21st century impact journalism

Old dogs, new tricks: the saying goes that they shouldn’t go together. But that couldn’t be further from the truth for Paul Steiger. When faced with the opportunity of launching an online start-up a couple of years ago, the 67-year-old journalist who rose to the top of his game through a traditional journey in print media by way of the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal, of course accepted. “Once I got into this, I just couldn’t resist it, it was just too exciting,” he says. Vita Europe caught up with him to find out why.

“This country absolutely needs a healthy vibrant media. In fact it needs it more than ever now.”

While Barack Obama’s words, uttered at this year’s White House correspondents’ dinner on May 1, recall the long-lasting principle that a functioning democracy cannot survive without a scrutinising press body, they may have come as an empty reassurance for some.

It is no secret that journalism is going through tumultuous times. Trusted news outlets have lost the budget for systematic, quality, in-depth reporting, leaving comment, rather than fresh investigations as the main source of new content. Foreign and investigative journalism are more than ever at risk.

ProPublica: impact journalism

“This is not a problem to be solved, it’s an issue to be managed,” Paul Steiger says he used to tell his colleagues at the Wall Street Journal where he was managing editor until the end of 2007.

He might have taken his own encouraging comment quite literally.

Since his duties at the Journal finished, the 67-year-old journalism industry leader, who oversaw sixteen Pulitzer prize wins in his sixteen years at the helm of the financial newspaper, has become Editor-in-Chief of ProPublica.

And although a modest Steiger sometimes likes to sell the story as a solution to not getting into his wife’s way at home, “ She said to me several times, the first time I catch you at 10.30 on a week day in sweat pants it’s not divorce, it’s murder,” the venture he took on was never going to be an easy post-retirement choice. 

ProPublica is a from scratch online investigative reporting hub which aims to serve the public interest by bringing to light abuses of power. A non profit journalism model, its main source of funding is a 10 million dollar annual endowment from the Sandler foundation, giving it the security of carrying out its mission with the sole worry being that of achieving it.

“Our goal is not to produce the biggest, most successful website as quickly as possible. Our goal is to have impact,” Steiger says of the mission.

And impact it is having. Barely a year after ProPublica started publishing, one of its reporters, Sheri Fink, wrote an article which went on to win the 2010 Pulitzer prize for investigative journalism, as recognition for her coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center. Other awards continue to pour in such as the Overseas Press Club Award which applauded the website, together with reporters T.Christian Miller, Doug Smith and Pratap Chatterjee’s rendering of the mistreatment of American civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In order to have impact, ProPublica makes its content open to all and, for bigger stories, seeks “more mainstream” partnerships.

“We produce everything we do on our site under creative commons – you can run the story for free, but you have to run the whole story.”

How much does ProPublica want in exchange??Nothing. Or nothing in terms of material goods anyway.?“Traditional platforms are a great way to get impact. As long as they put our name on the piece, we get what we want out of them.”

BP beware

“Oil Companies Got Environmental Exemptions After Spill”; “EPA Approves BP’s Use of Questionable Chemicals to Break Up Oil”; “Regulators Let Offshore Drilling Industry Police Itself”; “Oil Firms Rarely Pay Big Penalties to Regulator”.

The ProPublica newsletter titles dating from the past two and a half weeks are a lesson in firm grip, resilience and accountability-making. As the reader at the receiving end, the impression is, if there is a story to be uncovered, ProPublica is on to it, and if no one else gets there first, ProPublica will get it. As it stands, the ongoing investigation threateningly reads “Buried Secrets: Gas Drilling’s Environmental Threats”.

Other ongoing inquiries include “When Caregivers Harm: Unwatched Nurses” and “New Orleans: Chaos in the Streets & in Police Ranks Too”.

Readers are generally also invited to participate in the reporting process. In the case of BP, it takes the form of an anonymous tipline aimed at BP workers or contractors, complete with name, email, fax and telephone numbers of the reporter in charge. People in power may be doubted, but the public is trusted.

“Our approach to this is that we’re reaching out to individuals, rather than communities. To give them a chance to scratch their itch for contributing to the public realm,” Steiger says about the inclusion of normal people in the journalistic process.

In other cases, the reporting almost takes on the form of a communal effort. Home owners around the United States were matched up with local journalists in the home loan/mortgage scandal investigation. The so-called “Super Bowl Blitz” asked members of the public to help call up 535 American congressmen to find out which ones had tickets for the Super Bowl and who were enjoying Super Bowl Perks.

The method has been coined as distributed reporting and takes open source reporting one step further.

“Given the nature of our kind of work, there has to be a significant amount of curating and moderating, but I have the right person on board – she has a knack for these kinds of things.”

Old guard/new guard

But perhaps the most encouraging aspect of ProPublica and its current head of staff is what seems to be a belief in two things.

First, the future of journalism – that there actually is one, and a good one at that – and, second, an investment in young people.

At the International Journalism Festival, which took place between 21-25 April in Perugia this year, Steiger, at the end of his keynote speech was asked by an Italian colleague of a similar age, how he dealt with integrating new talents with older, more respected ones.

His response was warmly received by the mainly young audience.

“Young people know their way round new technologies, they instinctively know so many things we don’t. What we have found at ProPublica is that we of the older generation have as much to learn from the younger one as they have from us.”

While managing editor Stephen Engelberg, senior reporter Marcus Stern and general manager Richard Tofel have the experience, credibility and address book to make the still newborn investigative venture a success, they are by no means representative of one single age group. On the staff pages of the website, fresh faces, such as reporter blogger Marian Wang and Deputy Editor of News Applications Krista Kjellman Schmidt, spring up regularly.

If he were to do it all again in the current climate, knowing all that he does, Steiger says he would avoid the classical road he took and take a few chances. To me, he spoke precious words.

“Keep your head up. Be entrepreneurial, creative, don’t be afraid to give new things a try. You don’t have to play corporate games, suck up to the boss and all that stuff.”

www.propublica.org