January 30, 2025 • 37 mins
In this week's Chatter that Matters titled "Truth Seeker," we delve into the vital and fascinating realm of investigative journalism through the perspective of Robert Cribb. Rob has received both national and international reporting awards for his investigations into offshore tax evasion, child exploitation, human trafficking, dangerous doctors, environmental hazards, and public safety. He was part of the international reporting team that produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama Papers investigation in 2017.
Can democracy survive without reporters like Rob, who are willing to search within the shadows for the truth?
You will also gain insight into the emotional toll of 24/7 journalism, which often lasts for months, and the risks those who expose what others deliberately conceal in the shadows face.
Rob Cribb is also the founder and director of the Investigative Journalism Bureau, an impact-driven newsroom based at the University of Toronto that unites senior journalists, academics, students, and media organizations to share thoroughly reported stories in the public interest. The bureau is built on a decade of experimenting with a model that uncovers powerful new truths while training the next generation of investigative reporters. This pioneering work has resulted in dozens of significant investigations published on newspaper front pages, television screens, and podcast streams that have enlightened, informed, and influenced public policy.
To learn more about the Investigative Journalism Bureau, visit https://ijb.utoronto.ca
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
I fell in love with reading at the age of 5. Thanks to my mother's
unwavering insistence that I read 3 pages of a book before I could go
out and play. But she didn't just hand me the
simple cheerful tales of Dick and Jane. No. My
mom made me read The Silver Skates by Hans Christian
Andersen, story rich to adventure,
(00:25):
resilience, and the power of drapes. From those
early pages, a spark was ignited. It was like an appreciation for
the worlds that books could open. And over time, my love for
storytelling deepened and expanded beyond fiction into the
realm of nonfiction. Those true stories, the autobiographies
and biographies, and then eventually investigative journalism.
(00:47):
All of the above captivated me in a way no fiction ever could.
Not fiction when it's done right doesn't just inform, it really does
fire my imagination. It allows me to walk into the author's
shoes, to see the world that they're investigating through their eyes, and
to wrestle with the truth they uncover. That's why investigative
journalism holds a special place in my heart. It takes us beyond
(01:09):
surface level narratives. It demands that we confront
uncomfortable truths and more importantly that we consider new perspectives.
It's a craft that bridges the personal and the universal. And in
doing so, it embodies the very essence of why I fell in love with
reading, The power of words to shape how we
see the world we live at. There seems to be this notion, and this
(01:32):
is what I hear at dinner parties, that we wake up in the morning and
we throw a dart at the dartboard and say, I'm gonna be an expert in
this today, and this is what I think about it. And, the story is filed
by 3 o'clock. It's just not true. Not the big picture
stuff. My guest today is at the top of the
investigative journalist game. He's a relentless secret of the
truth. He shines a light on the stories that
(01:55):
matter. Of the Panama Papers, some 11,000,000 documents
details how everyone from world leaders to a soccer
superstar are tied to offshore bank accounts and shell
companies used to hide wealth. And there are some 3 Stories that others try
to keep in the shadows. As a multi award winning
journalist, Robert Cribb has exposed corruption,
(02:17):
shaped public discourse, and proven why investigative
journalism matters now more than ever. Fiction is
lovely. I mean, it's so easy to post to the Internet your reflections
on something you know nothing about. You've taken zero time or
effort to actually understand the complexity and sophistication
of these issues and post about it. Just say, here's what I think, and
(02:40):
name names and point fingers. The problem is
it's fake. In an age of disinformation and fleeting
headlines, his work reminds us that uncovering the truth is not just a profession,
it's a public service. And today, we'll dive into what drives
him, the challenges of his craft, and why investigative
journalism remains the cornerstone, the bedrock of democracy.
(03:03):
That's not what you're getting when when you're relying solely on
a feed set by algorithms that are reinforcing what you
already think.
Please welcome to chatter that matters, the one and only, Robert
(03:24):
Cripp. Well, good to be here, man. Thank you. Listen, I'm
a huge fan of your work, and I'm just I'm always interested in human
journeys. Like, what drew you into journalism and
what made you realize an investigative journalism, which is a lot more
work, was gonna be your calling? It's interesting. I think
like many Genesis stories, it it it was a girl. So I was doing a
(03:47):
master's degree in English, and I was headed towards
becoming, you know, like an academic writing papers about Canadian
literature and Shakespeare. And I met this woman at university. I was
totally infatuated with her, and I realized, the only way
I was gonna spend time with her is if I joined the newspaper because she
was constantly doing interviews, writing stories, and she was busy doing
(04:09):
she was she wanted to be a journalist. And I knew nothing about it, but
I figured this is the only way I'm gonna spend time with her. So I
volunteered for the paper. I I did this piece where the
the the administration was threatening to spike tuition the next year by 10,
15%. It was crazy. And so I just did what I
instinctively do with these things is go to the data and the documents, and I
(04:30):
looked at the budgets, and I found all these line items in the university
budget that clearly implied some form of
waste and duplication of services. And I just wrote a piece
saying, look, if the if the university would just address all
of these kinds of waste and duplication, maybe they wouldn't
need to spike tuition so much. And then, you know, the day the story
(04:53):
published, I I came to school and there was this huge protest outside the student
union building, and they're waiving the story. And the
president of the university called the newspaper and asked to meet with me. And I
just thought, this is insanity. Like, I've written dozens
and dozens of academic papers, and 4 people have read them. And in
in this one piece, suddenly there's this all this engagement and
(05:14):
public interest, and it's inspiring outrage and and public
discussion. And I think it was that moment where I just sort of fell in
love with it. I thought what what an incredible way to have direct meaningful
impact on matters of vital public importance. What you've
discovered at an early age is what I call cause and effect. You caused something
that had an effect on others. And I feel like today, very often,
(05:36):
we just punch things into the cloud. We really don't know what our impact is.
We don't know that we're impacting change, emotion,
happiness, sadness, or whatever. How much is that missing in society, which you
found at an early age? I mean, I think I was lucky. You know, so
many of us I have a daughter who's we're about the same age I was
when that happened. And, you know, she's struggling, she's searching to find what what
(05:57):
the path is and I luckily, it happened to me early
and and it was so profound and powerful for me.
And I fell in love with it immediately and I be I just immersed in
it and it became kind of a mission. And journalism
really is kind of a calling. There's the it is an indefensible
professional path to take in almost every way. But for
(06:19):
those for that sort of small minority of people who find a
calling in it I mean, it is truly it's been the greatest journey of my
life. So, you know, I I I just count myself as one of the
lucky ones who figured it out early enough to to make a go at it.
I've talked to addicts before, and I often
say to addicts, they always talk about that first moment when they discover
(06:41):
something, they spent the rest of their life searching for it again. Did you find
out with this story that that was, took you to a high that you've
continued to chase? Or have you found that many times
where your story has created such an impact that you get the
same kind of validation reward for it? Yeah. I compare it to
golf. When I golf, I hit the ball a 100 times.
(07:02):
99 of those shots are terrible. But, man, that
one shot when you hit it perfect onto the
green, like, that's enough for me, and and I'll come back. I
will keep coming back for that. So it's an adrenaline hit when you get
it right, when it lands right. Lots of frustration in the interim that
that we don't talk about. There's stories that I
(07:24):
invested countless hours, months of time, and I
knew, like, instinctively, I thought this was so important and this is going to
blow the lid off something. And it landed with
a silent soft thud that, resulted
in 2 emails from a reader and disappeared the next day.
