Vox pops from Brussels

What role will investigative journalism play in tomorrow’s media landscape?

Jeroen Trommelen (The Netherlands – De Volksrant)
Being a board member of the VVOJ and one of the organizers of this conference, I believe in investigative journalism and, more importantly, I think that it is one way to distinguish yourself from other media and to make your own product. In the future, news will become more freely available. So if you want to stand out and make clear what you stand for, as a medium, you need to use investigative journalism.

Harriet Torry (UK – freelance reporter)
I think there will be much more grass-roots reporting and citizen journalism through the internet. But I’m convinced that investigative journalism as such will still play a significant role in the future. It’s just a question of redefining the genre and trying to further involve new media.

Morten Ladegaard Halskov (Denmark – 3F)
I hope that we will see some very good investigative journalism in the future. In Denmark the situation is not very good at the moment, because a lot of newspapers lack proper resources. So they have to cut costs and because investigative journalism is expensive, it is often the first victim. Hopefully this will change soon, so we can have some very good stories. Now there are for example big opportunities to write in-depth stories about the financial crisis.

Ingrid Skjoetskift (Norway – Adresseavisen)
I hope investigative journalists will become more and more important, because you have all of this fast and easy news on the Internet and there is the need of a sort of a balance. Investigative journalism is important to counterbalance this garbage news.

Camiel Donicie (The Netherlands – Binnenlands Bestuur)
I hope investigative journalism will play a big role in the future, but I am quite pessimistic about it. The main problem is that most media don’t have the money to invest in in-depth reporting. Almost every newspaper is cutting costs nowadays and as a result journalists don’t have the time to dig deeper anymore.

Marjan Justaert (Belgium – De Morgen)
Every day it becomes harder and harder for investigative journalists to do their job, mostly because of the grim financial picture that the media face. But I still hope that – with the help of initiatives like this conference – investigative journalism will remain important and that media will still pay attention to the genre. It is very important to keep this type of journalism alive, but it won’t easy.