Sustainable funding for investigative reporting
Good reporting costs money. Robert Rosenthal of the Center for Investigative Reporting has a great TEDx talk about the challenges in finding a sustainable model for funding nonprofit investigative reporting on a large scale. WyoFile shares a lot of the same goals, methods and financial challenges, and Rosenthal’s talk is a great primer on why cooperative investigative reporting is needed in the wake of shifting (or collapsing) business models at news outlets everywhere. He cites California Watch’s recent “On Shaky Ground” investigation into seismic safety in schools as the kind of important work that is rarely done, and almost always after something goes wrong, rather than before. (Ken Doctor’s Newsonomics looks at the high cost of good reporting, noting that it took more than $500,000 to produce “On Shaky Ground.”)
Contact Ruffin Prevost at 307-213-9321 or ruffin@wyofile.com.