Challenges Of Doing Investigative Reporting In Africa: ‘Walking Through A Minefield At Midnight?’

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When I was asked if I could do a 30-minute presentation on the topic, “Challenges of doing investigative reporting in Africa: Walking through a minefield at midnight?” my immediate reaction was that whoever framed the question unwittingly answered it.

Globally, doing investigative reporting is a risky venture, but it is a nightmare in most African countries where the necessary safety nets for journalists are virtually nonexistent.  

What is investigative reporting? How is it different from any other kind of journalism?

Isn’t investigative reporting simply good reporting? If the business of journalism is about finding the facts; if journalists, traditionally, are the watchdogs of the society, whose mission is to sniff out wrongs, point fingers at those to blame, and report in a way that brings about change, how then is investigative journalism different from any other genre of journalism?

Here, the Dutch Association for Investigative Journalism comes to our help by defining investigative reporting as “critical and thorough journalism.”

‘Critical’ means that journalism is not merely passing on ‘news’ that already exist. It implies news, which would not have been available without any journalistic intervention. This, the Association says “can be done by creating new facts, but also through re-interpretation or correlation of facts already at hand.” ‘Thorough,’ the group says, means that one makes an own substantial effort, either in quantitative  terms – much time spent in research, many sources consulted, etc. or in qualitative terms – sharp questions formulated, new approaches used, etc., or a combination of both.

Therefore, investigative reporting is that genre of journalism that is keen to bring the information that someone wants to be kept secret into the public light. This agrees with the definition of “news” by William Randolph Hearst, the late American newspaper magnate and leading publisher of his time, as “something somebody somewhere doesn’t want you to print. Everything else is advertising.”  

Paul Wilson, a freelance writer for Free Press Release, defines it as news with a difference. “It is critical and in-depth investigations into a happening or policy which will serve to prevent or correct a wrong, prevent crimes, save the planet from destruction, and shape the future of the world in more ways than one. It is reporting the unknown, the hidden, and so, the investigative journalist becomes the keeper or custodian of public conscience. It is a field where a mere niggling thought or suspicion becomes an expose of wrong doings. It questions actions and decisions and brings to the limelight outrageous acts and inhuman actions.” Simply put, he concluded, “An investigative journalist polices society in the larger interests of mankind.”

For any story to qualify as an investigative report, it must be based on the work of the journalist and where resources permit, his or her team. Such a report may start with a tip, and while such a tip may be an exclusive story if published, there must be an added value, an investigation must be carried out, not only to authenticate the source but to validate the claims in the tip for it to qualify as investigative reporting.

Is investigative journalism a new phenomenon? No! Australian journalist, John Pilger, once wrote in the Sydney Monitor about his fellow Australian, Edward Hall Smith, who, as far back as 1826, when Australia was still a colony, began campaigning against official corruption and the ill-treatment of convict labourers – and went to jail for his efforts.

 In 1880, Henry Demarest Lloyd published a series of articles, including The Story of a Great Monopoly (1881), exposing corruption in business and politics, in the Atlantic Monthly ; Lords of industry (1884) in the North American Review. These articles caused a stir and Lloyd has been described as the first American investigative journalist.

Investigative journalism became a movement in the U.S. in 1902 when magazines such as McClure and Everybody joined The Arena, established by Benjamin Flower in December 1899, in the struggle for social reform. These magazines became extremely popular and other mainstream publications such as Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post began publishing articles exposing corruption in politics and business.

They were called Muckrakers, a name pushed down their throat, literally, by President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during a speech delivered on April 14, 1906, drew on a character from John Bunyan’s 1678 classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, to chastise David Graham Phillips, who began a series of articles in the Cosmopolitan entitled The Treason in the Senate, which included an attack on some of the President’s political allies.

But it wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that the idea of investigative journalism became popular, thanks to the Watergate investigation in the U.S. by two journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The two journalists followed up a tip to uncover and painstakingly prove large-scale illegal activities by the US President Richard Nixon, leading to his resignation.

