I'm unable to attend what promises to be a fascinating debate on Friday evening at the University of Westminster's Regent Street headquarters. The motion, "Investigative journalism today is just dross by any other name", will be proposed by Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne. He will argue that contemporary investigative journalism avoids serious inquiry, and focuses instead on providing voyeuristic entertainment for the masses rather than concentrating on facts.
Supporting Oborne will be Simon Ford, executive producer of BBC 2's The Tower series, and University of Westminster professor of communications Steve Barnett. Speaking against will be Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News, Dorothy Byrne, head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, and Peter Barron, editor of Newsnight.
The debate, which kicks off at 4pm in the Old Cinema, promises to be the highlight of the "Investigative journalism goes global" conference that marks the publication of the second edition of Routledge's Investigative Journalism, edited by Hugo de Burgh, with several new chapters, including one by me on investigative reporting in the red-tops. (It's longer than you might think).
During the day there will also be a panel discussion involving John Pilger, undercover TV reporter Donal MacIntyre, the veteran Guardian journalist David Leigh, and Stephen Grey, who exposed Europe's involvement in flying terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay in his book Ghost Plane.
"This is one of the most exciting gatherings on investigative journalism the country has seen," says de Burgh. "To have such a large number of experts in the field together in one place will stimulate a great deal of informed debate."