You just don't know. I interviewed Meghan Tuohy from the New York Times
(07:46):
and she talked about investigative journalism. There's also a sense
of adrenaline because very often you're peeling back layers that
people don't want peeled back. More often than not, you're putting a light on
on what people are trying to keep in the shadows. Do you feel that sense
that when you're walking into an area that you know you're gonna have
opposition and that might be the something you're investigating or it might be adjacency,
(08:09):
other people that'll be impacted by that story? I mean, every time. Yeah. Particularly with
investigative reporting, by virtue of the fact that you're doing an investigation at
all is an indication that you have a hypothesis that there is something here to
be investigated. So out of the gate, there is an adversarial
element to it where you feel a government or an individual or a corporation is
doing something that is contrary to the public interest and is deserving
(08:31):
of public attention. I love your analogy of the one shot in a
hundred that lands and keeps you going back. Curious, is there
a story that you hold the highest, the hole in one story in
your life that you'd go that was such time well
spent because of the impact it had on changing
public discourse or opening up and exposing the truth.
(08:53):
In my career, the one that stands out obviously is is the Panama Papers.
I worked on the Panama Papers investigation with journalists around the
world. 2017, I think, it was a huge investigation,
a year long project, journalists around the world looking at
offshore movement of wealth from wealthy people around the world,
kings, presidents, prime ministers,
(09:15):
into offshore tax havens, removing their obligation to
their national tax organizations. When it
landed, I'll never forget that moment. It truly was like a nuclear
bomb. It went off. And every major news organization
from CNN to Al Jazeera to BBC was
reporting the findings of this, investigation which had
(09:37):
been conducted in secret. It immediately
led to criminal charges, investigations into tax evasion that that
recovered, you know, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars in in
taxes to to all these national tax coffers. But then, of course,
it went on to an appeal of prize and and stands as a legacy
today in terms of the power of collaboration in
(10:00):
journalism and the power of working together and and accessing
through sources and confidential sources the kinds of data
that can truly change the public conversation. But, you know,
there's other ones that for me are are more personal. I I,
after I became a dad, I became very interested in children's issues and I started
investigating protection of children because I felt this deep
(10:23):
sense of vulnerability, including, one investigation I'll never
forget, which looked at how this Canadian guy and and he had
partners in Europe manipulated parents and children to
isolate them, take photos of them, videos of them, and effectively create
a a child a global child pornography network where they were selling these
images and how it destroyed the lives of these these
(10:45):
kids forever and their parents.
And I just would not give that one up. It just it
was so deeply felt the outrage and sense
of righteous indignation on that. I was so repulsed by it.
And this was all off the side of my desk. This wasn't my job. I
was I was tracing these links to Europe and then eventually
(11:07):
I went to Northern Romania and I found these kids somehow
and their parents and the guy who did it and
then, came back and published the story and it was used in court in in
Toronto to convict this Canadian distributor. That
was a good day when that conviction came through. I mean, you mentioned you're
a father. How do you compartmentalize these stories so that you could say,
(11:29):
this is my job, this is my calling, this is my mission, but as a
human being, I have to let some of this go because if it just all
stays within you, you're in self, in fact, to be building up this toxic
swamp that might change who you are. It is
compartmentalization for sure. I talk to police officers
about this a lot, how they do this. I think it's it happens
(11:52):
over time. It is a reconciliation in the mind of what
you are doing now is professional and at 6
o'clock when you walk in the front door, you hit the
switch, you try and leave it behind. I'm not saying I always do.
I when I'm working on something pretty intense, my wife and my kid will tell
me, you know, short fuse, frustrated,
(12:14):
distracted, and they call me out on it and I
try and recoup. It's a combination of a conviction in doing
this particular type of work and then also wanting to obviously be
a good dad. We often hear this concept of work life balance, but when I
find people that are pursuing something with a calling or with
such passion or the importance of the outcome. It's very
(12:36):
it's almost impossible. At times, you have to play act because you don't
want necessarily work life balance. You're in middle of an investigation,
and this is all that matters to you. How do you find sort of lessons
to other people that might be listening? Because you really want to be back in
the story but at the same time there's also demands to be that
human being that someone married or a child you fathered? It can make
(12:58):
you insufferable. There's no question about it. All of this requires a certain
psychosis, like none of this is healthy. I do the best that I can
do. It is very immersive. You're not clocking out at
5 and and and filing your story and
it's going into the paper the next day. You're working for months
on something and it's waking you up at 3 am. I also have this thing
(13:20):
about when I'm when I know that I'm really inside of something,
I have this thing where every morning at 3 between 3 and
3:15, I wake up. Did I file that Freedom of
Information request the right way? And how am I gonna get that
cop to meet me in the coffee shop in the morning? I mean, those can
be weeks or months where you're going through that. There's no
(13:43):
real fix on that. You either settle
in and just acknowledge that you're gonna be insufferable and do
the best you can, or you stop doing it. Like, it's pretty
binary. There's no real third option. I've done a lot of
interviews with people that have found a way to the top of their game in
the creative process, not investigative journalism, but songwriting,
(14:04):
performing. And I often wonder, should I have their partner on the
show? Because you must give such credit to somebody that lives
with somebody like you because they know that when you check out,
as much as they might try to build a bridge to you, they're gonna have
to wait until you put that drawbridge down. It's a good idea. I think you
should. It's, I mean, I love my wife and my kids, you know. It's not
(14:26):
an easy path for sure. And I feel guilt about it. You know, that's the
other thing, you know, I feel deep guilt about it. In the moment, I'm not
feeling guilt about it, right, because I'm so distracted and focused on the
thing. But then eventually, it comes to a head
and you're confronted with it. And at that moment, of course, you
feel guilt, of course, and then you try and make up for it, and you
(14:48):
do the best you can. The orbits around you,
is filled with people who have to exercise some form of
patience and you yourself have to acknowledge that there's harm to this.
There's repercussions and and you have to, in the moments where you
can step out of it and it's over and you publish your story, in
those moments you there is recompense. One of the things they talked about
(15:11):
in the opening is how I believe investigative journalism is not
just the cornerstone of democracy, but the bedrock.
And it's under threat because a lot of investigative journalism was
funded by advertising. It was funded
by this relationship between, you know, the Procter and
Gamble's that wanted eyeballs, and the newspapers that knew a
(15:33):
good investigative story drew eyeballs. And and it was a marriage that worked well for
years, but the commerce has changed. It's now advertising's now running
to TikTok and stackable little pieces of content. How do we
make sure that we continue as a society
to elevate how important it is to spend at times
months, if not a year, to expose the truth
(15:56):
versus that snackable little sound bite that we seem to be all gravitating
towards. I, of course, believe that this work is vitally
important. You know, journalism is a weight bearing pillar of
democracy. I believe it. We've heard it many times. Officials will say
it. Politicians say it. Academics say it.
But at the end of the day, that kind of,
(16:18):
grand message I feel is increasingly dusty
and archaic and and no longer holds kind of widespread
public, sway, I don't think. I think there is an acknowledgment
that it's dying. There's no question it's dying. Like, it's it's it's dramatic
in this country alone. Like, since since 2008, the latest
data, 530 journalism
(16:41):
outlets have shut down. And the ones that continue to exist are
a shadow of their former selves. They've been gutted. But, like, I don't sense
any widespread public concern or outrage about that. We
we are increasingly polarized, the the
information we get is fed and curated to reinforce the
things that we already believe. We're all preaching to the
(17:03):
individual choirs. There is no central marketplace
of ideas. Right? That that's gone. That that notion that there is
a place where we gather every day, such as a newspaper or the
evening news, and hear a collection of ideas and
opinions and facts and thoughts from which we then
sift through together, debate, and
(17:25):
come to some higher form of conclusion about those things, which then
reflects itself in legislation and public policy. Like, that's over.