Seymour Hersh’s 1969 expose on the ‘My Lai Massacre’ and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1970, is also acclaimed as another piece of investigative reporting within the period.

In 1975, reporters and editors in the US founded the association for Investigative Reporters and Editors.  Following the murder in 1976 of Don Bollles, reporter at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, who was researching into land fraud involving organized crime, his colleagues decided to finish the project for him. That came to be known as the Arizona Project, a precursor for investigative journalists cooperating more intensely. In Europe investigative journalism associations sprang up in the 1980s.

But it was in 2001 that the first Global Investigative Conference was held in Copenhagen. Since then the Global Investigative Journalism              Network which meets every 18-24 months has held conferences in Copenhagen (2003), Amsterdam (2005), Toronto (2007), and Lillehammer (2008). This year’s conference will hold in Geneva.

Challenges of investigative reporting in Africa

The Challenges of investigative reporting in Africa are many and varied, ranging from inadequate material resources for sustained research or investigation, hostile political environment, absence of legal frameworks that compel the filing of public documents and authorize public access to such documents, poor communications infrastructure, inadequate journalistic skills to poor ethical standard.

The in-depth nature of the reports calls for greater resources and time. This poses enormous challenges. For the average African Editor, it is always a hard choice – why waste scarce resources when he can indeed produce a perfectly satisfactory newspaper by simply reporting on day-to-day events? Because of lean resources, not many media organizations in Africa can afford what it takes to undertake the level of research required for investigative reporting. Many are not yet large and diversified enough to afford specialized investigative units and many of the journalists lack access to formal skills training. The poor communications infrastructure and limited access to official archives and records particularly in the rural areas is also an issue.

Closely related to this is the fact that in most African countries, governments are the biggest advertisers. In Nigeria, for instance, most private companies that advertise also have close business links with the governments – federal and state – and can easily be blackmailed into freezing their advert placements. It is always a hard choice to make between publishing that investigative report that ruffles feathers and kissing goodbye to that huge advert revenue.

There is a school of thought, though, which believes that investigative reporting does not always have to take a lot of time and money. Journalism Professor, Anton Harber, a former editor of the Johannesburg-based Mail & Guardian, belongs to this school. It only takes “determination and commitment,” he stresses. Seymour Hersh agrees. The propensity of news organizations to cut back on investigative reporting, he asserts is “a concern more for the bottom line than for taking risks.”

This brings us to the next challenge even if tangentially. Sometimes, governments and big corporations preempt the media by infiltrating the newsrooms and actually having journalists on their payroll. Investigative journalism is usually the casualty.

Democratic Republic of Congo journalist, Sage-Fidele Gayala, puts this challenge in perspective:  “Many newsrooms in the countries where we work are not clean. Newsroom players can be drawn in many ways into the traps laid by industry, business or policy-makers, whether these involve threats or ‘buying’ journalists. Even many of our newspapers themselves have dubious origins, having been given start-up funding by one interest group or another. Editors are the primary targets, and sometimes the main offenders, and when working in such a context, a young journalist will have great difficulty in completing an investigative project.”

Lai Oso, a Nigerian Professor of Journalism, agrees with Gayala. “The issues of ownership and control, and the material context of news production are crucial in determining the type of journalism we could have. However well-trained the practitioners are, they work within the limit set by the socio-economic environment and the historical circumstances prevailing at a particular time within the society,” he argues. These challenges throw up the issue of poor ethical standard which is an undertaker of investigative journalism.

But for me, the greatest challenge of investigative reporting in Africa is the absence of legal frameworks that compel the filing of public documents and authorize public access to such documents. Freedom of Information legislation is a body of rules that guarantee access to data held by the state. They establish a “right-to-know” legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions.

As Priscilla Nyokabi, programme officer for the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists once noted: “There are many reasons for having freedom of information legislation: to make government more accountable, increase public participation, promote the involvement of all in public life, including those currently marginalized, like women; to make private companies more accountable, monitor and expose corruption, lead to better decision making, protect privacy, expose human rights violations, and promote workers’ rights; and to make the country more secure. Access to information is instrumental to parliament’s oversight role.”

