In this DTX Q&A, Bryan Glick, editor of Computer Weekly, discusses Computer Weekly's 16-year investigation into the Post Office Scandal, and provides some guidance on how organisations can work with media in the wake of tech outages / cyber attacks.
Bryan is speaking on DTX London’s Main Stage on Wednesday 1st October at 2:00PM - 2:30PM for the session:
Can you give a brief overview of your career and specifically your role at Computer Weekly?
I’ve been a technology journalist for 25 years – and prior to that worked in the IT sector for a decade. I became editor in chief at Computer Weekly in late 2009, with a remit to lead our digital transformation from a UK-focused print magazine with 90,000 subscribers, to a multi-platform digital business. The job has changed and grown enormously since then. Today my team is 30-strong, based in seven countries, writing in five languages for an audience of IT professionals around the world, attracting six million readers last year.
Computer Weekly famously broke the Post Office scandal in 2009. What have been your key learnings over the past 16 years and what does the story teach us about the media holding organisations to account?
More than anything, our experience with the Post Office scandal shows the value of specialist journalism generally, and of well-focused tech journalism in particular. The world runs on technology, but it’s often complex and full of jargon – and as a result, the unforeseen consequences when tech goes wrong can easily be overlooked or misunderstood. A lot of the media ignored the Post Office scandal for years, dismissing it as just a “computer story”. Our specialist knowledge gave us the insights and confidence to investigate what had happened and campaign on behalf of its victims across – so far – 16 years. We were able to ask the questions few other publications would even consider. The media must hold tech companies to account – but that’s not enough. It’s just as vital to look at the way that organisations use technology and how that affects their customers and employees – as well as questioning the technology itself. This will become even more important in future, as AI takes a growing role in our lives. With the Post Office, the technology flaws that underpinned the scandal were easy to understand once they were exposed – but what if they came from a “black box” AI system where the internal logic and reasoning is almost impossible to decipher? It’s one thing to question when “computer says no”, but what happens when “AI says no” and nobody knows what questions to ask?
What editorial decisions enabled Computer Weekly to persist with story, especially given it was overlooked by many other mainstream outlets, and it occurred at a time when many investigative journalism budgets were being cut?
The most important editorial decision was simply to stick with the story, in the face of consistent and often aggressive denials from the Post Office, and being ignored by most of the wider media and the British establishment. In the early days we had no idea it would become such an enormous national scandal, but we could see there was something fundamentally wrong and that innocent people were paying the price. Not every story we published was some huge revelation or expose or the result of a big, one-off, investigative effort – most of them were about chipping away, patiently and painstakingly uncovering the truth and building the case to prove that the Post Office was lying. As we got to know the victims better – and as their number grew – we were motivated by outrage at the injustice they suffered, and that’s what drives us still today.
What do you believe is the key takeaway organisations should learn from the scandal?
I would highlight three things:
- Technology is not a panacea: It cannot be stated often enough that technology is a tool, not a solution to all your business problems. IT can turbocharge an organisation’s performance but it can also destroy the most trusted brands – it’s people who make the difference, and even more so in the AI age.
- Business leaders must make sure they have the right culture and expertise: They are running their organisation on increasingly complex technology, do they know how and when to question what it’s doing, and do they have the in-house skills to find out? Or has outsourcing these key competencies led to executive blindness?
- Bring everyone with you on the tech and AI journey: Technology and artificial intelligence can still be overwhelming and scary even for today’s digital generation of employees and customers. Leaders must bring everyone along on the journey if they’re to deliver success.
When an organisation suffers a cyber attack or an IT outage / malfunction, what is the best way to work with media? Is transparency always key?
There are, of course, always legal, data protection, regulatory and national security considerations that play a part – but beyond that, absolutely transparency is key. One of the most destructive cyber attacks of the last decade was on the shipping company, Maersk in 2017 – a ransomware attack that cost the firm $300m. But from day one, Maersk was open about what happened, published regular updates and progress reports on its website, and despite the financial losses became seen as a paragon of corporate governance, honesty and communication. They shared what they learned and what they did, to help other organisations avoid what they went through. As a result, they also kept control of the narrative. Contrast with, for example, TSB Bank, where a catastrophic IT outage caused days of confusion and uncertainty as customers couldn’t access their funds and nobody knew what was going on. The bank’s name has never recovered. The best way to tackle these problems is to share experiences when they happen – through collaboration and empathy – so everyone can minimise the chances of being affected in future.
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