Fika Afterthought: 2015

Quest complete! Now what?

July 11, 2015

The gathering of truth seeker: A report from Gräv Conference 2015

March 28, 2015

We are living in the era where getting information is as easy as pie, thanks to the advancement of society. However, it doesn't mean that the real information that matters are always accessible to us. The truth about certain issues such as corruption or other cases might be buried -intentionally or not- under hundreds of information that are exposed to us everyday. This is where investigative journalism hold important role, to dig the information that should be revealed to society.

The conference

A week ago, as a member of Swedish Institute's Network of Future Global Leader, I got an opportunity to attend Gräv workshop and conference on investigative journalism in Jönköping. The conference was held by Swedish Association of Investigative Journalist, and it is known as one of the most appreciated meeting for Swedish journalist. Gräv itself means "to Dig", what an appropriate name for the conference! As a communication student, I was very much interested to get a sneak peak of investigative journalist's effort in communicating important messages to society.

The night before the workshop started, me and fellow NFGL members received a warm welcome from Södra Vätterbygdens Folkhögskola, a folk school located on a beautiful hills in Jönköping. It was said that the journalism program of SVF had produced a lot of competent alumni in the related field. Peter Johnson, the head of the journalism program, explained that their school emphasizes practical experience for the students, thus they always make sure that the students get proper facilities and internship experiences. Some students of SVF like Frida whom we met at the welcome visit and dinner also help the Gräv conference as volunteer.

Tour de SVF

The workshop (and excursion bonus)

My curiosity about how Swedish investigative journalist work was immediately answered through the workshop, that was held in Elmia Exhibition and Conference Centre. The speakers of the workshop were, in order of presentation: Nils Hanson, a managing editor of Uppdrag Granskning (Mission Investigate) program in SVT channel; Sven Bergman, a reporter/producer from the same program who had a lot of international experiences, including the discovery of an international bribery cases; Erik Palm, who won an award for investigating mistreatment of elderly in retirement houses; and Kerstin Weighl, columnist for Aftonbladet newspaper who wrote a thorough investigation on women who were killed by their partners/ex-partners.

The speakers

My conclusion after following the talk and interactive discussion with the speakers:

Investigative journalism is necessary in order to create changes in the society, to make people aware about the truth.
Creating an impactful story for investigative journalism is a lengthy process. There are a lot of steps that are needed to be taken, from creating a reasonable and critical hypothesis to fact-checking and approaching the vital subjects and sources.
Communication takes an important role during the whole process of creating and presenting the story. For instance, in order to gain information from the key resources, journalists need to be tactful in persuading the resources to talk. Trust building is important, and guaranteeing anonymity and secrecy is one of the most important aspects to achieve that (Sven Bergman gave some example of the apps that may come in handy for sending encrypted messages and such). Here we also need to be aware about the ethical boundaries; Making hidden recording or ambush interview are permitted by law, but these should be done only as the last resort, when the other methods failed.
Journalist needs to pay attention for rhetoric on presenting their story. In the case of Kerstin Weighl story, for example, she noticed that many people still refer to the killed women as victim of a "family tragedy", not the victim of a crime. Hence she never used the word family tragedy in her writing, because she wanted to change the perception of the people regarding this case.
Despite the effort of promoting freedom of information, every regions in the worlds still have a lot of issues that are needed to be investigated, such as corruption, majority-minority conflicts, and many others. Legislative improvement and technological know-how, and strengthening the network and bargaining power of journalist are some factors that we considered to be necessary to improve the process of investigative journalism.

After the workshop ended, NFGL members got a bonus trip to Gränna, a small village in Jönköping known for its polkagris -a red and white peppermint stick candy-. Naturally we visited a candy factory that made me feel like I was in a candy land. We also visited a museum dedicated for Salomon August Andree's attempt for polar expedition. It was impressive to see the efforts done by our past generation in exploring the worlds.

Candies!

The conference & award dinner

The Gräv conference gave me even further knowledge on how investigative journalism works in various contexts. There were many sessions held by experienced experts and journalists from different background, from a tech and web expert to the brave journalists who wrote stories from conflict area.

Sessions

Some of my afterthoughts of the seminars:

The development of technology could really help journalist on doing investigation. For example, Henk van Ess from the Netherlands guided us how to find personal information on the internet using very minimum clue. We should be aware though that it means our information could easily be available online as well *brb fixing my facebook privacy setting*.
There are many issues that investigative journalists should be aware of, one of them is lobbying practice in the government that becomes more complex.
As the world is becoming more interconnected, scandal and corruption cases are becoming more interconnected too. It makes cooperation between international journalists to be more important than ever. A session by Fredrik Laurin and Hisham Allam gave a good example on how a group of international journalists can create an international impact by investigating the leaked file of HSBC Swiss which led to the discovery of secret bank accounts of important people around the world.
Investigative journalism exist in countries that many people thought quite strict on freedom of information, such as Russia. Dedicated journalists can still dig the information regarding corruption or related cases. However, the biggest challenges is how to make society aware about the importance of the issue, because at some point people have already normalized corruption and lack of transparency.
Speaking about political situation, some sessions also addressed current situation on the war of information especially in the area of Russia-Eastern Europe. Propaganda can exist in many ways, so it is the role of investigative journalists to always re-check any action and information statement deliver by seemingly neutral politicians or media.
Being free from personal bias is necessary for journalist, but when it comes to the real situation it could be tricky. For example, how to make sure that journalist who come from one of the side of the Ukraine-Russia conflict won't put their personal opinion on the investigation?
Being an investigative journalists in conflict area like the middle East give a lot of challenges, but somebody has to do it. The question that remains is, how much should the journalist cover the story about some extremist group in the middle east? How to make sure that the journalist got the real truth when the one who provide them information have higher bargaining power in the situation?

Some sessions left us with more questions afterwards, a sign that we have good discourse and critical audiences. I noticed that many of the conference guests came from Eastern Europe and Middle East. It would be interesting to hear more stories from the other part of the worlds. Another thing to note, on the first day of the conference, the committee provided a mingle opportunity for journalists and NFGL students during lunch time. I had an enjoyable conversation with the experienced journalists regarding Swedishness and what kind of personality suitable for a journalist job.

The last event was dinner and Golden Shovel award ceremony, an award given by FGC (the investigative journalist association in Sweden) for best investigative journalism report. The dinner was great (I ate a reindeer meat!), but more importantly it was such a pleasant experience to see how the reporters got appreciation for their hard work on delivering important issues to society.

Left-down: The reindeer meat!

Attending Gräv was such a rewarding experience. Not only I got a lot of new knowledge, but I managed to strengthen the network with SI scholars, alumni, and journalists. When the tight schedule got me a little bit tired, it was the talk with fellow NFGL friends that bring my spirit back. All in all, I am really grateful for the opportunity given by the Swedish Institute to attend the conference. I am positive that the things we learned from the conference will be useful for our pursuit of better world.

Quest complete! Now what?

The gathering of truth seeker: A report from Gräv Conference 2015

Past Notes

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