened...

Exposing the corrosive and corrupting architectures of power, highlighting insidious nepotism and organic networks of favour, is deemed almost 'conspiracy theorist' journalism, no matter how much you demonstrate this framework exists...

I struggled (and still struggle) to get commissioning editors to think that the fact the PM, ex-PM, head of House of Commons, law lord, head of the Army, head of the Church of England, editor of the Daily Mail and our future King all going to Eton was a story.

No, they said...

"Show these people got their titles and positions of privilege through articulated acts of corruption. Show the masonic handshake."

They wanted a Deepthroat expose of power, even when proof the very architecture of power in the UK favoured old Etonians stared them in the face.

In a way, the Watergate files has defined investigative reporting thereafter.

Editors want a very specific type of expose that brings down the whole house of cards. Without actually asking: why is it a house of cards in the first place?

Investigative journalism should challenge corrupted systems and structures, as well as individual malfeasance and wrong-doing.

We should ask 'why are things the way they are', as much as 'why did this happen at this particular time for this particular reason'?

I used to believe every accusation of 'conspiracy theory' when it was levelled. But the more I see right-wing stooges like Guido Fawkes dismissing any critique of structural iniquities as such 'tin-hatted' theory, the more I wonder if it's merely a spiking the guns of truth.

Personally, I think those doing true investigative work are fewer and fewer.
Yes, @guardian and @Independent do it.
More so @BylineTimes @openDemocracy @declassifiedUK
But others? Their focus is almost never on the system. And that's problematic. To me. And to us all.
ENDS