July 2009 Archives

The headlines from last month's meeting of investigative reporting profits focused on one thing – their formation of a network to support investigative reporting and provide a showcase for the groups' work.

The new organization, for now called the Investigative News Network, could be a big deal, and the 10 members of its steering committee went right to work getting it up and running.

But another big theme rumbled through the meeting outside New York City at the Rockefeller estate, and that was the nonprofits' mad dash for new revenue models.  "My personal passion is sustainability," said MinnPost CEO Joel Kramer.  By the end of the meeting, nearly all of the roughly three dozen participants had said a version of the same thing.

The cause of investigative reporting is hot right now, and many new groups have caught the attention of foundations.  But they fear this money could fade quickly, so there's an urgency about their exploration of new revenue models. A bunch of new ideas, some already in practice, flew around the room.

Josh Marshall's successful Talking Points Memo enterprise has resisted outside investment -- until now.  Tech Crunch reports investor Marc Andreesen has put in $500,000 to $1 million of his own money into TPM Media, founded by Marshall in 2000.  Read Tech Crunch story. -- July 6, 2009

Philanthropic foundations are taking unprecedented steps to address the crisis in journalism and “serve as a firewall against the disappearance of critical news and information,” according to a new report from the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.
 
The report, Philanthropic Foundations: Growing Funders of the News is authored by David Westphal, a CCLP senior fellow and former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers.

How hot is the world of nonprofit investigative reporting these days?  Hot enough to make Jon Sawyer, who runs an international reporting shop, full of envy at this week's gathering on investigative reporting outside New York City.

"We'd like to see the same energy in international reporting that we see on the investigative side," said Sawyer, director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

As was true at the recent Investigative Reporters and Editors conference, this week's meeting of investigative reporting nonprofits generated an unmistakable energy field.  Which is an amazing thing, given how desperate the plight of investigative journalism seemed just 18 months ago.

Today, a nonprofit group featuring or specializing in watchdog reporting is being created almost every month -- a pace that emboldened leaders to take the first step this week toward creating a network connecting these mostly  startup groups. Participants established a steering committee that swings into action immediately after the July 4 holiday, with Goal No. 1 being securing foundation support for a planning grant.

A group of investigative reporting nonprofits has endorsed formation of a new umbrella organization aimed at sustaining the burgeoning investigative nonprofit movement and bringing new prominence to its journalism.

A resolution, "Pocantico Declaration: Creating a Nonprofit Investigative News Network,"  was approved Wednesday by a diverse group of nonprofit leaders – established organizations like the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting, as well as newcomers like Texas Watchdog and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

The group's mission will be to "aid and abet, in every conceivable way, individually and collectively, the work and public reach of its member news organizations, including … their administrative, editorial and financial well-being."  Here's the full text of the resolution.