My hypothesis is is investigative journalism has slipped
away. It's become an opportunity to take a free rein
on how I treat the public, our tax
dollars, our borrowed dollars. What am I allowed to do and not do
(17:47):
because we're not having and even at the local newspaper with the local
city hall that if we don't have any kind of accountability, is it
not an easy conclusion to say there's some people who take advantage of that? The
halls of power, whether it be the city council or even
at the provincial or federal level, the eyes and ears that
used to be present, monitoring, writing about
(18:09):
that, presenting to the public how governments
are acting in our name. I mean, it's it's largely particularly the municipal
level, community level, it's it's largely gone entirely,
and it's being deteriorated at the higher levels as well. A vacuum is
created. Right? And and as with all vacuums, it must be filled. And so what's
it being filled with? It's being filled with innuendo,
(18:32):
opinion, fiction. Fiction is lovely. I mean, it's
so easy to wake up in the morning and sit in your underwear
and post to the Internet your reflections on something you know
nothing about. You've taken zero time or effort to actually
understand the complexity and sophistication of these issues
and post about it. And just say, here's what I think. And name names and
(18:54):
point fingers, and it's black and white. It's simple.
It's polarizing, and we like that. It's instinctively
reassuring to the human brain. The problem is
it's fake. It's not true. Most of the time,
it's not true. The world doesn't work that way. The world is not
black and white. It's gray. It's texture.
(19:18):
It requires context and that's not what you're
getting when when you're relying solely on a feed
said by algorithms that are reinforcing what you
already think. When we return, Rob, Cribb and I shift gears
to really talk about why journalism matters. It's the only
(19:38):
thing holding our leaders accountable. It's the only thing capable of
pulling the truth from the shadows. And then I share a story
about RBC and how much they matter to me.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman from Chatter That Matters. The world's upside down
(20:00):
and having peace of mind seems to be the exception versus the rule.
RBC Wealth Management is hoping to change that. They don't have a
crystal ball, but they do have a team of experts dedicated to working with
you to preserve and grow your wealth and help you manage risk so that you
can enjoy the rewards of your labor. Your peace of mind and
financial health matters to RBC.
(20:22):
The fact that there's so much fakery going on is a real challenge. It's even
a challenge for journalists. It's it's hard for us to figure out what's real and
what's not real anymore. There's sophistication, the technology. It is
easy to fake it. It is easy to lie. It is easy to
successfully lie. I mean, as journalists, I think all we can do is
tell the truth. Work hard, figure out what's real and what's
(20:44):
not, and be open and transparent about how we do it.
My guest today is at the top of the investigative journalist
game. He's a relentless secret of the truth,
Robert Cribb. I wanna get
back to your craft because I think this we could spend the whole time just
talking about the state of investigative journalism. I wanna walk
(21:07):
in your shoes. Is there times that you've done a story where
you're you have to navigate the balance between exposing the
truth and respecting ethical boundaries? It requires
a strong moral compass for sure. We speak to lawyers.
But at the end of the day, there's no real
playbook that takes into account every scenario. It's complicated.
(21:29):
Every every story is different and how you
act and the methods you use in each story,
you have to think about in an individual way. So I've done things
like undercover reporting which which is always froth,
ethically without question. Dealing with whistle blowers,
confidential sources, these are people that come to you with with
(21:52):
information which which is often credible but often also
tainted by their own self interest. Right? Like, why why would people come to a
journalist offering information? It's presumably, at
least in part, because they have an extra grind,
and that's okay. I understand that. But what do you
do, for example, if you, receive information from a
(22:14):
whistleblower, you're working with them, it's a confidential source relationship,
And at some point during the course of your investigation because you're going
out widely, you're not just relying on what they give you, you're triangulating, right?
You're testing that information, you're going to other people. What do you do, for example,
if you determine that the information provided to you is
false? What if it's made up? What if it's untrue? Or
(22:37):
what if it's only a part of the picture? How do you
treat that source to whom you've entered into some form of relationship or some sort
of confidential source relationship? Right? So those are tough. I mean, I have to believe
you source relationship. Right? So those are
tough. I mean, I have to believe you have this build this relationship with the
whistleblower. They feel that you're gonna treat what they believe, their
biases are true. They're gonna believe that they are changing the world and
(23:00):
you come to a different conclusion. That's gotta be an awkward conversation. Do they ever
get surprised when they read it? You must get saying, how did you misinterpret
everything I thought I was saying to you? Or Everybody knows what I'm gonna
write before I write it. That's one of the basic rules that we have
is that nobody doesn't know what's going to be in the paper. I
go to everybody and all sides get chair comment
(23:22):
and chance to respond. So they'll know, but it can be a very
difficult conversation. Some cases, you would kill the story. In other
cases, you find it isn't actually an important story and it needs to be
told, but it's not going to be told in the way that the
person thought it would be. And it may in fact be a
story that is damaged reputationally to that person or to their
(23:44):
interests or to the organization or whatever it might be. You have very few
friends when you do this work. That's for sure. You know, Hollywood has done an
incredible job at portraying the investigative journalists
in that that tireless effort to seek the truth. But, you know, you
mentioned lawyers, editors. How much bureaucracy
gets involved where you feel at times you're writing in
(24:07):
wet cement versus just wanting to move
forward with what you believe is the truth. I
have never felt impeded in any way. I've been at the Toronto Star
now for 20 most of my career, 20 something
years. And, it's a paper that has been
historically fearless in its reporting, Not one time and
(24:29):
I've done you know, I write stories about things that are controversial,
things that in some cases, advertisers don't like, etcetera. Not
one I mean, I can just tell you not one time has anyone tapped me
on the shoulder and said, you know what? Why don't we why don't we ease
off on this one? I think in Canada, that's typically
true. I when I speak with my friends and colleagues
(24:51):
about this kind of thing, although, you know, the truth is we've we've
all often had, for most of our careers and most of our
histories, we've had a lot more money. We've had resources. We've had lawyers.
It's changing our ability to defend ourselves now. For my
listeners because we have a lot of people around the world. I mean, the Toronto
Star is one of our major newspapers and
(25:12):
Toronto's obviously our major city. I would argue that
as social media herded us to like minded castles. Is it fair to
say that media has now deciding to change size? I I would
go with The Fox as the first example of that, which saying we are just
gonna be all in on the right. Is it fair to say that even newspapers
have become I would say they most of them existed some form a
(25:35):
little bit left or a little bit right of center, but they're moving more to
the fringes to go to attract a reader base? I could speak about
Canada, certainly, and say no. I don't think that's true. I mean, the
Toronto Star is left of center, moderate.
Globe and Mail would be right of center, moderate. The
Post, same, CBC, left,
(25:56):
moderate, you know, but the spectrum there in this country is not
vast. I don't I don't see that. Everyone is abiding by the
same ethical rules of journalism, fairness, balance,
accuracy, responsibility. I think that that's not the
case here. Of course, I'm a consumer of the media in the
United States and I think it's a different thing. And I think it's important to
(26:18):
distinguish between the two. Fox News
and, CNN. I was watching it a lot during, you know, the
election campaign and it really struck me. There is
nothing comparable in this country to to that. I
mean, it is absolute advocacy journalism.
And I and I hesitate to use the word journalism. I mean, yeah, it's it's
(26:40):
opinion. I mean, it's just a straight up opinion that seeks to
find the alternative facts to buttress that viewpoint.
