Grant-supported investigative reporting in the West

A group of investigative reporters that once worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper have won a $40,000 grant to do in-depth reporting on environmental issues in the West under their newly minted nonprofit, InvestigateWest.

This is the kind of stuff I get really excited about. Here are some highly decorated journalists taking an entrepreneurial leap into a void that is growing exponentially in today’s world of 24-hour news cycles, pithy stories and constant updates. And apparently InvestigateWest’s supporter, the Bullitt Foundation, is fired up as well.

“As newsrooms across the nation have been downsized and shuttered, the public’s right to know has been compromised,” said Denis Hayes, president and CEO of The Bullitt Foundation. “InvestigateWest will explore new models for the sort of hard-nosed reporting that once characterized good journalism but that has become increasingly rare.”

Rest assured that InvestigateWest will bring the wood to these environmental issues. The five journalists involved have won or been finalists for major awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, the Edgar A. Poe award for White House coverage, the Casey Medal, Best of the West and a PEN award, according to an InvestigateWest press release. In other words, expect good stuff from these folks.

I can personally attest to that. I met InvestigateWest’s executive director, Rita Hibbard, at a Knight Fellowship for new media entrepreneurs this past spring at University of Southern California. During that week of activities, Hibbard’s passion for reviving investigative journalism in the West was clear.

Could this be a model for other regions? I think so. Investigative reporting is one of the largest expenses in the newsroom. These stories take months to accomplish and may require travel, overtime and temporary reassignment from what the reporter normally covers. Editors have to have vision and money to support it because they’re essentially reducing coverage on a topic so the investigative reporter can delve deeper into a particular issue. And there are no tweets or Facebook updates during the process.

Personally, I’d like to see more foundations supporting work like this. Since many of them share similar interests (InvestigateWest specializes in environmental and public health reporting while the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation, for example, seeks to preserve the natural physical environment of the Pacific Northwest), they make natural partners for nonprofit, topically driven news organizations. It could be a great marketing tool for them as well. The trick is to select foundations whose support would not taint or be contingent upon the outcome of the story that the money helps pay for.

Otherwise, I just don’t see more traditional newsrooms picking up the tab for these kinds of stories. Here’s a quote from Hibbard in the InvestigateWest news release:

“Investigative journalism and resource-intensive coverage like environmental journalism is becoming a scarce resource in this new media landscape. InvestigateWest continues the craft of change-making journalism enhanced by the muscle of today’s technology and fueled by citizen journalists who broaden our scope and widen our lens. This grant from the Bullitt Foundation helps us do that.”