Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (typically abbreviated to TBIJ or 'the Bureau') is a nonprofit news organisation based in London. It was founded in 2010 to pursue investigations it deems to be in the public interest, funded through philanthropy.^[1] Though the Bureau publishes on its own website, it typically acts more like a news agency, working in collaboration with partner organisations to distribute stories.^[2] Since its founding it has collaborated with Newsnight, Panorama and File on 4 at the BBC, Channel 4 News and Dispatches, as well as the Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Sunday Times, among others.^[3] Its managing editor is Rachel Oldroyd.^[4]

History

The Bureau was established in 2010 by former Sunday Times reporter Elaine Potter, who worked on exposing the Thalidomide scandal, and her husband David Potter, who founded software company Psion. Elaine cites one of her inspirations being the creation two years previous of ProPublica, a nonprofit organisation based in New York with a similar remit, also funded philanthropically.^[5]

Initial funding for the project came from the Potters' charitable foundation, who committed £2 million.^[6] Additional support came in the forms of subsidised office space from City University^[7] as well as software tools and training from Google.^[6]

In the run-up to launch Stephen Grey was acting editor^[8] until the appointment of Iain Overton as its first permanent managing editor.^[9]

In November 2012 Overton resigned in the wake of a Newsnight programme which reported false claims that a senior Conservative politician was a paedophile. Overton had seconded Bureau reporter Angus Stickler to the BBC to work on the story, and promoted the broadcast on Twitter. Stickler also later resigned.^[10]

Former Sunday Times insight editor Christopher Hird was named as the new managing editor in December 2012.^[11] Rachel Oldroyd, then deputy editor, succeeded Hird in 2014,^[4] appointing Sunday Express home affairs editor Ted Jeory into her old position in 2015.^[12]

Notable investigations

The following is a list of Bureau stories that are known to have received awards or are otherwise noteworthy.

Iraq war logs

The Iraq war logs were 391,832 classified United States Army field reports leaked to WikiLeaks,^[13] who shared them with a number of news organisations including the Bureau before publishing them online in their entirety.^[14] The Bureau worked with Al Jazeera^[15] and Channel 4^[16] to analyse the documents which detail torture, summary executions, and war crimes carried out by US forces.^[17]

The Bureau's reporting received an Amnesty International Media Award.^[18]

Europe's missing millions

An investigation in collaboration with the Financial Times into how the European Union structural funds were used, and whether the policy was achieving what it set out to do.^[19] It found that millions of euros were being siphoned off by organised crime syndicates, and that money was being used to support multinational corporations instead of small and medium-sized businesses, including help to finance a British American Tobacco cigarette factory.^[19]

The Bureau co-produced an episode of File on 4 with the BBC on the story^[20] which received the UACES Reporting Europe Prize.^[21]

Lobbying's hidden influence

Public relations firm Bell Pottinger were the centre of a Bureau covert filming operation published in The Independent. In the footage senior executives claim that they can get UK prime minister David Cameron to speak to the Chinese premier on behalf of one of their clients within 24 hours, and that they have a team which "sorts" negative Wikipedia coverage.^[22]

Bell Pottinger subsequently filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission about the investigation, which was rejected.^[23]

Deaths in police custody

An investigation in collaboration with The Independent found that the number of people who had died after being forcibly restrained whilst in police custody was higher than official figures showed. This was due to the exclusion of anyone who had died following restraint but had not at that point been formally arrested.^[24] The Bureau also reported their findings with the BBC in an episode of File on 4.^[25]

The story won an Amnesty International Media Award.^[26]

Covert drone war

The Bureau has tracked drone strike casualties in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia from 2004 onwards. In Yemen and Somalia these figures also include victims of drone strikes, airstrikes, missile attacks and ground operations. Unlike other organisations that track such deaths, the Bureau focuses on identifying non-militant deaths, including children.^[27] The data from this research is published online.^[28]

Findings have included that rescuers are targeted at drone strike sites,^[29] that more civilians and children have been killed in strikes than previously reported,^[30] and challenging a CIA claim that no civilians had been killed in Pakistan drone strikes at that point.^[31]

The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism was jointly given to three Bureau reporters in 2013 for "their research into Barack Obama’s drone wars and their consequences for civilians".^[32]

Joint enterprise

The Bureau published the first statistical analysis of 'joint enterprise' homicide cases, which allows for several people to be charged with the same offence even though they may have played very different roles in the crime.^[33] The study found that black British men are more than three times as likely to be serving life sentences as a result of a joint enterprise conviction than those in the prison population overall.^[34]

Three Bureau reporters won the 2013-14 Bar Council Legal Reporting Award for the coverage.^[35]

Praise

In 2012 an early day motion was tabled in the British Parliament by eight Labour MPs praising the Bureau for its "quality work on exposing many national and international scandals".^[36]

Newsnight scandal

In November 2012 the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight aired an interview with Steve Messham, who claimed he was abused by an unnamed Conservative politician at a Welsh children's home in the 1970s.^[37] The broadcast was assisted by Bureau reporter Angus Stickler, who had been seconded to the BBC by then managing editor Iain Overton to work on the story.^[10]

Before the broadcast, a tweet sent by Iain Overton promoting the programme sparked an online frenzy to identify the subject of the allegations, with former Conservative party treasurer Lord McAlpine being named by many.^[10] After the broadcast Steve Messham apologised for the incorrect identification, saying that police had shown him a picture that was of his abuser but incorrectly told him the man was Lord McAlpine.^[38] BBC director-general George Entwistle resigned later that day.^[37]

Both Iain Overton and Angus Stickler also resigned from the Bureau.^[10] An internal review by the Bureau looking at the events leading up to the report concluded that though there were serious failures in reporting and editing the Bureau was not responsible for the content of the programme, which was edited by the BBC. However, they found that Iain Overton had made an error of judgement in seconding a reporter to help make a programme where they would be identified as a Bureau employee but over which the Bureau would have no control.^[39]

References

External links

• Official website