Part of the reason I do this show is to show that in this
world of massive change, there's still ways to overcome circumstances,
chase dreams. And when you do, you get to change your world and often ours
for the better. And, you know, you mentioned, for example, the Panama Papers, which I
(27:02):
would absolutely argue changed our world for the better. What
advice would you give to young people that are wanna
get into journalism? They've grown up as digital natives. They've created their
content. They're they've gotten validation, not people protesting in front
of a a school like you found as a kid, but they might have had
something that went online and and got some viralocity. What
(27:23):
advice would you give them to go to move beyond sort of that
snackable content into journalism so
that they could pursue a a career and and find the same sort of purpose
and rewards that you found. Maybe the greatest joy I would say in my career,
just in the last 5 years, I've launched this nonprofit investigative
center, in Toronto. It's called the Investigative Journalism
(27:44):
Bureau, and it's this remarkable place where young journalists
come. I I these are, in some cases, people that I taught at
in in university and journalism courses and,
then hired them as interns and then they come into the the
bureau and now some of them are, you know, long time investigative reporters and
so they're some of the best in the country, well trained, hungry,
(28:07):
principled, wanna make a difference. And when I see
that, I mean, that's magic. And we publish these these
big, sprawling, hard hitting investigation, and they see
it, and they feel it, and I can see the synapses
connecting in their brains. And they
are so motivated. It is not
(28:29):
a job for them. They true like, I see the same thing I
guess that maybe somebody would have seen in me that day at the
university when I showed up and saw the protests out front. Like, I see it
happening. We're training the next generation of investigative journalists
at this place. I quit teaching a few years ago because
honestly, it's uncomfortable. Journalism schools have an uncomfortable
(28:52):
question that that they have to answer existentially. Like, what is
it that we're doing training all of these people for for an
industry that is collapsing? This kind of model, this thing that I've
been working on and other people, this kind of nonprofit, altruistic,
investigative model that digs deep, trains the next generation,
and collaboratively works with people who we didn't
(29:15):
traditionally work with. Like, we would we bring in academics. Every project we
have, we have an academic lead or 2. And they've shared with us
data and they do literature reviews with us, and we
bring in grad students. And and suddenly, you build this tent, and
all this brainpower enters it. And we can do far
more in-depth, textured, contextual
(29:37):
journalism than than we ever did before. It's amazing. Can this model
also extend where we go to taxpayers and say, if
we funded a non for profit, if we funded
investigative journalism and what we deemed to be the top topics that
matter, isn't this a good thing to invest in? It's taken a long
time to build the model and then prove the model. We've proven it now.
(30:00):
We've got years years of front page impeccable,
hard hitting reporting that's changed the world. It would have impacted
public policy, public discussion, public debate. I am now
of the mind that this has to be the way forward. So we take the
best of legacy media, the principles, the ethics,
(30:20):
the methodology, the systematic approach, and we
widen the tent. We bring in more people who are are
focused and and have unique, narrow, but
deep knowledge in areas that we're looking at. We bring in the
young people so that they can bring their perspective, but also an
opportunity to build the skills and train them. And then we
(30:42):
do 2 things simultaneously. We break new
information that would have never, never been published otherwise.
We go deeper with it and we come out with these
mission driven, well trained, young journalists
who are salivating over the prospects
of of doing this work well into the future
(31:05):
and and making our world better. Like, I am heartened by it. For the first
time, really, in a long time, I actually think we're gonna be
okay except that it's a real tough economic
it's very difficult funding, this is an as I'm learning. And the, you know,
the government funding is certainly one way to do it, but I don't think that's
going to be the full answer. I don't think we're gonna rely fully on governments
(31:26):
for this. There has to be as there is in the United States, there has
to emerge some form of philanthropic
interest in in sustaining the survival of
journalism in this country. I think you're onto something for sure because I
think just putting money into the traditional media platforms is putting a band aid on
a festering load. And what I love with you're doing is is if we can
(31:47):
present this to the citizens that this is the stories that matter.
And whether it's philanthropy or or crowdsourcing
models or government, if we truly believe
like Jefferson and Walter Cronkite and Nelson Mandela and all
the people that really have been beacons for democracy, that journalism is
the lifeblood. It's the oxygen. It's what breathes the truth into
(32:10):
what could very quickly become mantras. And I think it's possible,
but my worry is that it will take so long. There
is a point, I think, of no return where that where it just collapses to
a point where I just don't know that you can resuscitate.
We're getting there. Journalistically, it's great. It's
doing great. Everybody loves it. Everyone thinks it's incredible. But, you know,
(32:33):
it's very slow. It's it it takes a long time to turn around the
Titanic, as you know. I would also argue there's a lot of people that don't
want that Titanic turned around. I don't like those people. There's a handful of
people that are making an awful lot of money herding you into a
castle with like minded people and don't want you to have that
conversation every evening where you're looking at a variety of
(32:54):
stories and discussing stories and forming opinions that might be more in
the middle than on the edges because on the edges, there's, I
mean, there's been wealth created that's unprecedented in this society. We've never seen such
wealth happen so quickly to a handful of people that have found a way
that I don't really want you to think. I I want you to, to sit
in this pew and and, we're gonna preach what we wanna preach and you're gonna
(33:16):
feel like you're contributing to it because every 5 minutes you're gonna get to sing
with the choir or what's called validation nowadays or or like
something. It's as far away from facts as possible. Well, you've just made the
case though for the importance of of sustaining and rebuilding this
because the the the core mission of investigative journalism in
particular and this is the the freedom that fills my
(33:38):
day every day when I'm trying to decide what am I gonna do today? Where
am I gonna direct my attention today? It's the stories that speak truth to
power. It's about holding power to account. I mean, it that's the
very thing that we're trying to do here. So if what we're talking about is
the is the loss of that work, the people who get up every day
and ask those difficult questions and pour through the court
(33:59):
documents and spend countless hours gathering the data and analyzing
to try and pull together the answer to that question. How is it
that we're going to hold the powerful institutions that act upon
us to greater account? If if we're all gonna agree that it's not
important enough to sustain, well, you think it's bad now?
Just hold on a minute. I always end my podcast with my 3
(34:21):
takeaways. And the interesting one, it's always about human journeys, is that girl
that you chased into the newspaper room and fell in love with
investigative journalism, and how that journey now is driving
into a point of society where you might be tapped on the shoulder saying,
Rob, maybe it's no longer your calling to do investigative journalism.
Maybe it's to lead investigative journalism into the future. So it'd be really
(34:43):
interesting to see what happens if we can provide, society can provide the
economy to allow this non for profit to seek the
truth. The second thing that I I really like is this
simple expression, but I want everybody to just think about it all day.
Society's moved to saying I'm either black or white, but the world doesn't
operate that way. The world operates in the world of grey. And
(35:06):
within those grey, there's a lot of times we've got to shine lights on to
see what is really going on. And the third one is just
for people out there, we are all seek our calling. We all seek something
that has such purpose and passion, and I would argue an addiction that we just
we we wake up at 3 in the morning like Rob did and thinking about
it, and it comes with a price. Understand that when you find that, there's
(35:28):
a price. There's a price to you mentally. There's a price to you physically. More
importantly, there's a price to the people that you love because they have to
understand that when you go into those weeds, whether it's pulling an electric guitar
on stage and playing, writing, creating, being
criminal, justice, it comes with a price. And
that price is the people that want you to succeed, but at the same
(35:51):
time, need and deserve and want a piece of you. So, Rob, for all of
this and more, this has been a fantastic conversation. I appreciate you joining
me. You're a thoughtful guy. Thank thanks for asking me. I appreciate it.
