Screenshot: ProPublica's Steall Our Stories
With a newsroom of 32 investigative journalists, ProPublica has emerged as a leader in independent nonprofit investigative news since their debut in 2008. But some in the field have questioned the reliability of the organization which claims the be the largest collective media outlet specifically for investigative journalism.
In a 2007 NYT article previewing ProPublica, the questions of funding-sway are raised and recognized by ProPublica itself. I like the second graf, citing the nonprofit as “…investigative journalists who will give away their work to media outlets.”
Sounds nice, right? The Web site seems to agree with this evaluation, with a link to “Steal Our Stories” plastered on the top of the main page.
But before the site even launched, it was the target of much speculation as to how the journalists would maintain their integrity and stay “objective” in their research and reporting. Slate’s Jack Shafer offered one of the first stabs when he wrote in 2007, “What do the Sandlers want for their millions? Perhaps to return us to the days of the partisan press.”
Shafer was referencing Herbert and Marion Sandler, the founders and financial backbone of ProPublica, who have promised $10 million a year to the organization, making it the most monetarily valuable venue of its kind. Shafer goes on to demand how he would keep the owners in their place, “…the first thing I’d want is proof of a firewall preventing the Sandlers and other funders from picking—or nixing—the targets of its probes.”
That sounds fair.
In the Times article, Herbert Sandler, officially the chairman of the company, made an attempt to sanitize ProPublica’s reputation, “All of my life I’ve been driven crazy whenever I encounter corruption, malfeasance, mendacity, but particularly where those in power take advantage of those who have few resources.”
And as any journalist should, I’m not taking his word for it.
In a June 2008 PBS interview, Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, came forth with how he plans to establish and uphold his publication’s integrity:
“…when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship. I mean, I find nothing wrong with partisan-motivated reporting. That’s just not me; that’s not what I want to be involved in. My history has been doing down-the-middle reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion, I said, ‘Are you comfortable with that?’ They said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘Well, suppose we did an expose of some of the left-leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you’ve supported in the past.’ They said, ‘No problem.’ And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we’re going to report on.”
This specific layout of power gives me hope for both ProPublica, and other sites forming similar platforms. And with an editor like Steiger, former managing editor of WSJ, I think the quality of journalism demanded should be near the upper-tier.
ProPublica even shows an ability to unsheathe its claws on occasion. For instance, when Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Kopel criticized the site’s coverage of hydraulic fracturing (a form of collecting oil), they returned with a rather personal report on Kopel’s shortcomings and laid out, in plain sight, several state documents and flaws in federal studies.
Here’s a bit of their rebuttal:
“These are classic examples of framing a precisely tailored question to elicit a misleading response, much as the tobacco industry used to ask scientists whether smoking could be conclusively identified as a cause of lung cancer.”
Ouch.
Take a look at ProPublica and let me know what you think. From what I’ve seen, they have a site that pleases the eye, quality photos and other multimedia, and are up to date with the numerous platforms and ways of getting stories circulated efficiently.
I have checked out ProPublica in the past, and thought it was an interesting news site. Their aim to carry stories with “moral force” is pretty lofty stuff. I hope they can maintain their goals. And … they are hiring reporters!
As I watch print media slowly sink and talk to more and more unemployed reporter friends, I am carefully watching online news sites to see how they will propel the news industry forward.
There are other sites like AllVoices, which reportedly launched a professional journalist add-on called ProVoices (I could not find it on their website, but read other websites report on it) which promises $250.00 per story.
AllVoices promises to take a story and then aggregate related stories and links, videos and photos to create a instant news package. It sounds intriguing, but I could not gauge how successful it was.
Also, knowing that a journalist does not have much to go on except a reputation for intelligent, poised, clear and fair writing or “voice” in the blogosphere, it would worry me to have my story aggregated with a bunch of stuff over which I had no control.
And, knowing the time and effort it takes to do a properly researched, in depth and fair piece of reporting, 250.00 is not going to be enough to guarantee top-level work.
I don’t think anyone really knows where news is going, or how it is going to be developed, researched, written and paid for. Right now, entrepreneurs like ProPublica and Huffington Post are trying new forms, while legacy publications like The Washington Post and The New York Times are putting huge efforts into multi-media and interactive presentations.
As a journalist-turned-student hoping to return to the work force, I hope all these efforts win and that the industry can be a powerful and vibrant voice, or a multitude of vibrant and powerful voices, once again.