Comments on: Pro Publica: can investigative journalism thrive with no bottom line?

By: Charlie Beckett

Charlie Beckett — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:28:09 +0000

Scott,
I expressed similar thoughts from a British perspective on my blog here:
http://www.charliebeckett.org/?p=436
We are very envious of US support for journalism projects like this, but our tradition is that this kind of reporting should come from the market-place, too.
regards
Charlie Beckett
Polis, LSE

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:06:11 +0000

“That people don’t know that is a big problem for Salon as an institution.”

What I’ve been wondering lately is if it is more a problem for all of us.

There are two components to journalism and it seems so many are focused on the first - the creation/composition piece. The second component is getting the work to those who need to hear it - and those who would want to hear it and don’t realize it yet.

By: Louis James

Louis James — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:09:48 +0000

Great post Scott! A agree with your assessment that innovation in this field is going to come from a new player out in left field. Someone will probably come up with a new business model at some point, and investigative journalism will flourish again.

By: Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:44:53 +0000

Thanks, Karl. But you know, the funny thing is, Salon *does* have an investigative journalism focus — not 100 percent like Pro Publica, but certainly at the heart of everything Salon has done since 1998 or so. (Recent example: that Washington Post story on Walter Reed Hospital that won big prizes? Salon broke it two years before the Post. Only… it didn’t get picked up.)

That people don’t know that is a big problem for Salon as an institution.

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:32:57 +0000

For those longer investigations, my other selections will do.

NPR provides me access to stories that I might not otherwise trip upon through the ’standard’ local or national sources.

Stories like this one:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/16248667.html

as newspapers contract and re-focus, are less and less likely to be reported because of lack of audience or financial reward.

That didn’t take six months to report. But it did take a decision to cover a story that the organization felt the community should hear. And hopefully, through the process of paging through a paper, would find (it was front page on the Local News section of the Inquirer).

Just take a look at NPR.org today. Far more than breaking news, and I’m thankful for it (I need to get back to being donor, been a couple years).

Right now I don’t have high hopes for Pro Publica because its website. There’s no there, there yet.

I second BBC Darren. And Scott, Salon has a lot to be congratulated upon as well. It doesn’t have an investigative journalism focus, but it does show that independent news media can thrive on the Web.

By: Scott Rosenberg

Scott Rosenberg — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:25:43 +0000

Oh, I’m a big believer in not-for-profit in general — and NPR is my breaking-news broadcast outlet of choice.

But I don’t think of NPR as a source of the sort of six-months-long investigative opuses that we are all worrying about disappearing, and that Pro Publica is committed to supporting.

By: Darren Barefoot

Darren Barefoot — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:12:34 +0000

I’d add the CBC, BBC and ABC (in Australia) to the list of successful non-profit models.

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:06:47 +0000

non-profit can work.

NPR, PBS, Consumer Reports, and The Center for Public Integrity.

Actually, these days, it is non-profit sources of news that I rely on day in and day out for investigative pieces.