It is the basic tool that any investigative journalist needs to work. It is in realization of its importance that over 90 countries around the world have one form of Freedom of Information Act or the other, with Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act setting the pace in 1766.

Sweden’s FoI Act known as Offenlighetsprincipen (The principle of Public Access) means that the general public are to be guaranteed an unimpeded view of the activities pursued by the government and local authorities; all documents handled by the authorities are public unless legislation explicitly and specially states otherwise, and even then each request for potential sensitive information must be handled individually, and a refusal is subject to appeal. Further, the constitution grants the right to inform, meaning that even some (most) types of secret information may be passed on to the press or other media without risk of criminal charges. Instead, investigation of the informer’s identity is a criminal offence.

Almost two and half centuries after Sweden blazed the trail, only five African countries – South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Angola – have FoI laws. The Access to Information and Privacy Act (AIPPA) was signed into law in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe in February 2007. In Uganda, the Access to Information Act was approved in 2005 and went into effect in 2006. South Africa passed the Promotion of Access to Information Act on February 2, 2000.

But of the five countries, it is only in South Africa that the basic tenet of FoI regime – maximum disclosures, minimum exemptions – is observed. In other countries, the reverse is the case. It is minimum disclosure, if any at all, and maximum exemptions. Take the case of Zimbabwe for instance, not only are there numerous and very broad exemptions on the exercise of the right to information, there are several draconian provisions aimed at controlling the exercise of journalism in the country. The Act has been used more to censor the press. Two Ugandan journalists, Angelo Izama and Charles Mwanguhya of the independent Monitor newspaper, went to court recently to compel their government’s disclosure of multinationals oil deals. The case was filed to appeal the refusal of Uganda’s Attorney General to provide them with certified copies of oil exploitation agreements because of alleged confidentiality clauses in the documents. While the journalists argued that the information was of public interest, the Chief Magistrate, Deo Ssejjemba, ruled against them on the ground that they had not proved the public benefit of disclosing the information.

In many African countries, progress in the enactment of the legislation remains sluggish, even stalled. In my country, Nigeria, for instance, the FoI Bill now has the unenviable tag of the oldest bill in the National Assembly. Introduced in 1999, at the inception of the present democratic dispensation, both houses of parliament passed it in 2007 but the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, refused to sign. Since then, all attempts to re-introduce it have been thwarted. As at 2008, Morocco was the only country with a draft bill of Freedom of Information legislation in North Africa.

Yet, freedom to information is enshrined as a fundamental human right by the United Nations, and upheld by the African Charter on Human and People’s Right. The Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa explicitly states: “Public bodies hold information not for themselves but as custodians of the public good and everyone has a right to access this information, subject only to clearly defined rules established by law.”

Many have blamed this anomaly on colonial heritage and the long period of military rule, which they insist entrenched in the conduct of government business in most African governments, a culture of secrecy, which insulates governments and their actions from public scrutiny. “Ours (Africa) is a continent of silences” was the way Activist Elinor Sisulu, who worked to document the post-independence Gukurahundi massacre in Zimbabwe, put it.

Whatever might be responsible, one fact is glaring: It is still early days in the enactment of Freedom of Information laws on the African continent. As Mukelani Dimba, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Open Democracy Advice Centre, South Africa, observed in 2008, “Freedom of Information advocates have a formidable task ahead of them, which is nothing short of changing the culture from that of secrecy to that of openness”

Shredding these blankets of secrecy by ensuring that retrogressive privacy laws are consigned to the dustbin of history is one of the biggest challenges of investigative reporting in Africa.

Walking through a minefield at midnight?

If investigative reporting reveals scandals, and shames the individuals involved, as indeed it does, it goes without saying, therefore, that those caught out in wrong doing will never like it and in fighting back, they are always brutal. In Africa, investigative reporters are increasingly censored, kidnapped, tortured, imprisoned and in the worst cases, killed.

