The Rise Of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism In The United States

With a foreword from Michael Schudson, The Rise of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in the United States examines the rapid growth, impact and sustainability of not-for-profit investigative reporting and its impact on US democracy and mainstream journalism. The book addresses key questions about the sustainability of foundation funding, the agendas of foundations, and the ethical issues that arise from philanthropically funded journalism. It provides a theoretical framework that enables readers to recognize connections and relationships that the nonprofit accountability journalism sector has with the economic, political and mainstream media fields in the United States. As battered news media struggled to survive the financial crisis of 2007-2009, dozens of investigative and public service reporting startups funded by foundations, billionaires and everyday citizens were launched to scrutinize local, state and national issues. Foundations, donors and many journalists believed there was a crisis for investigative journalism and democracy in the United States. This book challenges this and argues that legacy editors acted to quarantine their investigative teams from newsroom cuts. It also demonstrates how nonprofit journalism transformed aspects of journalistic practice. Through detailed research and practical discussion, it provides a comprehensive study of this increasingly important genre of journalism. The Rise of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in the United States is an important text for academics and students of journalism, communications theory, media and democracy-related units, as well as journalists worldwide.

Theoretically grounded and using quantitative data spanning more than 50 years together with qualitative research, this book examines investigative journalism’s role in liberal democracies in the past and in the digital age. In its ideal form, investigative reporting provides a check on power in society and therefore can strengthen democratic accountability. The capacity is important to address now because the political and economic environment for journalism has changed substantially in recent decades. In particular, the commercialization of the Internet has disrupted the business model of traditional media outlets and the ways news content is gathered and disseminated. Despite these disruptions, this book’s central aim is to demonstrate using empirical research that investigative journalism is not in fact in decline in developed economies, as is often feared.

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic decline in the presence and influence of legacy news organizations. This decline has led to tremendous growth in news startups, which have attempted to fill the gap left by their legacy counterparts by producing the quality public service journalism upon which the health of U.S. democracy depends. If legacy news organizations, with their existing infrastructure, are failing, can these startups do any better? This question lies at the heart of Journalism Without Profit. Magda Konieczna explores three prominent news nonprofits: the Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest and largest of its kind; the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a university-based watchdog news organization that relies on others to publish its work; and MinnPost, an online news website. Through in-depth study of the practices of each newsroom, Konieczna isolates one common behavior that will contribute to their success: the way these organizations collaborate and share stories. Though this emergent behavior differentiates news nonprofits from the mainstream journalism from which they arose, it also ties the two forms of journalism together, as news nonprofits attempt to share stories with mainstream publications. In other words, the very behavior that may enable these organizations to do better than their mainstream counterparts also limits their ability to evolve much beyond them. In one of the first major books to focus on nonprofit journalism, Konieczna investigates the major questions that will open the field up to further study. Where did nonprofit news come from, and where is it going? Who funds it, and why? Ultimately, Konieczna offers a new way to think about the seismic changes in journalism that are defining the 21st-century.

This book offers new insights into the crucial role of investigative journalism at a pivotal time of technological changes and upheavals. It surveys innovations and unexpected impacts of the field, from past and present challenges and what may be in store for the future of the industry. The book begins by exploring the increasingly investigative innovations in political and independent reporting, along with a comparison of the rhetoric and reality of a so-called golden era of investigative journalism in the past and the present. It goes on to analyse the growth of creative and sports investigative reporting, as well as the ability of contemporary conflict journalism to overcome surmounting challenges. It also examines the capacity of groundbreaking investigations, including data reporting, to expose injustices involving women, indigenous communities and other minorities. In interviews with key industry and research professionals, this book presents the reactions of four media experts to the crises faced by investigative journalism in a digital environment of escalating disinformation, legal restrictions and popular interest in the news. The book concludes by reflecting on previous and current challenges and offers insights into the prospect for investigative journalism of the future. Presenting unique views on the diversity, resilience and transformative power of investigative journalism, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of journalism, communication, media and politics, as well as professionals already operating within the field of journalism.

This third edition maps the new world of investigative journalism, where technology and globalisation have connected and energised journalists, whistle-blowers and the latest players, with far-reaching consequences for politics and business worldwide. In this new edition, expert contributors demonstrate how crowdsourcing, big data, globalisation of information, and changes in media ownership and funding have escalated the impact of investigative journalists. The book includes case studies of investigative journalism from around the world, including the exposure of EU corruption, the destruction of the Malaysian environment, and investigations in China, Poland and Turkey. From Ibero-America to Nigeria, India to the Arab world, investigative journalists intensify their countries’ evolution by inquisition and revelation. This new edition reveals how investigative journalism has gone digital and global. Investigative Journalism is essential for all those intending to master global politics, international relations, media and justice in the 21st century.

This open access book is a rare example of the ethnographic study of investigative journalism. This book explores entrepreneurial attempts to combine traditional investigative journalism with alternative ways of organising this work. It transcends watershed investigative projects in favour of the ways in which new actors (citizens, technologists, bloggers and local reporters, among others) join experienced investigative journalists in experiments with the practices of watchdog journalism in the digital era. Cases include Bristol Cable, Bureau Local and the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism, as well as Forbidden Stories. The book also includes two chapters on the impact of COVID-19 upon the development of cross-disciplinary work in a traditional newsroom and in the larger media ecosystems of both Norway and China. This is a timely book for journalism students, scholars and investigative reporters, who share a passion for this form of journalism.

This book investigates the success of U.S. nonprofit university centers, where students work alongside investigative reporters, from a professional and educational perspective. Drawing on a detailed investigation of four of the most prominent and renowned centers in the U.S. – the IRP Berkeley (UC Berkeley), the Stabile Center (Columbia University), the Workshop (American University), and the New England CIR (Boston University) – the newsroom role and the classroom role of university nonprofits is examined. Finding the description of a win-win situation – where overstretched newsrooms get extra resources; while students learn from the best – an oversimplification, the author explores learning outcomes, student experiences, financial benefits, and quality of the student output. Offering an in-depth analysis of the characteristics, challenges and benefits of different forms of journalistic cooperation, this book will be a useful resource to scholars, students and practitioners of journalism, journalism education, and media practice.

Drawing on interviews with journalists, senior police and press officers, this is the first ethnographic study of crime news reporting in the UK for over 25 years. It explores changes over the last 40 years, including the aftermath of the Leveson Report and the breakdown of relations between the Met and the mainstream media. The book argues that new investigative journalism non-profits have been slowly repairing the field of crime journalism and reporting with – and not on – stigmatised communities. Nevertheless, the police continue to control the flow of policing news to the press and the public. Despite the radical transformation of the Fourth Estate, in the case of the police it has never been so restricted in its ability to speak truth to power.