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……
Month: July 2009
Andreesen invests in Talking Points Memo
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. You can read this story on Tech Crunch's website here…….
She Was Never About Those Huddled Masses
The Washington Post ran a widely carried op-ed by Faculty Fellow Roberto Suro about the Statue of Liberty. Suro suggested that the Emma Lazarus poem on the statue – which includes the line "Give me your tired, your poor" – be removed. "We live in a different era of immigration, and the schmaltzy sonnet offers a dangerously distorted picture of the relationship between newcomers and their new land," Suro wrote. Suro also participated in an online forum by The Washington Post…….
Political rumors getting harder to dispel
Contra Costa Times quoted Faculty Fellow Thomas Hollihan about the circulation of false political rumors online. "What happens is these are sent to people of like-minded beliefs and are often given more credibility than they deserve," Hollihan said. Part of the problem is poor levels of information literacy, he added…….
CCLP Report Details Growing Philanthropic Support for Journalism
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 & 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…….
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……