I apologize. My voice is a little hoarse, but I wanted to share the story
about RBC. 2020 started the pandemic. It started to
(36:11):
see an idea about focusing on small business owners. Each week,
we share a story of somebody overcoming circumstances, and then we invite
3 experts to help that business. Someone from RBC and
then 2 people from my rolodex. People like Arlene
Dickinson and Joe Mimran and Jeannie Becker and so many more. It's
a great series. You go back to early in our tape, you'll love it. But
(36:33):
I just want to point out that one of the things that impressed me even
back then, and this is with Armin Huska, who was one of my
first contacts. And he said, at RBC, we invest in
Canadian journalism. We know it's not gonna get us the same clicks that you might
get on a Facebook. We know how important it is. And if we're a
bank that's gonna focus on more than money, focus on what really
(36:54):
matters to Canadians, then we gotta make sure we have a strong journalistic
community. So hats off to RBC for focusing
on the things that matter and the things that can make our country
so much better. Once again, a
special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatham that matters. It's
Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
I fell in love with reading at the age of 5. Thanks to my mother's
unwavering insistence that I read 3 pages of a book before I could go
out and play. But she didn't just hand me the
simple cheerful tales of Dick and Jane. No. My
mom made me read The Silver Skates by Hans Christian
Andersen, story rich to adventure,
(00:25):
resilience, and the power of drapes. From those
early pages, a spark was ignited. It was like an appreciation for
the worlds that books could open. And over time, my love for
storytelling deepened and expanded beyond fiction into the
realm of nonfiction. Those true stories, the autobiographies
and biographies, and then eventually investigative journalism.
(00:47):
All of the above captivated me in a way no fiction ever could.
Not fiction when it's done right doesn't just inform, it really does
fire my imagination. It allows me to walk into the author's
shoes, to see the world that they're investigating through their eyes, and
to wrestle with the truth they uncover. That's why investigative
journalism holds a special place in my heart. It takes us beyond
(01:09):
surface level narratives. It demands that we confront
uncomfortable truths and more importantly that we consider new perspectives.
It's a craft that bridges the personal and the universal. And in
doing so, it embodies the very essence of why I fell in love with
reading, The power of words to shape how we
see the world we live at. There seems to be this notion, and this
(01:32):
is what I hear at dinner parties, that we wake up in the morning and
we throw a dart at the dartboard and say, I'm gonna be an expert in
this today, and this is what I think about it. And, the story is filed
by 3 o'clock. It's just not true. Not the big picture
stuff. My guest today is at the top of the
investigative journalist game. He's a relentless secret of the
truth. He shines a light on the stories that
(01:55):
matter. Of the Panama Papers, some 11,000,000 documents
details how everyone from world leaders to a soccer
superstar are tied to offshore bank accounts and shell
companies used to hide wealth. And there are some 3 Stories that others try
to keep in the shadows. As a multi award winning
journalist, Robert Cribb has exposed corruption,
(02:17):
shaped public discourse, and proven why investigative
journalism matters now more than ever. Fiction is
lovely. I mean, it's so easy to post to the Internet your reflections
on something you know nothing about. You've taken zero time or
effort to actually understand the complexity and sophistication
of these issues and post about it. Just say, here's what I think, and
(02:40):
name names and point fingers. The problem is
it's fake. In an age of disinformation and fleeting
headlines, his work reminds us that uncovering the truth is not just a profession,
it's a public service. And today, we'll dive into what drives
him, the challenges of his craft, and why investigative
journalism remains the cornerstone, the bedrock of democracy.
(03:03):
That's not what you're getting when when you're relying solely on
a feed set by algorithms that are reinforcing what you
already think.
Please welcome to chatter that matters, the one and only, Robert
(03:24):
Cripp. Well, good to be here, man. Thank you. Listen, I'm
a huge fan of your work, and I'm just I'm always interested in human
journeys. Like, what drew you into journalism and
what made you realize an investigative journalism, which is a lot more
work, was gonna be your calling? It's interesting. I think
like many Genesis stories, it it it was a girl. So I was doing a
(03:47):
master's degree in English, and I was headed towards
becoming, you know, like an academic writing papers about Canadian
literature and Shakespeare. And I met this woman at university. I was
totally infatuated with her, and I realized, the only way
I was gonna spend time with her is if I joined the newspaper because she
was constantly doing interviews, writing stories, and she was busy doing
(04:09):
she was she wanted to be a journalist. And I knew nothing about it, but
I figured this is the only way I'm gonna spend time with her. So I
volunteered for the paper. I I did this piece where the
the the administration was threatening to spike tuition the next year by 10,
15%. It was crazy. And so I just did what I
instinctively do with these things is go to the data and the documents, and I
(04:30):
looked at the budgets, and I found all these line items in the university
budget that clearly implied some form of
waste and duplication of services. And I just wrote a piece
saying, look, if the if the university would just address all
of these kinds of waste and duplication, maybe they wouldn't
need to spike tuition so much. And then, you know, the day the story
(04:53):
published, I I came to school and there was this huge protest outside the student
union building, and they're waiving the story. And the
president of the university called the newspaper and asked to meet with me. And I
just thought, this is insanity. Like, I've written dozens
and dozens of academic papers, and 4 people have read them. And in
in this one piece, suddenly there's this all this engagement and
(05:14):
public interest, and it's inspiring outrage and and public
discussion. And I think it was that moment where I just sort of fell in
love with it. I thought what what an incredible way to have direct meaningful
impact on matters of vital public importance. What you've
discovered at an early age is what I call cause and effect. You caused something
that had an effect on others. And I feel like today, very often,
(05:36):
we just punch things into the cloud. We really don't know what our impact is.
We don't know that we're impacting change, emotion,
happiness, sadness, or whatever. How much is that missing in society, which you
found at an early age? I mean, I think I was lucky. You know, so
many of us I have a daughter who's we're about the same age I was
when that happened. And, you know, she's struggling, she's searching to find what what
(05:57):
the path is and I luckily, it happened to me early
and and it was so profound and powerful for me.
And I fell in love with it immediately and I be I just immersed in
it and it became kind of a mission. And journalism
really is kind of a calling. There's the it is an indefensible
professional path to take in almost every way. But for
(06:19):
those for that sort of small minority of people who find a
calling in it I mean, it is truly it's been the greatest journey of my
life. So, you know, I I I just count myself as one of the
lucky ones who figured it out early enough to to make a go at it.
I've talked to addicts before, and I often
say to addicts, they always talk about that first moment when they discover
(06:41):
something, they spent the rest of their life searching for it again. Did you find
out with this story that that was, took you to a high that you've
continued to chase? Or have you found that many times
where your story has created such an impact that you get the
same kind of validation reward for it? Yeah. I compare it to
golf. When I golf, I hit the ball a 100 times.
(07:02):
99 of those shots are terrible. But, man, that
one shot when you hit it perfect onto the
green, like, that's enough for me, and and I'll come back. I
will keep coming back for that. So it's an adrenaline hit when you get
it right, when it lands right. Lots of frustration in the interim that
that we don't talk about. There's stories that I
(07:24):
invested countless hours, months of time, and I
knew, like, instinctively, I thought this was so important and this is going to
blow the lid off something. And it landed with
a silent soft thud that, resulted
in 2 emails from a reader and disappeared the next day.
You just don't know. I interviewed Meghan Tuohy from the New York Times
(07:46):
and she talked about investigative journalism. There's also a sense
of adrenaline because very often you're peeling back layers that
people don't want peeled back. More often than not, you're putting a light on
on what people are trying to keep in the shadows. Do you feel that sense
that when you're walking into an area that you know you're gonna have
opposition and that might be the something you're investigating or it might be adjacency,
(08:09):
other people that'll be impacted by that story? I mean, every time. Yeah. Particularly with
investigative reporting, by virtue of the fact that you're doing an investigation at
all is an indication that you have a hypothesis that there is something here to
be investigated. So out of the gate, there is an adversarial
element to it where you feel a government or an individual or a corporation is
doing something that is contrary to the public interest and is deserving
(08:31):
of public attention. I love your analogy of the one shot in a
hundred that lands and keeps you going back. Curious, is there
a story that you hold the highest, the hole in one story in
your life that you'd go that was such time well
spent because of the impact it had on changing
public discourse or opening up and exposing the truth.
