When you're a crime reporter, you see the nub of what life's about, and you don't have much patience for the falsity of politics.
When journalism is treated as just another widget in a commercial enterprise, the focus isn't on truth, verification or public good, but productivity and output.
Whether I'll get the chance to write fiction, I don't know. I could do political conspiracy thrillers, couldn't I? With an investigative journalist as the heroine.
The speed with which WikiLeaks went from niche interest to global prominence was a real-time example of the revolutionizing power of the digital age in which information can spread instantly across the globe through networked individuals.
I know people don't like America very much, but the one thing it's very good on is local government.
There's not a self-regulating group of nice fair-playing people in politics. There are a lot of dodgy people in politics.
If any of us were faced with a huge bag of free money and very little accountability, it would be human nature that you would make the most of it.
What the Internet has done is it has decentralised power.
There's a lot of hand-wringing going on about the death of journalism and particularly the death of investigative journalism. What I see is that there is more need than ever to have experienced information processors - people who can look through this mass of data.
The biggest abuses in society happen when people are not able to communicate and not able to connect.
There is a very intense culture of secrecy in Britain that hasn't yet been dismantled. What passes for transparency here would serve any secret society well.
There are corporate private investigators, companies doing very forensic background checks on people. They buy data, they get their own data... They don't want their industry publicised.
People are used to getting a lot of information quickly, and they're used to being quite empowered as consumers, and they go to governments expecting a similar treatment; they want to find data and they want to influence events quickly, and yet they come into this brick wall.
The values of WikiLeaks have been completely overshadowed by Julian Assange.
If you really believe in a cause, let the cause speak for itself. And if you, by your personality, are damaging that cause, if you really believe in it, you step aside.
We are not naughty children, and the state is not our parent.
I like to write books and cause trouble.
I've written for 'The Times' because they have valued what I do enough to pay me. The 'New Statesman' magazine also asked me to write an article, but they didn't want to pay me anything. To me, that shows how much they value quality journalism.
If you don't think there is any value in the work I, or any other serious journalists do, then don't spend your money on it. At least you have the choice.
I've always worked on the fringe of the British press establishment, carving out this niche for myself.
