By Miren Gutierrez
ROME, Sep 11 2003 (IPS)

When Ida Tarbell published her articles on John D. Rockefeller’s monopolistic excesses, the tycoon dubbed her ”Miss Tarbarrel”.. Years later in 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court declared his firm ‘The Standard Oil’ an ”unreasonable” monopoly, and ordered it dissolved.

Tarbell was a part of a movement in investigative journalism that thrived at the end of the 19th century, a period called ”The Age of Excess”. It took some time before Tarbell and her colleagues made an impact; but the investigations they carried out led to one of the most intense waves of reform ever known.

Does investigative journalism still have such influence today?

”I think the problem is not so much with investigative journalism, but with the relative strength or weakness of social institutions,” says Bill Kovach, founder of the Committee of Concerned Journalists (CCJ) in a written interview from Washington.

”Nothing was done until these and other exposés stimulated the development of the Progressive Movement in American politics and the elevation of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency [1901-09],” he says. ”This new political momentum led to significant change in the culture of the American government at the federal, state and local level.”

Investigative journalism can be the ”most effective method” a community can find to have a say in what kind of conduct is acceptable, Kovach says. ”Investigative journalism – which is journalism that discloses presumed wrongdoing – begins with a judgment that something is wrong. Once the article is published and the journalist’s case is made, the public has an opportunity to demand action by their public officials. In this way it is possible to keep social norms and values in step with changing social and cultural conditions.”

Peruvian investigative journalist Gustavo Gorriti says ”strong investigative journalism will almost always have an impact,” but that this will depend on several factors other than its quality, or the importance of the matter investigated.

”Are there reasonably healthy government institutions capable of following up with legal actions? Are there pockets of integrity within the government with enough strength and motivation to force such an inquiry or prosecution? Is the investigative report followed up by the media, or is it lost in the static of infotainment? Does it stir up and even mobilise public opinion or not?

”If the answers to these questions reveal a high proportion of negatives, then even the most brilliant and accurate investigative journalism will have a diminished immediate impact,” he says in an interview from Lima.

Maud Beelman, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) agrees. ”Investigative journalists play an important role in combating corruption,” she says. ”But they are not the only factor in the equation. This point is often lost on young journalists or those working in nascent democracies who complain that they have little impact on the system, and who wonder whether they should continue their work.” The ICIJ includes around 100 top investigative journalists from around the world.

Why then does Argentina have first-rate investigative journalists but a very high level of corruption? Argentina is listed in 73rd position after Uzbekistan, Malawi and Senegal in the 2002 Corruption Perceptions Index produced by Transparency International (TI), where the higher the number, the greater the corruption. Chile on the other hand is in 17th position in the index before Germany, Belgium or Spain. That makes it far cleaner than its neighbours though its media is among the less vigorous in the region.

”A corrupt, inefficient, wealth-losing yet literate and democratic country would provide a fertile ground for investigative journalism,” says Gorriti. ”Argentina has produced good investigative journalism because it is so corrupt rather than being corrupt despite good investigative journalism.”

Chile is not quite the opposite case, he says. ”It has had important problems of press freedom, but it has seen several good investigative stories published,” he says. ”Chile has traditionally been far less corrupt than Argentina. It has a tradition of a working civil service and a functional state and judiciary. There is comparatively less corruption to report than in Argentina, and at the same time the institutions of the state work better and are more respected by stability- minded Chileans.”

Is investigative journalism still changing the world in a significant way as before?

”Many things have changed, some for the better, others not,” says Gorriti. ”In many cases we are comparatively less immediately influential. Yet we stand on what they achieved, and while respectful and humbled by their work, we might be able to avoid some of their mistakes through methodical scepticism.”

Kovach recalls how, working as a reporter for The Nashville Tennessean in the 1960s, his refusal to leave a meeting of the key committee of the state legislature so the members could vote in secret resulted in what came to be called ‘sunshine’ laws in a number of states, and eventually national legislation by the Congress.

Seymour Hersh’s exposé of the My Lai bloodbath in Vietnam, and the Watergate scandal, are legendary. But in other cases change has been hard to achieve.

Gorriti started investigating Vladimiro Montesinos in the eighties, but former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s spymaster and deal-maker only went down in 2000. Does Peru’s example tell us anything about the vigour of investigative journalism today?

”I published my first investigation on Montesinos in 1983 and it had an impact then,” Gorriti says. ”Montesinos fled Peru for a while as a result of that exposé.”

There were other exposés, and after their publication Montesinos would lie low for some time, Gorriti says. ”He is, however, a comeback artist and was able to sneak his way in and seize national power,” he says. ”From that point on until his downfall journalism was only one of the means to combat him, and it has to be said that for a while he prevailed strategically even in journalism.”

Peru in the 1990s ”can be described as a confrontation between investigative journalists and spies,” he says. ”In the end, the spies lost.”

The 2003 edition of the TI report focuses on the need for greater access to information in the struggle against corruption. The report highlights the importance of the media, but it also mentions the dangers of ownership concentration, the pressures of advertising and the prevalence of corrupt practices among journalists.

”One of the more serious obstacles investigative journalism faces is the media itself,” Gorriti says. ”We focus a lot of attention on external threats and dangers to journalism, but have mostly overlooked the equally noxious internal threats. Investigative journalism needs some resources but more than anything a truly independent press, which is more the exception than the rule.”

Well-meaning courses have been introduced for working journalists, Gorriti says. ”Among them inevitably are courses on journalistic ethics,” he says. ”But I have yet to see even one course on ethics for media owners. Let that happen and the rest will take care of itself.”

Kovach believes that ”this is an important new frontier of transparency.” The public is increasingly aware that they do not know enough about ”how the media operate, how they make decisions, and what stake they have in the outcome of things they talk and write about. We believe that the press has an obligation to be as transparent about itself as it demands of all other institutions about which it reports. After all, we in the press have always believed we served public interest by shining light into dark places. Why should we not shine that light upon ourselves?”

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* Miren Gutiérrez is IPS Editor in Chief.

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