Hacking and bribery scandals has left public trust in journalism at a level low a deep geothermal drill would struggle to reach it.
But the Sceptic Tank has spotted a glimmer of hope in recent weeks, and is ready to embark on a career as new kind of green journalist – one rising from the ashes of burnt out newspapers.
An investigator who embraces the age-old journalistic tradition of rifling through dustbins, not to discover which minister’s partner has a love of late night TV “entertainment”, but to work out whether public figures are committed to recycling or not.
Last month, this new breed of fearless investigator exposed the mysterious case of one eccentric Cabinet Office minister who ditched his work papers in park bins. Those dossiers may have contained nothing confidential, nor even remotely interesting, but we did learn that Oliver Letwin is as dismissive of recycling as he is at the prospect of thousands of solar workers being made unemployed.
Now, the bin-rooters have their second exclusive, revealing that Business Minister Vince Cable is waving the flag for greener, less wasteful ministers.
Admittedly, he was forced to apologise for binning unshredded confidential documents over a nine month period, having been uncovered by one concerned constituent and the hacks at the Richmond and Twickenham Times.
But more importantly, Cable had been using the recycling bin to chuck away those private letters.
So from tomorrow, the Tank’s new career will begin in Brentwood and Ongar, searching through the old pie wrappers thrown out by Committees Minister Eric Pickles in pursuit of the crucial question we all want the answer too – does he recycle or not?
(Source: www.businessgreen.com )