07/31/2008
News website worth checking on a daily basis
With traditional newsroom budgets shrinking under pressure from the investment community and corporate owners, there's a quiet crisis in the world of newsgathering.
Even if there's a reporter with the time and intelligence available to do investigative reporting, and an editor who can find the money to sustain an investigative project (all of this highly unlikely at most papers and other organizations), if the reporting turns up something politically or economically undesirable from the point of view of the owner, it's unlikely that anyone will ever hear anything about it.
It's unfortunate that the business model for investigative reporting is so nearly moribund; but Herbert Sandler, a multi-billionaire Democratic activist, donates approximately ten million dollars a year to ProPublica, a new organization and website dedicated to investigative journalism in the public interest.
From "About Us" on the ProPublica site:
ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with "moral force." We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.
Investigative journalism is at risk. Many news organizations have increasingly come to see it as a luxury. Today's investigative reporters lack resources: Time and budget constraints are curbing the ability of journalists not specifically designated "investigative" to do this kind of reporting in addition to their regular beats. This is therefore a moment when new models are necessary to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of our democracy.
Staffing the joint are several journalist superstars, including Paul Steiger and Stephen Engleberg.