MISSION
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!
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 am
Good luck. We need all the diversity we can get in finding new ways to support good journalism.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Why don’t you talk to Andrew Neil about a possible link up with PFD? You’re likeliest source of funding is selling the rights to stories in advance. PFD could broker deals between film and television production companies — as well as book publishers — to provide seed money for investigations that might eventually become the basis for movies or TV dramas in return for an option on the relevant rights. Of course, PFD isn’t your only option, but given that it’s now being run by a former editor of The Sunday Times it seems like a natural fit.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
Excellent initiative – very important. We aren’t part of the media industry but happy to offer support, maybe in the form of free consultancy with developing plans to turn your Mission into a Strategy and then a Plan, for example…
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
I agree, we need this. I’ve been shaking my head in disbelief at the lack of information offered by some (not all) big media outlets on current affairs, the latest being the conflict in Iran. It’s all entertainment, emotional tugging and meaningless talk just to fill air time of a 24-hour news broadcast. That brings us to the challenge posed by this culture of getting the news ‘first’ instead of getting it ‘right’. I don’t learn anything new. I don’t see any new perspectives (especially when it may go against popular belief).
I do believe there are many journalists, veterans and newcomers, who would give their support to this mission in their capacity as professionals in the field. I think the first step is to let as many people know about this initiative. Thanks to the internet, that may not be so difficult.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
This is a great initiative – and certainly needed. Re funding – there are some useful thoughts in ‘What’s Happening to Our News’, recently published by the Reuters Institute – that may be helpful. Lots of luck.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:13 pm
This is a fantastic initiative to pool ideas and resources. We can also raise our game and put the case for investigative journalism.
At documentary film festivals they are encouraging impoverished documentary-makers – including investigative journalists – to experiment with ideas and funding from many different sources including:- launching a website for a campaigning documentaries to raise online financial and political support, seeking money from charities including NGOs and The Joseph Rowntree Trust and going international by seeking help with content and finance from public and private organisations around the world.
The value of investigative journalism needs to be re-stated. For too long it’s been seen in technical terms as if an investigation using secret cameras or involving the reporter digging around on the internet is enough to count as a job well done. The content and its relationship to current debates of the day are important too. Sometimes investigations seem to confirm the status quo rather than challenge it. We need to advance the idea of why a certain story is important. What taboo, powerful institution or contemporary issue is it challenging? That way we might also come up with a good source for inventive stories in the public interest.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 am
Great to see this happening. Good luck – if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
It’s about time too.
We’ve got an open platform that will gladly give all a voice for this.
Also, as a CIC, we fall into the same not-for-profit category.
It’s all about the content material, and if we can help get it out there, please let us know.
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Britain’s libel laws have long militated against robust investigative journalism. We at Index, in conjunction with English PEN, are leading a campaign to change those laws. We are making steady headway, although we have to deal with the erroneous idea that somehow the UK media are out of control. The reverse is the case. While columnists might rant and rave, the amount of factual information eked out by reporters seems more scant than before. We therefore support you guys in your efforts to harness good investigations.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
[...] mission is to: We are setting up a fund that will support the kind of risky, challenging reporting for [...]
July 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Good luck with your project
September 1st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
This is a great idea and one that needs to spread in Africa too where the need for Investigative Journalism is even more urgent given the socio-economic problems faced in various African countries simply because many African leaders can’t keep their hands off the public till! I am an African Investigative Journalist also working on setting up a Centre to promote Investigative Journalism in my country Kenya in particular and Africa in general. All the best!
November 6th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
What a great initiative. Newsrooms in UK (well, the ones I worked in) are now staffed by people who purely rehash wire copy and get to the top by playing the internal politics right, not because of their investigative talent. Oh, and being chums with the right corporate PRs and government spokespeople helps. Show the newspapers what they are NOT doing, and even they might start promoting real journalism again.