The Investigations Fund

By Martin Bright, Heather Brooke, Peter Barron, Nick Davies, Nick Fielding, Misha Glenny, Stephen Grey (editor), Mark Hollingsworth, Andrew Jennings, Phillip Knightley, Paul Lashmar, David Leigh:

OUR MISSION:

The newly-formed Foundation for Investigative Reporting is launching a campaign to help secure the future of public interest reporting in the UK. We are setting up a fund that will support the kind of risky, challenging reporting for which there is a crying demand – and as an experiment to seek out new ways to support this vital work.

As recent global events like the financial collapse reveal, the demand is greater than ever for the reporters basic mission of “finding stuff out”.

We urgently need to hear from you with your thoughts, pledges of any form of support, or the sort of big idea or information about something you believe should be investigated – and isn’t.

The fund does not intend to compete directly with established media, but will instead provide the seeds from which the big story can grow. It will help provide the initial cash & support required to back journalists who want to dig into risky and difficult areas: exactly the sort of things for which it is hard to get funding.

We want to aim locally and globally – to support the sort of investigation of grassroot stories and services that is dying by the minute as local newspapers are hit hard; and to support those many stories of vital public interest in Britain that have an important international connection, particularly in the developing world, but where the costs of chasing down the truth may seem prohibitively high.

Many of us involved in this project are veterans with a long track record but our primary aim is to support a new generation of up-and-coming investigators — to raise morale among talented people who may be searching in vain for the support needed to pursue their great ideas.

We’re consulting widely on the detail of exactly how the fund will operate – but some key principles are already clear. The fund will champion editorial independence and the choice of subjects for investigation will be made without any involvement by those sponsoring the project;  the fund will champion journalism of the highest quality, ethical standards, and also ambition; the fund will not (in the first instance) be a publisher, but a production house seeking to get material published in both traditional and new media to secure the widest possible audiences.

Initially, we are going to raise money by inviting straightforward donations** — big and small — from anyone who believes it’s worth supporting independent reporting. But our key aim — when long-established business models are struggling — is also to be an incubator for new ideas and methods not only to pursue investigations but also how to fund them. We hope to launch an experiment with all sorts of innovative fundraising methods — all of them with the common aim of guaranteeing the independence and objectivity of public interest reporting.

Over to you. The need is pressing. We’d like your support.

** At this stage, we are only asking for pledges of support, ideas and offers to help of any sort, but not cash right now!

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