James Rampton on Roger Cook and the reporters who changed history
James Rampton remembers Roger Cook and explores how fearless investigative journalists have exposed corruption, confronted criminals and changed history.
Image: James Rampton
James Rampton is an experienced journalist and has written for a variety of newspaper outlets during his more than four decades in the industry. In the following guest article, James remembers the life and career of legendary investigative journalist Roger Cook, highlights how he changed the profession forever and the history-defining stories that have been broken by intrepid reporters.
“You have to put your life on the line.”
That is how the late Roger Cook described what it takes to be a successful investigative journalist.
And Cook, who passed away last month at the age of 83, certainly put his life on the line numerous times during his storied five-decade career.
After confronting criminals, the peerless investigative journalist frequently wound up in hospital with injuries ranging from broken fingers to dislocated shoulders and fractured ribs. A doctor once told him that if he hadn’t been so sturdy, he would not have survived when a crook ran him over. Not for nothing was Cook known as, 'Britain’s bravest and most beaten-up journalist.'
During my forty plus years in the trade – I know, I know, I don’t look old enough - Cook’s style of journalism has been inspirational. He was indefatigable in his mission to take down the criminal, the corrupt, the crooked and the previously untouchable.
Most of us got into journalism aspiring to be the next great investigative reporter. Few of us, of course, achieved that lofty ambition. But Cook was always our role model.
The reporter, who mastered the art of taking on criminals with his courageous foot-in-the-door methods, was a titanic figure in the field. He shone a fierce light into the dark corners which villains did not want anyone to see.
He was absolutely unflinching when fronting up criminals. In 2012, he disclosed that he was on 'death threat number 12'. During a sting on Northern Irish paramilitaries, for instance, he had a gun pointed at his head by an attacker bent on extorting £100,000 from the intrepid reporter.
On another occasion, Cook was repeatedly struck with a metal bar by a dodgy antiques dealer he had uncovered during an investigation.
Cook, who was given such nicknames as 'nemesis in a leisure shirt', 'a cross between Meatloaf and the Equaliser', and 'The Taped Crusader', pioneered the art of 'doorstepping'. This involved surprising a criminal at home or at the office and presenting him with irrefutable evidence of his misdemeanours. In his relentless hunt for truth and justice, he very much walked the walk.
His take-no-prisoners approach led to many criminal convictions. For example, he exposed a huge money laundering scheme masterminded by the infamous criminal Johnny 'Goldfinger' Palmer, who was subsequently jailed for eight years for timeshare fraud.
From 1987, his programme The Cook Report ran for 16 series. It drew up to 12 million viewers a week - figures that commissioning editors these days would sell both their grannies for. He won a special Bafta award in 1998 for 25 years of outstanding investigative reporting.
Cook’s enormously courageous exposés had a significant knock-on effect. They influenced generations of investigative journalists, including Stacey Dooley, Donal McIntyre and Ross Kemp, who has presented such strong Sky HISTORY investigative documentaries as Mafia and Britain and Deep Sea Treasure Hunter.
But of course, Cook did not invent investigative journalism; he was merely standing on the shoulders of giants.
The most renowned instance of investigative journalism in history is Watergate. This case has become so famous that any major crisis now has the suffix '-gate' attached to it.
The notoriety of Watergate only increased when it was dramatised in All the President's Men, an Oscar-winning 1976 movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
In 1972, a group of criminals were apprehended in the act of burgling the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
Soon afterwards, a pair of first-rate investigative reporters from The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, began to examine links between the robbers and President Richard Nixon.
Their investigation revealed a massive abuse of power, a string of illegal actions, spying on an industrial scale and an appallingly botched attempted cover-up by the president. It sparked national outrage and triggered Nixon’s unprecedented resignation in 1974.
Watergate transformed the political landscape, and to this day, it is the most potent instance of the impact of investigative journalism. It has become a byword for the importance of fearless reporting.
Equally tenacious journalism at the Boston Globe in 2001 disclosed widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The reporting by the Globe’s investigative Spotlight team led by Walter "Robby" Robinson unearthed shocking institutional cover-ups and the disgraceful shielding of paedophile priests.
It resulted in large-scale changes to the way the church was governed and perceived. This case also prompted another Oscar-winning movie, 2015’s Spotlight.
Investigative journalists in the UK have conducted equally crucial investigations. In 1975, six men from Northern Ireland - known as The Birmingham Six - were convicted of carrying out the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, which killed 21 people.
But the unwavering investigative journalist Chris Mullin felt sure that the Six were innocent. During the 1980s, he made several World in Action programmes questioning the men's convictions. His 1986 book, Error of Judgment: The Truth About the Birmingham Pub Bombings, backed up the men's claims that they had been wrongfully convicted.
Mullin’s tireless campaign came to a successful conclusion when the convictions of the Birmingham Six were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991.
Again, the exceptionally dogged work of an investigative journalist materially changed people's lives.
Often, quite understandably, we journalists enjoy a terrible reputation, competing with estate agents and serial killers as the most loathed people in society. The heinous News of the World phone hacking scandal in 2011 – ironically, revealed by a superb piece of investigative journalism by Nick Davies at The Guardian - only served to debase our standing further.
However, there are still a few noble investigative journalists who are pursuing a higher calling. In cases as varied as the MeToo movement, the MPs’ expenses scandal, and the WikiLeaks revelations, they have made a real difference to society.
They have also ensured that offenders are brought to justice and prevented from harming others and that previously ignored misdemeanors are taken seriously in future.
Yes, we might be criticised for our behaviour – frequently, with some justification. But society would be a much more dangerous place and the exploitation of power would go entirely unchecked if it weren’t for the tenacity of investigative journalists.
In their quest for transparency and their insistence that wrong-doers should not be allowed to get away with it, these reporters won’t be fobbed off. They will run headlong through all sorts of legal barriers, negative PR campaigns and threats to their personal safety and bank balances in order to get to the truth.
They play a vital role in our democracy, exposing egregious abuses of power and holding those in authority to account. Driven by a passion for justice, they have bravely brought down presidents and prime ministers.
Of course, I may be biased. But I believe that these crusading journalists should be regarded not as hacks, but as heroes.
