UK former Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year, says all journalism is investigative.
Nick Davies spoke about his view on investigative journalism during WAN-IFRA 2009 World Newspaper Congress - World Editors Forum.
A lot of news today consists of garbage such as celebrity news, he said.
"This isn't journalism. It's constitutionally free, but it's garbage," he said. "If you come across journalists that say they are investigative journalists, you have people with a personality problem," he said. "That's like saying the water in a bottle is wet."
"Long-term journalism usually occurs because someone is deliberately trying to construct information reporters need," he said.
"It's all an attempt to uncover the truth," he said.
"There is a threat to this so called investigative journalism," he said. "The threat is commercialism."
"Commercial pressure that has come piling down on publications is taking time away from reporting," he said.
A study in which the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent and the Daily Mail were analyzed suggested that 12 percent of their facts had not been checked.
"You take away our time. You take away our ability to do our jobs," he said.
"Looking in a micro perspective of journalism, there is that possibility that journalists will still be able to have arguments about getting more time for stories, but in a macro perspective, the solution is difficult to see," he said.
"The value of journalists is different than the executives and businessmen who run the newspaper and it needs to be recognized," he said. "Journalists should be able to select the stories that are important, find the truth and tell the truth," he said.
