Introduction

In late 2018, I started preparing a proposal for a new book on police and media relations. I had nearly finished it when, scrolling through Twitter one afternoon, I noticed that there was a three-day event called ‘Conspiracy’ at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in South East London; according to the publicity note, its aim was to bring together ‘investigative journalists, whistleblowers, hackers, artists and experts to challenge power and reinvigorate the field of investigative journalism’. I was in two minds whether to attend. On the one hand, as a qualitative researcher working in a rapidly changing field, there is always the temptation to do ‘one more interview’, just in case you have missed something crucial. On the other hand, there is also the knowledge that, however many interviews you carry out, ultimately all you can do is provide a snapshot of the field you are observing; by the time your book or article comes out, the world you are describing will almost certainly have changed.

I decided to attend the conference. I was very glad I did, as the initial session I attended ended up changing the scope of my research and the content of this book. That first session was called ‘Who Pays The Piper’ and centred around issues of funding for the new investigative non-profits. These non-profit organisations, as I found out, differed from traditional journalism outlets, in that they were funded by philanthropic foundations or member-donors and so were able to operate without the concern of debt, dividends and the need to make a profit. There were two speakers at this session: Rachel Oldroyd, the managing director of The Bureau for Investigative Journalism, one of the largest British non-profits; and Matt Kennard, a freelance investigative journalist. Both previously had considerable highlevel experience in mainstream journalism: Rachel Oldroyd had worked for the Mail on Sunday for 13 years, where she ran the award winning ‘Reportage’ section in the Mail’s magazine supplement, Live; while Matt Kennard had written for The New Statesman, The Guardian, The Financial Times, OpenDemocracy and Intercept.