By Kendall Hutt
AUCKLAND (Asia Pacific Report/Pacific Media Watch): Investigative journalist and author Nicky Hager has taken journalism students inside the process behind the controversial book Hit & Run, outlining an example of investigative journalism.
He described Hit & Run as a book which “reconstructs a crime scene” five or six years after a botched raid by New Zealand’s SAS allegedly killed six and wounded 15 innocent civilians, as opposed to the fighters believed responsible for killing a fellow soldier in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2010.
But more importantly, Hager told students and staff at Auckland University of Technology last week, Hit & Run — co-authored with independent journalist Jon Stephenson — concerned “local business”.
“This is about us as New Zealanders and our military, that we pay for, and works on our behalf, whether it is sticking up for the values and beliefs and playing the role that we would want our country playing in the world, which we’ve got every right as New Zealanders to have opinions about, and feel strongly about,” he said.
“This is our business.”
1000-piece jigsaw puzzle
Hager described investigative journalism as a “related trade” to more traditional, everyday journalism, which is the “bloodstream of democracy”.
Hager told the third-year journalism students investigative journalism – sometimes a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle – could take “weeks, months, years” and explained it differed from regular journalism due to a few, key “ingredients”.
“Investigative journalism is actually just the people who put the time into chasing up that issue and sticking with it until they crack it.
“In other words, there’s no reason why anybody can’t be doing the work I’m talking about. Who has that public interest motivation, who likes research, and has some determination to stick at something until they crack it. Those are the ingredients.”
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