Once, I believed that humanity’s problem was an information deficit. Now, I know you can’t speak truth to power if power controls your words.. But perhaps the ground is shifting. Citizen journalism is flowering, through the Bylines network, openDemocracy, Double Down News , Novara, Declassified and DeSmog, and in particular at the local level. 

George Monbiot

The BBC I joined on my first day of professional journalism – 40 years ago this week – is unrecognisable today. While, for most of its history, the corporation had largely defended the status quo, under the director general at the time, Alasdair Milne, its journalists were sometimes allowed to stick it to power. This, I believe, is what journalism exists to do – and seldom does.

As a student, I’d hammered on the doors of the BBC’s Natural History Unit, insisting there was a major gap in its coverage: investigative environmental reporting. If they took me on, I argued, I could help them fill it. The phone rang as I was leaving the house for one of my final exams. It was the head of the unit, saying: “You’re so fucking persistent you’ve got the job.”

My immediate boss, the head of radio, instructed me to “get the bastards”. Investigative journalists were much freer then. It was easier to obtain permission to set up a fake company, pose as a buyer and penetrate criminal networks and unethical corporations.

We broke some big stories. On one occasion, we amassed powerful evidence to suggest that a ship leaking oil on a sensitive coastline had been deliberately scuppered. That programme won a Sony award. On another, I had the head of customs in Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, offering to sell me chimpanzees for experiments. It was gripping and felt meaningful: we could see the difference we made. This was all I ever wanted to do, and I thought I was set up for life.

On 29 January 1987, disaster struck. The BBC’s investigations had infuriated the Thatcher government, particularly the Secret Society series, which had exposed clandestine decision-making, and the Panorama programme Maggie’s Militant Tendency, alleging far-right views among senior Conservatives (which they denied). The BBC board forced the resignation of Alasdair Milne. The following day, when my boss came into the office, he told me: “That’s it. No more investigative journalism.” How can you have journalism if it’s not investigative, I countered. “Don’t tell me that. It’s come from the top.”

It wasn’t just my career that hit the buffers: it was my worldview. I had naively believed that humanity’s problem was an information deficit. Shine a light and change would follow. Now, I began to see, while the pen might be mightier than the sword, the wallet is mightier than the pen….

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/20/journalist-40-years-forces-profession-power

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