(08:53):
In my career, the one that stands out obviously is is the Panama Papers.
I worked on the Panama Papers investigation with journalists around the
world. 2017, I think, it was a huge investigation,
a year long project, journalists around the world looking at
offshore movement of wealth from wealthy people around the world,
kings, presidents, prime ministers,
(09:15):
into offshore tax havens, removing their obligation to
their national tax organizations. When it
landed, I'll never forget that moment. It truly was like a nuclear
bomb. It went off. And every major news organization
from CNN to Al Jazeera to BBC was
reporting the findings of this, investigation which had
(09:37):
been conducted in secret. It immediately
led to criminal charges, investigations into tax evasion that that
recovered, you know, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars in in
taxes to to all these national tax coffers. But then, of course,
it went on to an appeal of prize and and stands as a legacy
today in terms of the power of collaboration in
(10:00):
journalism and the power of working together and and accessing
through sources and confidential sources the kinds of data
that can truly change the public conversation. But, you know,
there's other ones that for me are are more personal. I I,
after I became a dad, I became very interested in children's issues and I started
investigating protection of children because I felt this deep
(10:23):
sense of vulnerability, including, one investigation I'll never
forget, which looked at how this Canadian guy and and he had
partners in Europe manipulated parents and children to
isolate them, take photos of them, videos of them, and effectively create
a a child a global child pornography network where they were selling these
images and how it destroyed the lives of these these
(10:45):
kids forever and their parents.
And I just would not give that one up. It just it
was so deeply felt the outrage and sense
of righteous indignation on that. I was so repulsed by it.
And this was all off the side of my desk. This wasn't my job. I
was I was tracing these links to Europe and then eventually
(11:07):
I went to Northern Romania and I found these kids somehow
and their parents and the guy who did it and
then, came back and published the story and it was used in court in in
Toronto to convict this Canadian distributor. That
was a good day when that conviction came through. I mean, you mentioned you're
a father. How do you compartmentalize these stories so that you could say,
(11:29):
this is my job, this is my calling, this is my mission, but as a
human being, I have to let some of this go because if it just all
stays within you, you're in self, in fact, to be building up this toxic
swamp that might change who you are. It is
compartmentalization for sure. I talk to police officers
about this a lot, how they do this. I think it's it happens
(11:52):
over time. It is a reconciliation in the mind of what
you are doing now is professional and at 6
o'clock when you walk in the front door, you hit the
switch, you try and leave it behind. I'm not saying I always do.
I when I'm working on something pretty intense, my wife and my kid will tell
me, you know, short fuse, frustrated,
(12:14):
distracted, and they call me out on it and I
try and recoup. It's a combination of a conviction in doing
this particular type of work and then also wanting to obviously be
a good dad. We often hear this concept of work life balance, but when I
find people that are pursuing something with a calling or with
such passion or the importance of the outcome. It's very
(12:36):
it's almost impossible. At times, you have to play act because you don't
want necessarily work life balance. You're in middle of an investigation,
and this is all that matters to you. How do you find sort of lessons
to other people that might be listening? Because you really want to be back in
the story but at the same time there's also demands to be that
human being that someone married or a child you fathered? It can make
(12:58):
you insufferable. There's no question about it. All of this requires a certain
psychosis, like none of this is healthy. I do the best that I can
do. It is very immersive. You're not clocking out at
5 and and and filing your story and
it's going into the paper the next day. You're working for months
on something and it's waking you up at 3 am. I also have this thing
(13:20):
about when I'm when I know that I'm really inside of something,
I have this thing where every morning at 3 between 3 and
3:15, I wake up. Did I file that Freedom of
Information request the right way? And how am I gonna get that
cop to meet me in the coffee shop in the morning? I mean, those can
be weeks or months where you're going through that. There's no
(13:43):
real fix on that. You either settle
in and just acknowledge that you're gonna be insufferable and do
the best you can, or you stop doing it. Like, it's pretty
binary. There's no real third option. I've done a lot of
interviews with people that have found a way to the top of their game in
the creative process, not investigative journalism, but songwriting,
(14:04):
performing. And I often wonder, should I have their partner on the
show? Because you must give such credit to somebody that lives
with somebody like you because they know that when you check out,
as much as they might try to build a bridge to you, they're gonna have
to wait until you put that drawbridge down. It's a good idea. I think you
should. It's, I mean, I love my wife and my kids, you know. It's not
(14:26):
an easy path for sure. And I feel guilt about it. You know, that's the
other thing, you know, I feel deep guilt about it. In the moment, I'm not
feeling guilt about it, right, because I'm so distracted and focused on the
thing. But then eventually, it comes to a head
and you're confronted with it. And at that moment, of course, you
feel guilt, of course, and then you try and make up for it, and you
(14:48):
do the best you can. The orbits around you,
is filled with people who have to exercise some form of
patience and you yourself have to acknowledge that there's harm to this.
There's repercussions and and you have to, in the moments where you
can step out of it and it's over and you publish your story, in
those moments you there is recompense. One of the things they talked about
(15:11):
in the opening is how I believe investigative journalism is not
just the cornerstone of democracy, but the bedrock.
And it's under threat because a lot of investigative journalism was
funded by advertising. It was funded
by this relationship between, you know, the Procter and
Gamble's that wanted eyeballs, and the newspapers that knew a
(15:33):
good investigative story drew eyeballs. And and it was a marriage that worked well for
years, but the commerce has changed. It's now advertising's now running
to TikTok and stackable little pieces of content. How do we
make sure that we continue as a society
to elevate how important it is to spend at times
months, if not a year, to expose the truth
(15:56):
versus that snackable little sound bite that we seem to be all gravitating
towards. I, of course, believe that this work is vitally
important. You know, journalism is a weight bearing pillar of
democracy. I believe it. We've heard it many times. Officials will say
it. Politicians say it. Academics say it.
But at the end of the day, that kind of,
(16:18):
grand message I feel is increasingly dusty
and archaic and and no longer holds kind of widespread
public, sway, I don't think. I think there is an acknowledgment
that it's dying. There's no question it's dying. Like, it's it's it's dramatic
in this country alone. Like, since since 2008, the latest
data, 530 journalism
(16:41):
outlets have shut down. And the ones that continue to exist are
a shadow of their former selves. They've been gutted. But, like, I don't sense
any widespread public concern or outrage about that. We
we are increasingly polarized, the the
information we get is fed and curated to reinforce the
things that we already believe. We're all preaching to the
(17:03):
individual choirs. There is no central marketplace
of ideas. Right? That that's gone. That that notion that there is
a place where we gather every day, such as a newspaper or the
evening news, and hear a collection of ideas and
opinions and facts and thoughts from which we then
sift through together, debate, and
(17:25):
come to some higher form of conclusion about those things, which then
reflects itself in legislation and public policy. Like, that's over.
My hypothesis is is investigative journalism has slipped
away. It's become an opportunity to take a free rein
on how I treat the public, our tax
dollars, our borrowed dollars. What am I allowed to do and not do
(17:47):
because we're not having and even at the local newspaper with the local
city hall that if we don't have any kind of accountability, is it
not an easy conclusion to say there's some people who take advantage of that? The
halls of power, whether it be the city council or even
at the provincial or federal level, the eyes and ears that
used to be present, monitoring, writing about
(18:09):
that, presenting to the public how governments
are acting in our name. I mean, it's it's largely particularly the municipal
level, community level, it's it's largely gone entirely,
and it's being deteriorated at the higher levels as well. A vacuum is
created. Right? And and as with all vacuums, it must be filled. And so what's
it being filled with? It's being filled with innuendo,
(18:32):
opinion, fiction. Fiction is lovely. I mean, it's
so easy to wake up in the morning and sit in your underwear
and post to the Internet your reflections on something you know
nothing about. You've taken zero time or effort to actually
understand the complexity and sophistication of these issues
and post about it. And just say, here's what I think. And name names and
(18:54):
point fingers, and it's black and white. It's simple.
