The content is decisive, not the sender

It all started with two incredibly attractive deals. An Israeli billionaire was able to acquire the mining rights to the world's largest untapped iron ore deposit from Guinea's last dictator shortly before he was voted out of office in 2008. The cost: 800 million dollars. A year and a half later, Beny Steinmetz, the name of the electoral genefer who had become rich in the diamond business, sold this license on to the Brazilian mining group Vale - for 2.5 billion dollars. The profit margin of over 300% was adventurous even by African standards and raised critical voices. At the end of 2012, the Financial Times reported on accusations of corruption made by the new, democratically elected president of Guinea against his predecessor and Steinmetz. Shortly afterwards, the non-governmental organization Global Witness, which specializes in raw materials research, provided the first and, as has since been shown, watertight evidence of the presidential suspicions.

Last December, the publicity-shy tycoon, who is now under investigation in five countries, sued his renowned London colleagues. However, due to a lack of evidence to the contrary, he did not - as is usual in such cases with reference to the dreaded British "Libel Law" - sue for defamation or damage to his reputation. Instead, together with three directors of his Beny Steinmetz Group Resources, he is accusing Global Witness of "intentional violation of data protection and personal rights". The plaintiffs are invoking the Data Protection Act, which does not apply if the publication of personal or business data serves a "journalistic purpose". Media professionals therefore enjoy immunity from this article of the law. But does this also apply to an investigative and professionally publishing organization that was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003?

This fundamental question will have to be answered by an inexperienced media law judge in the coming weeks. In doing so, he will set a signal for or against freedom of the press that is likely to radiate from the island to continental Europe. Because if Steinmetz gets away with his hypocritical argumentation, it would have a gagging effect on civil society as a whole. It would then probably only be a matter of time before NGOs could no longer invoke other special journalistic rights that are fundamental to their work, such as the protection of sources. At the same time, many media scholars today also assume that in future even more extensive research will be carried out by activists. "Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace and Global Witness have the same level of expertise, but much greater resources," says Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University in New York.

Enlightening, advocacy journalism therefore needs them more and more, the complementary forces from the NGO world. The sender is no longer the only decisive factor in defining this central function of power control. Or does an editorial service article about the coolest sunglasses of the season do a democratic society a greater service than a corruption story that has been researched and documented for months, for example about African commodity deals with Swiss involvement? The killer criterion for a journalistic product should therefore not be the payroll on which its author is listed. Politically relevant journalism in the 21st century therefore needs a definition based on content and craftsmanship and not on actors. And a British judge who trusts his civic instinct more than traditional, formal legal distinctions.

Oliver Classen is media spokesman for the Berne Declaration, a development policy organization. He previously worked as a media journalist.