07.02.09
Coalition forms to create Investigative News Network
Via the Center for Public Integrity, Investigative Journalism Conference Releases Declaration.
More than 25 non-profit journalism groups, including the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting, National Public Radio met over the last three days in Tarrytown, New York, to explore collaborative possibilities for investigative journalism. Today, the groups released their Pocantico Declaration, spelling out the immediate next steps to formalize their partnership in the Investigative News Network.
Plans for the Investigative News Network include a website featuring work contributed by all the cooperative’s members as well original major investigative projects. Its mission is “to aid and abet, in every conceivable way, individually and collectively, the work and public reach of its member news organizations, including, to the fullest extent possible, their administrative, editorial and financial wellbeing. And, more broadly, to foster the highest quality investigative journalism, and to hold those in power accountable, at the local, national and international levels.”
The Texas Observer and Texas Watchdog were at the conference. Texas Watchdog has this report.
I just got back from the Pocantico Conference Center, located at one of the Rockefeller family’s former estates about 45 minutes or so out of Manhattan. The conference center is used for many events connected with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
I was invited to the stone, ivy-covered mansion that the infamous oil baron once called home to participate in a conference of nonprofit investigative news groups. There were about 30 of us there, from the well known (The Voice of San Diego) to the not-quite-started-but-will-soon-be well-known (The Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network.)
The goal was to figure out how we can help each other, how we can stay funded and how we can collaborate on stories.
Ultimately we came up with the The Pocantico Declaration: Creating a Nonprofit Investigative News Network.
Definitely something to keep an eye on. High quality investative journalism is a must in a democracy.