When it comes to scams, journalism is letting down the public

We can do much more

One of the unexpected consequences of making The Missing Cryptoqueen was the number of people who messaged me afterwards, telling me about similar – and usually ongoing – scams. I must have received dozens, maybe even hundreds, of sad stories. How they’d been tricked and duped, and lost small fortunes.   

They usually shared one thing in common too: the police were doing nothing, and, other than a niche blog or Reddit thread, neither were the mainstream press. They came to me because they thought I might be able to help somehow.  

It was very frustrating that I couldn’t research them all. Not properly. And besides, the media has a limited attention span. No-one would have commissioned me to investigate another, almost identical, scam to the one I’d just made. And if I’m honest, I didn’t have the appetite or time. So I never really wrote much about any of them.  

I’ve since come to realise that this might have been a big mistake; because it misunderstands the vital role journalists play in stopping scams mid-flow. And no, I don’t mean our catch-all ‘inform the public’ role. It’s something more important than that. I’m not even sure most journalists fully understand it themselves – and that is why we are collectively failing the public.