It's polarizing, and we like that. It's instinctively
reassuring to the human brain. The problem is
it's fake. It's not true. Most of the time,
it's not true. The world doesn't work that way. The world is not
black and white. It's gray. It's texture.
(19:18):
It requires context and that's not what you're
getting when when you're relying solely on a feed
said by algorithms that are reinforcing what you
already think. When we return, Rob, Cribb and I shift gears
to really talk about why journalism matters. It's the only
(19:38):
thing holding our leaders accountable. It's the only thing capable of
pulling the truth from the shadows. And then I share a story
about RBC and how much they matter to me.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman from Chatter That Matters. The world's upside down
(20:00):
and having peace of mind seems to be the exception versus the rule.
RBC Wealth Management is hoping to change that. They don't have a
crystal ball, but they do have a team of experts dedicated to working with
you to preserve and grow your wealth and help you manage risk so that you
can enjoy the rewards of your labor. Your peace of mind and
financial health matters to RBC.
(20:22):
The fact that there's so much fakery going on is a real challenge. It's even
a challenge for journalists. It's it's hard for us to figure out what's real and
what's not real anymore. There's sophistication, the technology. It is
easy to fake it. It is easy to lie. It is easy to
successfully lie. I mean, as journalists, I think all we can do is
tell the truth. Work hard, figure out what's real and what's
(20:44):
not, and be open and transparent about how we do it.
My guest today is at the top of the investigative journalist
game. He's a relentless secret of the truth,
Robert Cribb. I wanna get
back to your craft because I think this we could spend the whole time just
talking about the state of investigative journalism. I wanna walk
(21:07):
in your shoes. Is there times that you've done a story where
you're you have to navigate the balance between exposing the
truth and respecting ethical boundaries? It requires
a strong moral compass for sure. We speak to lawyers.
But at the end of the day, there's no real
playbook that takes into account every scenario. It's complicated.
(21:29):
Every every story is different and how you
act and the methods you use in each story,
you have to think about in an individual way. So I've done things
like undercover reporting which which is always froth,
ethically without question. Dealing with whistle blowers,
confidential sources, these are people that come to you with with
(21:52):
information which which is often credible but often also
tainted by their own self interest. Right? Like, why why would people come to a
journalist offering information? It's presumably, at
least in part, because they have an extra grind,
and that's okay. I understand that. But what do you
do, for example, if you, receive information from a
(22:14):
whistleblower, you're working with them, it's a confidential source relationship,
And at some point during the course of your investigation because you're going
out widely, you're not just relying on what they give you, you're triangulating, right?
You're testing that information, you're going to other people. What do you do, for example,
if you determine that the information provided to you is
false? What if it's made up? What if it's untrue? Or
(22:37):
what if it's only a part of the picture? How do you
treat that source to whom you've entered into some form of relationship or some sort
of confidential source relationship? Right? So those are tough. I mean, I have to believe
you source relationship. Right? So those are
tough. I mean, I have to believe you have this build this relationship with the
whistleblower. They feel that you're gonna treat what they believe, their
biases are true. They're gonna believe that they are changing the world and
(23:00):
you come to a different conclusion. That's gotta be an awkward conversation. Do they ever
get surprised when they read it? You must get saying, how did you misinterpret
everything I thought I was saying to you? Or Everybody knows what I'm gonna
write before I write it. That's one of the basic rules that we have
is that nobody doesn't know what's going to be in the paper. I
go to everybody and all sides get chair comment
(23:22):
and chance to respond. So they'll know, but it can be a very
difficult conversation. Some cases, you would kill the story. In other
cases, you find it isn't actually an important story and it needs to be
told, but it's not going to be told in the way that the
person thought it would be. And it may in fact be a
story that is damaged reputationally to that person or to their
(23:44):
interests or to the organization or whatever it might be. You have very few
friends when you do this work. That's for sure. You know, Hollywood has done an
incredible job at portraying the investigative journalists
in that that tireless effort to seek the truth. But, you know, you
mentioned lawyers, editors. How much bureaucracy
gets involved where you feel at times you're writing in
(24:07):
wet cement versus just wanting to move
forward with what you believe is the truth. I
have never felt impeded in any way. I've been at the Toronto Star
now for 20 most of my career, 20 something
years. And, it's a paper that has been
historically fearless in its reporting, Not one time and
(24:29):
I've done you know, I write stories about things that are controversial,
things that in some cases, advertisers don't like, etcetera. Not
one I mean, I can just tell you not one time has anyone tapped me
on the shoulder and said, you know what? Why don't we why don't we ease
off on this one? I think in Canada, that's typically
true. I when I speak with my friends and colleagues
(24:51):
about this kind of thing, although, you know, the truth is we've we've
all often had, for most of our careers and most of our
histories, we've had a lot more money. We've had resources. We've had lawyers.
It's changing our ability to defend ourselves now. For my
listeners because we have a lot of people around the world. I mean, the Toronto
Star is one of our major newspapers and
(25:12):
Toronto's obviously our major city. I would argue that
as social media herded us to like minded castles. Is it fair to
say that media has now deciding to change size? I I would
go with The Fox as the first example of that, which saying we are just
gonna be all in on the right. Is it fair to say that even newspapers
have become I would say they most of them existed some form a
(25:35):
little bit left or a little bit right of center, but they're moving more to
the fringes to go to attract a reader base? I could speak about
Canada, certainly, and say no. I don't think that's true. I mean, the
Toronto Star is left of center, moderate.
Globe and Mail would be right of center, moderate. The
Post, same, CBC, left,
(25:56):
moderate, you know, but the spectrum there in this country is not
vast. I don't I don't see that. Everyone is abiding by the
same ethical rules of journalism, fairness, balance,
accuracy, responsibility. I think that that's not the
case here. Of course, I'm a consumer of the media in the
United States and I think it's a different thing. And I think it's important to
(26:18):
distinguish between the two. Fox News
and, CNN. I was watching it a lot during, you know, the
election campaign and it really struck me. There is
nothing comparable in this country to to that. I
mean, it is absolute advocacy journalism.
And I and I hesitate to use the word journalism. I mean, yeah, it's it's
(26:40):
opinion. I mean, it's just a straight up opinion that seeks to
find the alternative facts to buttress that viewpoint.
