McClatchy Newspapers publishes award-winning series on human trafficking

In April of this year, The Kansas City Star was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for their groundbreaking series, "A New Slavery." The series, written by reporters Laura Bauer, Mike McGraw, and Mark Morris investigates the US' weak enforcement of human trafficking. The multi-piece series contains interviews with victims of trafficking, government officials, and other who have been affected by the crime and enforcing the laws to end it. The Kansas City Star is a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company. Congratulations to the writers of The Kansas City Star as well as Gary Pruitt, Center on Communication Leadership……

Nonprofits see a revenue model: universities

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……

New investigative group’s twin missions: journalism and sustainability

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 (IRE) 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……

Nonprofits launch Investigative News Network

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……

Investigative network likely to emerge today

Before they head for home Wednesday, about three dozen participants at an investigative reporting summit in New York are likely to launch planning for new organization uniting the growing number of nonprofits producing investigative journalism. The new network, dubbed for now the "Investigative News Network," would be another significant step in the rise of nonprofit investigative journalism in recent years. Chuck Lewis, the godfather of so much in investigative journalism, called the initiative "truly historic." At a conference outside Tarrytown, N.Y., Lewis laid out a possible scenario Tuesday for how the network might take shape. Secure a planning grant that……

Bullish: Investigative reporting nonprofits

You needn't look far to find skepticism about the potential of foundations and philanthropists to bankroll the work that newspapers have long done. Conventional wisdom is that funders of nonprofits can make only a marginal difference, that the real answers will come from private sector innovators. But these skeptics aren't much found in evidence at the nation's leading investigative reporting nonprofits. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting are all on the move, all seeing growing opportunities for nonprofit investigative work, all hopeful about future funding…….

Watchdog journalism: Hardly a newspaper afterthought

I've just helped judge a journalism contest for my alma mater, McClatchy, and have a couple of observations to report: First, don't believe those who argue that newspapers' investigative reporting is so minimal that it's easily replaced. It isn't small, and if newspapers couldn't do it anymore, the void would be very deep. Second, high-quality watchdog reporting isn't simply the province of big national players doing "secret prisons" or "secret eavesdropping" stories. It's also the heart and soul of newsrooms across the country that keep watch over their communities and regions. I say these things not primarily to brag about……