Journalism lessons from the MPs' expenses exposé

The MPs'expenses invegations was carried in a seperate bunker from the usual Telegraph newsroom. Photograph: Victoria/Flickr

Expensesgate, produced by the Daily Telegraph has struck gold, increasing the paper's monthly sales by a million and website traffic by 35 percent with revelations on moats, duck houses and pornographic movies continuing every day.

Each morning, the country wakes up to new secrets uncovered which shock, surprise, entertain and anger.

The deputy editor of the Telegraph, Andrew Pierce, admits the financial motive behind the drip by drip of information at a journalism club event on Monday. “We run teasers on the website the previous night driving people to buy the newspaper in the morning.

“It is time to move on. It is time for the Telegraph to explain its ethics. Pierce says, “This is real old-fashioned journalism to the core.”

Chequebook journalism has been the pariah since forever. Yes, the Telegraph has done the nation a service by exposing the truth on MPs' expenses. But chequebook journalism suggests that everything has a price and information needs the big moolah.

To be fair to the Telegraph they did conduct investigations and they cross-checked information, however the truth remains that they received all the raw information packaged in some convenient form, be it paper or on disc.

Meanwhile, investigative journalist [ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/15/mps-expenses-heather-brooke-foi Heather Brooke] was using the Freedom of Information Act for five years and working on the story. She was finally about to gain access when it was announced the MP expenses would be published in July. However the Telegraph got hold of the information first.

Apparently The Times ‘passed' on the information, the Sun’s editor, Rebekah Wade, was wrongly informed that the revelation would not lead to a cabinet minister’s resignation and the Daily Express picked on Jacqui Smith claiming expenses on pornographic movies. The Telegraph got hold of the information and published the whole lot. Pierce says, “We have four months of information to write on.”

Scoops are a rat-race and the first to the finish line gets the accolades but as a young journalist starting my career, the investigation has been a lesson on ethics: that there are none in journalism. It's all about getting the story out and no one frankly cares how, especially ones with high level of public interest.