Technology’s speed changes investigative journalism

Having a professional career in investigative journalism for over 30 years, MacFaydyen states that technology deeply affects the way investigative journalists work. What used to take two weeks of editing time and transmission time can now be done in an hour.

As result the time to consider the events that are described is much less. People get a less substantial, but faster account of events around them. Simply telling what happens in the world is important, but it doesn't explain why it happens. Complimentary to the technology changes, the press agencies also demand an increase of productivity. Because the camera is faster, the demand is to produce twice as many stories with that camera to make more money for the press agency. The quality of reporting has effectively changed without reporters or the audiences being aware of it. Time for thorough research, time for consideration and time to contextualize events is no longer granted. As a result important stories cannot be made anymore. The process from being witness to bearing witness has imploded in investigative journalism today.
For example, a report on killing people is transmitted and broadcast very fast. But it may take a while to know the history and to know that the government responsible for the killings has in fact doing this for twenty years. One has to be able to give dates and times of previous killings. If the government admitted these previous crimes in court, the report has to give the date and time of that court session. Possibly there are other testimonies that prove that they have done all these other killings. Good journalism will build a historical case to show the context of the event.
Another example shows that some stories are not told anymore because of the speed of reporting today. Many reports have been made about this tsunami in the Indian Ocean, but only thorough research reveals that a US navy research station, somewhere nearby, knew all about this tsunami five hours before. Then the question is why didn't they warn anybody. That's a very different piece of film than the reports about the terrible destruction caused by this event in the Indian Ocean.

CN