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If it swims, it's a fish. Or is it?

by Alex Ulmanu
October 2004

It came as no surprise to Luiza Ilie, a former student of the University of Bucharest's School of Journalism now studying in the US, that most of the stories presented as 'investigations' in Romanian newspapers were actually far from investigative reporting. Ilie monitored several leading newspapers for her University of Bucharest graduation thesis, and discovered that what was usually labeled as investigations were in fact reports of findings or inquiries belonging to institutions such as the police or the prosecutor's office.

In a country where one of the most important problems impeding the natural development of democracy and the market economy is corruption, journalistic investigations should be one of the main tools for cleansing society. But journalists often fail to properly use the tools of their profession in order to provide the public with real, well documented inquiries into facts of interest for readers.

Someone not familiar with journalists' terminology might argue that almost any type of journalism is an investigation, since it involves asking questions and getting answers. But in the profession, investigative journalism is a branch of its own. Among other characteristics, investigative reporting must start from a dubious affair of public interest, that someone is trying to keep secret; and journalists must produce their own original investigation, not merely report on somebody else's inquiry.

Romania is full of dubious affairs that someone is trying to keep secret. In this respect, Romanian journalists are blessed compared to their colleagues in other countries. Unfortunately, too many journalists here seem to be either ignorant or lazy; in other words, either these journalists do not know what constitutes a real investigation (mostly due to a lack of proper journalistic education and training), or they are too comfortable to go out and verify whether the dossiers and information received from their sources are indeed confirmed by reality. Sometimes they are both ignorant and lazy. And sometimes they are just following orders from their editors or employers who have an interest in slanting an issue in a certain way. Anyhow, all three cases can be translated with the help of a single word: unprofessional.

Two Bucharest-based journalists, one working for Adevarul, the other for Jurnalul National, have recently published Jurnalismul de investigatie (Polirom, 2004), the first book on investigative reporting written by people who practice investigative reporting in Romania. Liviu Avram and Cristian Grosu have each published numerous investigations, and that is why they can afford to talk of Romanian investigative reporting from the inside and to criticise its flaws.

Since the book is short, lacks any bibliography, but on the other hand is loaded with useful examples, it was labeled a practical guide. And, since many Romanian journalists hate manuals but love guides, maybe some of those who call themselves investigative reporters will read it and learn how to improve their work. Or, maybe, they will just ignore it.

When stories compiled from police reports or court records are called 'investigations' in some papers, such a book, be it short and incomplete, provides a useful service to everyone: journalists, because they can learn how to work better; the public, if journalists really start working in a better way; and the victims of journalists, if the public starts getting more correct information from journalists working in a better way. By victims I mean all those people, guilty of wrongdoing or not, who are depicted in an incorrect way in the press, or affected, directly or indirectly, by media coverage. That would be - who, exactly? Well, all those named in articles compiled after police or prosecutor's office reports called killers or crooks or thieves when they are nothing but suspects until soundly proven guilty; all those people brought in by the police and forced to confess their guilt in front of television cameras, without being told they should receive legal counseling, on news broadcasts or shows like 'Police in action'; all those people attacked in the media based on unilateral information fed to newspapers in the form of dossiers fabricated by their political or business adversaries. And the list goes on.

Avram and Grosu talk of the 'Tundrea case', of which the media reported in May this year. Following proof that he was actually not guilty of the rape and murder he had been convicted of, a man was freed after serving 12 years in prison. ''One is terrified at the thought that, at that time (the early 1990s), there could have been journalists from investigation departments to compile the statements in the file and maybe ask, with the right 'civic spirit', for an exemplary punishment of the 'criminal','' Avram and Grosu write in their book. ''And similar situations appear regularly, especially in the area of white collar crime, with files coming from institutions such as the Garda Financiara or the Auditors Court - who are significantly large providers of such dossiers to the press.''

The authors of the book argue that ''the incompetence and, in more than a few cases, the bad intentions of the authorities leading the inquiry result in errors or abuses that might compromise the credibility of the journalist who takes that dossier for granted.'' That is why the two journalists point out that simply presenting a file obtained from such authorities, be it detailed and accompanied by relevant documents, is not investigative reporting.

In the same way, one cannot talk of investigative reporting when journalists present ''dossiers that have been buried for years in the prosecutor's office file cabinets and have 'exploded' overnight.'' Publishing statements to the prosecutor by Maria Vlas, the former director of the Fondul National de Investitii, who was arrested after wrongdoings left thousands of small investors in ruin several years ago, means, maybe, that the journalist has very good sources at the prosecutor's office, and not that he has been doing investigative reporting, the authors argue. A real journalistic investigation, they write, could have been done during the times when the business was still flourishing, to uncover the fraud and corruption it was based on.

And one cannot talk of investigative reporting when journalists write stories based on dossiers given to the press by ''people or institutions interested to create media pressure on an adversary - in business or political circles,'' Avram and Grosu point out. Indeed, especially in election years, when political combatants try to undermine each other's credibility, such stories abound in Romania's media. No one says journalists should not use such information when they have it. But they should investigate the case themselves in search of evidence, and not take anything they read for granted. Until more reporters start doing so, just don't believe everything you read in the papers.

Alex Ulmanu lectures in media and is the founder and director of the StartMedia foundation.