Despite the critical situation of the Italian news media in terms of newsrooms’ resource availability and the lack of a professional tradition (Gerli et al., 2018; Štětka & Örnebring, 2013), the journalists interviewed recognise the importance of investigative journalism. As the managing editor of la Repubblica states:
Investigative journalism is the so-called non-fungible journalism, which allows us to make a difference towards the most demanding readers who come to look for something they may not find elsewhere. This is important to safeguard the role of information and the media in keeping attention on certain issues high, but it also becomes a strategic asset when the business model changes.
In this regard, as a journalist of the Il Fatto Quotidiano underlines that investigative journalism is the core of the news organisation’s mission itself:
For each event, we never just address the problem of reporting what is happening. We also try to dig into the nature of the facts, doing things that, in general, other newspapers do not dare out of “complacency” towards power […]. Our goal is to combine the history of the facts with meticulous search and to discover what is behind facts, also from the economic point of view.
Nevertheless, the financial resources and dedicated professional teams within the editorial offices are very limited among the selected leading media outlets (Il Fatto Quotidiano, la Repubblica, Sky Tg24). According to the managing editor of la Repubblica,
We try to create a structure within the editorial staff that is dedicated to this type of journalism, with colleagues who are outside of the daily production and dedicate themselves to this activity. I would not say “Spotlight team like”, however, the idea is to have some colleagues who can work outside the everyday rhythms in order to do to more in-depth work, with adequate time available.
Hence, investigative journalism imposed changes in the newsrooms’ organisation and professionals’ routines, impacting both the budget resources and time management. As the managing editor of Sky Tg24 explains,
On some stories, there is an investment of time and money which is generally established in advance. Therefore, we try to think of this also as an investment in terms of intellectual and monetary assets. Obviously, it’s not an unlimited budget, but there is enough to decide what to do […]. First of all, there is work on the dossiers. Once the attention is focused on that fact, one or several colleagues are commissioned to start working on it, putting together documentation. This does not necessarily mean that we will then come to an investigation, but it is the beginning of something. This needs some weeks or sometimes even months. In the sense, we have annual deadlines, three or four, in which we have spaces of inquiry plus those that are potentially added on the wave of topical issues.
In general, according to the professionals interviewed, investigations remain only a privileged and expensive niche within the newsrooms’ daily work, and no specific rules have been codified to conduct them.
The public service broadcaster encourages investigative journalism in its mission, but the editorial format and the hierarchical organisation of the newsrooms restrict this (Tg1). As Tg1 managing editor claims,
Investigative journalism is not sufficiently represented in the offer of news programmes. This is for a number of reasons because the bureaucratic-productive routines have been strongly focused on the logic of the news bulletin rather than the news as a “television newspaper”. This is a big limitation because it is still too difficult to push in depth analysis even within the daily dimension of the TV news.
Transnational partnerships for investigative journalism should be mentioned. Il Fatto Quotidiano has established a collaboration with the French investigative journal Mediapart, publishing their content weekly, and la Repubblica is one of the eight media partners of the European Leading European Newspaper Alliance organisation (Lena), established to improve journalism in Europe by sharing common investigations. Another positive example of international partnership is the European Investigative Collaboration established in 2016 to jointly promote investigative journalism with a focus on European topics to understand how power structures affect European communities. l’Espresso participates for Italy, alongside prestigious news media such as Der Spiegel (Germany), Le Soir (Belgium), Mediapart (France), El Mundo (Spain), Falter (Austria), Politiken (Denmark), and Newsweek Serbia (Serbia).
