MiG Deal & The Heavy Price I Paid In The Name Of Investigative Journalism

By Iqbal Athas –JANUARY 30, 2019

Iqbal Athas

I am proud to be associated with today’s inauguration of the Sri Lanka Centre for Investigative Journalism. I thank your Board of Governors for honouring me by inviting me to deliver the keynote address.

I take delight for many reasons. I am the only Sri Lanka member of the Washington based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The membership is peer recommended. They are the first global organisation to use the cyber space to collaborate in investigative projects. You will recall one of the widely publicised recent projects known as Panama Papers.

Years earlier, as a member from their beginning I colloborated in their project titled “The Business of War.” Now in the form of a book, it deals with mercenary groups and how some of them gained legitimacy in battle zones. It included a part on Sri Lanka.

Your parent organisation in Washington DC, the Global Investigative Journalists Network (GIJN) is an offshoot of the ICIJ. I count as a good friend David Kaplan, the Executive Director. He held the same position earlier with the ICIJ.

Like a good recipe for a particular dish, there are different definitions about investigative journalism. To use his own words, Kaplan says there is  – In-depth reporting, enterprise reporting or project reporting. “All these,” he says, “are loosely grouped under investigative journalism.” He identifies five different characteristics:

1. Systematic Inquiry. This means you are taking your time and going in a systematic way to analyse what is going on. The work you are doing is original and in-depth. Original reporting is investigative journalism.

2. Forming a hypothesis about what is going on. To form a theory, find the facts that will support it. If it does not, you have to abandon it.

3. Using public records and public data. Investigative Reporting is following people, money, paper and data trails, collect public records, documents leaked and analyse them.

4. Making public matters that are secrets that remain hidden. Investigative Reporters are often dealing with secret information. The people in power does not want it brought out. It is embarrassing for them.

5. Focus on social justice and accountability.

I am not a teacher in investigative journalism. I will not, therefore, deal with the different technical aspects. Instead, I believe, it may be useful for those of you, who want to pursue investigative journalism, if I share some of my personal experience in this field.

Before I do that, please permit me to strike a personal note. Fifty years ago, straight out of school, I walked into the office of now-defunct SUN / WEEKEND in Hulftsdorp. It was then one of the largest groups. I did not realise it was going to be the turning point in my life.

I was offered a job as a Reporter and requested to work the very next day. I asked for time. I had to wind up a course in Sales Management. A week later, when I joined to cover Tamil political parties due to my fluency in Sinhala and Tamil languages.

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