Part of the reason I do this show is to show that in this
world of massive change, there's still ways to overcome circumstances,
chase dreams. And when you do, you get to change your world and often ours
for the better. And, you know, you mentioned, for example, the Panama Papers, which I
(27:02):
would absolutely argue changed our world for the better. What
advice would you give to young people that are wanna
get into journalism? They've grown up as digital natives. They've created their
content. They're they've gotten validation, not people protesting in front
of a a school like you found as a kid, but they might have had
something that went online and and got some viralocity. What
(27:23):
advice would you give them to go to move beyond sort of that
snackable content into journalism so
that they could pursue a a career and and find the same sort of purpose
and rewards that you found. Maybe the greatest joy I would say in my career,
just in the last 5 years, I've launched this nonprofit investigative
center, in Toronto. It's called the Investigative Journalism
(27:44):
Bureau, and it's this remarkable place where young journalists
come. I I these are, in some cases, people that I taught at
in in university and journalism courses and,
then hired them as interns and then they come into the the
bureau and now some of them are, you know, long time investigative reporters and
so they're some of the best in the country, well trained, hungry,
(28:07):
principled, wanna make a difference. And when I see
that, I mean, that's magic. And we publish these these
big, sprawling, hard hitting investigation, and they see
it, and they feel it, and I can see the synapses
connecting in their brains. And they
are so motivated. It is not
(28:29):
a job for them. They true like, I see the same thing I
guess that maybe somebody would have seen in me that day at the
university when I showed up and saw the protests out front. Like, I see it
happening. We're training the next generation of investigative journalists
at this place. I quit teaching a few years ago because
honestly, it's uncomfortable. Journalism schools have an uncomfortable
(28:52):
question that that they have to answer existentially. Like, what is
it that we're doing training all of these people for for an
industry that is collapsing? This kind of model, this thing that I've
been working on and other people, this kind of nonprofit, altruistic,
investigative model that digs deep, trains the next generation,
and collaboratively works with people who we didn't
(29:15):
traditionally work with. Like, we would we bring in academics. Every project we
have, we have an academic lead or 2. And they've shared with us
data and they do literature reviews with us, and we
bring in grad students. And and suddenly, you build this tent, and
all this brainpower enters it. And we can do far
more in-depth, textured, contextual
(29:37):
journalism than than we ever did before. It's amazing. Can this model
also extend where we go to taxpayers and say, if
we funded a non for profit, if we funded
investigative journalism and what we deemed to be the top topics that
matter, isn't this a good thing to invest in? It's taken a long
time to build the model and then prove the model. We've proven it now.
(30:00):
We've got years years of front page impeccable,
hard hitting reporting that's changed the world. It would have impacted
public policy, public discussion, public debate. I am now
of the mind that this has to be the way forward. So we take the
best of legacy media, the principles, the ethics,
(30:20):
the methodology, the systematic approach, and we
widen the tent. We bring in more people who are are
focused and and have unique, narrow, but
deep knowledge in areas that we're looking at. We bring in the
young people so that they can bring their perspective, but also an
opportunity to build the skills and train them. And then we
(30:42):
do 2 things simultaneously. We break new
information that would have never, never been published otherwise.
We go deeper with it and we come out with these
mission driven, well trained, young journalists
who are salivating over the prospects
of of doing this work well into the future
(31:05):
and and making our world better. Like, I am heartened by it. For the first
time, really, in a long time, I actually think we're gonna be
okay except that it's a real tough economic
it's very difficult funding, this is an as I'm learning. And the, you know,
the government funding is certainly one way to do it, but I don't think that's
going to be the full answer. I don't think we're gonna rely fully on governments
(31:26):
for this. There has to be as there is in the United States, there has
to emerge some form of philanthropic
interest in in sustaining the survival of
journalism in this country. I think you're onto something for sure because I
think just putting money into the traditional media platforms is putting a band aid on
a festering load. And what I love with you're doing is is if we can
(31:47):
present this to the citizens that this is the stories that matter.
And whether it's philanthropy or or crowdsourcing
models or government, if we truly believe
like Jefferson and Walter Cronkite and Nelson Mandela and all
the people that really have been beacons for democracy, that journalism is
the lifeblood. It's the oxygen. It's what breathes the truth into
(32:10):
what could very quickly become mantras. And I think it's possible,
but my worry is that it will take so long. There
is a point, I think, of no return where that where it just collapses to
a point where I just don't know that you can resuscitate.
We're getting there. Journalistically, it's great. It's
doing great. Everybody loves it. Everyone thinks it's incredible. But, you know,
(32:33):
it's very slow. It's it it takes a long time to turn around the
Titanic, as you know. I would also argue there's a lot of people that don't
want that Titanic turned around. I don't like those people. There's a handful of
people that are making an awful lot of money herding you into a
castle with like minded people and don't want you to have that
conversation every evening where you're looking at a variety of
(32:54):
stories and discussing stories and forming opinions that might be more in
the middle than on the edges because on the edges, there's, I
mean, there's been wealth created that's unprecedented in this society. We've never seen such
wealth happen so quickly to a handful of people that have found a way
that I don't really want you to think. I I want you to, to sit
in this pew and and, we're gonna preach what we wanna preach and you're gonna
(33:16):
feel like you're contributing to it because every 5 minutes you're gonna get to sing
with the choir or what's called validation nowadays or or like
something. It's as far away from facts as possible. Well, you've just made the
case though for the importance of of sustaining and rebuilding this
because the the the core mission of investigative journalism in
particular and this is the the freedom that fills my
(33:38):
day every day when I'm trying to decide what am I gonna do today? Where
am I gonna direct my attention today? It's the stories that speak truth to
power. It's about holding power to account. I mean, it that's the
very thing that we're trying to do here. So if what we're talking about is
the is the loss of that work, the people who get up every day
and ask those difficult questions and pour through the court
(33:59):
documents and spend countless hours gathering the data and analyzing
to try and pull together the answer to that question. How is it
that we're going to hold the powerful institutions that act upon
us to greater account? If if we're all gonna agree that it's not
important enough to sustain, well, you think it's bad now?
Just hold on a minute. I always end my podcast with my 3
(34:21):
takeaways. And the interesting one, it's always about human journeys, is that girl
that you chased into the newspaper room and fell in love with
investigative journalism, and how that journey now is driving
into a point of society where you might be tapped on the shoulder saying,
Rob, maybe it's no longer your calling to do investigative journalism.
Maybe it's to lead investigative journalism into the future. So it'd be really
(34:43):
interesting to see what happens if we can provide, society can provide the
economy to allow this non for profit to seek the
truth. The second thing that I I really like is this
simple expression, but I want everybody to just think about it all day.
Society's moved to saying I'm either black or white, but the world doesn't
operate that way. The world operates in the world of grey. And
(35:06):
within those grey, there's a lot of times we've got to shine lights on to
see what is really going on. And the third one is just
for people out there, we are all seek our calling. We all seek something
that has such purpose and passion, and I would argue an addiction that we just
we we wake up at 3 in the morning like Rob did and thinking about
it, and it comes with a price. Understand that when you find that, there's
(35:28):
a price. There's a price to you mentally. There's a price to you physically. More
importantly, there's a price to the people that you love because they have to
understand that when you go into those weeds, whether it's pulling an electric guitar
on stage and playing, writing, creating, being
criminal, justice, it comes with a price. And
that price is the people that want you to succeed, but at the same
(35:51):
time, need and deserve and want a piece of you. So, Rob, for all of
this and more, this has been a fantastic conversation. I appreciate you joining
me. You're a thoughtful guy. Thank thanks for asking me. I appreciate it.
I apologize. My voice is a little hoarse, but I wanted to share the story
about RBC. 2020 started the pandemic. It started to
(36:11):
see an idea about focusing on small business owners. Each week,
we share a story of somebody overcoming circumstances, and then we invite
3 experts to help that business. Someone from RBC and
then 2 people from my rolodex. People like Arlene
Dickinson and Joe Mimran and Jeannie Becker and so many more. It's
a great series. You go back to early in our tape, you'll love it. But
(36:33):
I just want to point out that one of the things that impressed me even
back then, and this is with Armin Huska, who was one of my
first contacts. And he said, at RBC, we invest in
Canadian journalism. We know it's not gonna get us the same clicks that you might
get on a Facebook. We know how important it is. And if we're a
bank that's gonna focus on more than money, focus on what really
(36:54):
matters to Canadians, then we gotta make sure we have a strong journalistic
community. So hats off to RBC for focusing
on the things that matter and the things that can make our country
so much better. Once again, a
special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatham that matters. It's
Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
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