Even with the increasing number of countries that profess democracy on the continent, most investigative journalists are still facing serious repression. Radio stations are closed frequently, journalists are afraid to publish freely anything that is critical of their governments. They face expensive law suits, torture and intimidation, prison and closure of their papers. Many African governments are known for their systematic denial of information to journalists. In some countries, like Rwanda, public information has become “classified information.” Most journalists face trumped-up and fabricated charges, aimed at silencing them.

In its 2007 report on the state of the global media, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) rated Asia the most repressive and unaccommodating region for journalists, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, where independent journalists and media outlets battle with “obnoxious laws.”

According to the report, “More and more journalists in sub-Saharan Africa are prosecuted and jailed on charges of ‘endangering state security,’ whereas harsh repression through ‘insult laws’ and criminal defamation continues. Threats, attacks and violence target those who report the inconvenient truth, whether it is linked to the handling of conflict situation, abuse of power or personal misconduct.”

For instance, in 2006, the Obasanjo government bought an aircraft, a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), which it claimed was bought new from Boeing at a cost of N9 billion. My Aviation Correspondent, Rotimi Durojaiye, investigated the story and found out that the aircraft was neither new nor bought from Boeing. In fact, Boeing was emphatic in saying that Nigeria never placed an order for any aircraft. The investigation also revealed that the aircraft was actually bought from Lufthansa and refurbished at the cost of N3 billion. So, pertinent questions were raised in the report. A week after the story was published, Durojaiye was arrested in Lagos by security operatives and taken to Abuja where he was kept in solitary confinement in an underground cell for five days. When he was eventually charged to court, it was for sedition.

Across Africa, many journalists have been forced into exile and some others are languishing in jail for “embarrassing the government.” But those are the luckier ones. Some others have been killed in cold blood.  While as a country like Gambia that does not have constitutional protection either of the right of access to information specifically or the right to freedom of expression generally, remain, according to Dimba, “One of the most dangerous places for the practice of journalism on the continent,” Somalia, where a total of 14 journalists have been killed since 2007; nine of them last year, indubitably leads the pack.

In Nigeria, the story is not different. Since the killing, through a letter bomb, of Dele Giwa, the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine, on October 19, 1986, about seven other journalists have been murdered. On December 22, 2006, the chairman of the Editorial Board of Thisday newspapers, Godwin Agbroko, was shot dead in Lagos, on his way home from the office. Nothing was taken away from the car by his assailants. Abayomi  Ogundeji, another member of the Thisday Editorial Board was also killed by unknown gunmen on his way from office on August 17, 2008. On September 20, 2009, Bayo Ohu, an Assistant Editor with The Guardian, was killed in his home. His murderers only took away his laptop and cell phone.  Just last month, precisely April 24, Edo Sule Ugbagwu, Judiciary reporter with The Nation newspapers, was killed in his home.

All these journalists had one thing in common – they were said to be investigating some stories. Till date, the Nigerian police have not been able to solve any of these assassination riddles.

Without any protection from the state, with laws that hound rather than protect enterprising journalists, doing investigative reporting in Africa, literally speaking, is tantamount to walking a minefield at midnight.

Why Investigative Journalism?

Investigative reporting benefits the journalist, his media organization and the society. As has been noted, it is journalism’s own instrument to restrain the abuse of political and economic power. It is the ultimate pride of the profession which best serves the public service character of journalism.

As Gavin Macfadyen, Director of the UK-based Centre for Investigative Journalism noted in his address to the 2007 Taco Kuiper Awards ceremony for investigative journalists in Johannesburg, “When serious investigations appear, people talk about it. Many know, driven by word of mouth. Sales rise, viewing figures climb, programmes acquire real credibility and more importantly still they achieve a loyal following. When news really affects people, they talk about it and they will follow it. It also affects the culture of the press. Editors and producers become more sophisticated practitioners, or more combative, knowing how to use media law to enable rather than put the brakes on exposure, building viewers and readers by more aggressive reporting.”

But, most importantly, for every journalist, investigative reporting is the right thing to do because it is responsible journalism and it is the key to becoming respected in the industry.

Ikechukwu Amaechi

Kampala, Uganda – May 28, 2010