We tell the stories that the people need, stories that powerful want to be left unheard. For me, investigative journalism is the bloodstream of the media, says Axel Gordh Humlesjö, investigative journalist at the Swedish public broadcasting service SVT, in an interview for the Institute of Communication Studies. He specializes in the areas of money laundering, corruption and cross-border reporting. His investigations exposed Russian security services’ infiltration into Scandinavian banks and he is a 2024 IRE finalist for the documentary Putin’s Spies in Sweden. In 2019, his team won an Emmy® for the documentary Deceptive Diplomacy – Cover-up by the UN about the murders of two UN experts in DR Congo. His latest story revealed bribes and corruption at Securitas, one of the world’s largest security companies. In Skopje, he was a trainer at the regional training for investigative reporting, organized by ICS, on November 12^th – 14^th.

What’s a good place to look for investigation topics such as organized crime and corruption that harm state systems and the lives of citizens? What is your recipe for a good direction in investigation?

– In general, it all depends on where you are from and what is your attitude towards journalism. But if I look at it from my perspective, I investigate topics about things that interest me. I have always been interested in hypocrisy in a society. It is interesting to see where there is a great contrast between what is said and what is done. And I think that’s always been a topic – the human nature of lies and corruption as propaganda. My path in journalism was, above all, politics. I was very interested in politics. When I started doing investigative journalism, it was about current events that made the news, if you can find the backside of those stories, that’s always interesting.

Have you witnessed the evolution of investigative journalism topics over the years?

– The major revolution both for journalism and for myself started with the Panama Papers. Until that moment, rich people, criminals and dictators, corrupt politicians were very safe in hiding their money. They had great lawyers, they had big companies, and they weren’t afraid of being exposed. And then suddenly, with the Panama Papers, it all changed. Suddenly we as journalists who had been chasing all these bad actors for so many years, trying to find out where they were hiding the money and how they were doing it, we had the information. We were at the frontline, we were at the frontier of journalism, turning the tide, taking back the power of the public against these people. I’m like a ship on that sea and all the stories I do are still about these kinds of leaked documents that came from Panama, Pandora documents, Dubai leaks. Much of my investigative journalism is about connecting money with stories about war, corruption or spies. When I started in journalism, this big data didn’t even exist, nobody was doing that. And now suddenly we’re sitting there with ten million documents and we can read, go to the bottom of finding the money, tracking the money.

How can the impact of investigative stories be strengthened, because in Macedonia, for example, many of the stories are ignored by the authorities, but also by the mainstream media?

 – I make long documentaries and I want people to watch them like they are getting into something, to understand the subject and that the story won’t let you go. I think the key to investigative journalism is to really dig to find the information, but you also have to put a lot of energy into the storytelling part because if your story is important but boring, it’s going to be hard to convince people why it’s important. That’s why television is so entertaining because you can use Hollywood tricks to convince people.

Journalists reveal abuse of power and the power of individuals, thus contributing to responsible and accountable governance, but how important is it to abide by the established rules and standards?

 – It is extremely important to have discussions about rules and standards, but I also think that to go against the powerful, you often can’t do it if you follow the rules. The first rule of investigative journalism is that, if the story is important enough, no rules can stop it. For me, that is the key. Different societies, of course, create different rules. In some countries, even journalism itself is illegal. In Sweden, we have a lot of standards and rules that are very good to protect people. You have hidden publish, you can hide people’s names or hide their faces, so it all depends on the situation. But when I talk to students, I tell them – everything is about the importance of the story. You can do a lot of rule-breaking if you do it for a specific purpose.

How should journalists build good relations with sources and citizens in general, so they can get to more investigative stories?

 – That’s what I was here to talk about, I was invited to the regional journalism training organized by the Institute of Communication Studies to talk about recruiting sources and how to get closer to people. We as journalists or media, don’t talk enough about the craft and the skills that need to be developed, how we can be better at getting our sources and network by developing that we can do much better journalism. Looking at this as a journalist, you don’t have to think about whether that person is good or bad, or say I can’t talk to that person because I’m a woman, or I can’t talk to that woman because I’m a man, or I can’t get into that situation because it might look bad for me. We have to be everywhere; we have to talk to everyone. And yes, get really close to people, understanding their psychology. That way, you can tell better stories.

Are more investigative journalism initiatives necessary today, considering that most newsrooms focus more on daily news?

 – I think investigative journalism is the key to democracy and the survival of the media. Especially now that we have social media filled with different kinds of opinions and all kinds of videos, investigative journalism is what sets us apart, that is our whole. I have never worked on daily news, for me the only journalism that exists is investigative journalism. Look at the narrative of powerful people, we can read the things politicians say directly from their Instagram account. We are needed because we tell the stories that the people need, stories that the powerful don’t want to be told. To me, investigative journalism is the bloodstream of the media.

 Public broadcasting services have the role of accurately and timely informing the citizens. Should more investigative stories be presented, what is the situation in the Swedish public service?

 – More in-depth investigative stories are needed, not only to inform the people about the daily news. In Sweden, we have a very strong public broadcasting service. It is the most valued public institution with a very high trust rate. It is very important that we take on that responsibility of safeguarding the status of the public broadcaster, not being influenced by politicians on how to run it, it should be independent. We are not owned by oligarchs, we are not owned by billionaires, we are not owned by politicians. We are owned by the people, paid by the people and we work for the people and by doing that, we gain their confidence. We tell them the stories as they are and the information they need to hear, and we hope they are grateful.

This content was created by the Institute of Communication Studies.

Journalist: Sunchica Nikoloska

Photographer: Tomislav Georgiev