(November 16, 2005) -- "If the leading newspapers lose their capacity to report and conduct inquiries, the American public will become even more susceptible to the manipulations and deceptions of those in power." --Michael Massing, "The End of News?," New York Review of Books, Dec. 1, 2005
It's not easy to be in the newspaper business these days. I probably don't need to provide the details why. If you're a regular reader of Editor & Publisher, you know all about the staff cutbacks, circulation declines and threats by shareholder groups angry about poor stock performance.
Are these just short-term troubles? Will the newspaper industry bounce back? The long-term trends don't look pretty: young people not picking up the print habit and using the Internet for news; advertisers moving bigger chunks of their spending online and taking away from traditional media like newspapers; classifieds getting hammered by free sites like Craigslist; etc.
The industry well may figure out a new business model to prosper in the Internet age (by developing a healthy revenue stream online to replace print revenues almost sure to decline in the coming years), but that still looks years out.
Meanwhile, what about investigative journalism as practiced by newspapers? It's what has, in large part, set newspapers apart from competing media. In a period of staff and budget cutbacks, can investigative or enterprise reporting survive unscathed? And if newspapers falter when it comes to funding it, who will fill the gap?
Well, if newspapers take the shortsighted, short-term approach to tighter budgets by whittling away at investigative reporting, others outside the industry likely will take up the slack -- and newspapers' decline will accelerate. What once was primarily the domain of well-financed daily newspapers might become that of such players as public radio, foundations and non-profits, independent journalists working on the Web, and even the likes of Yahoo!
Decision Time
Whither investigative reporting? Is it in danger? Probably, but only if editors and publishers make the wrong decisions now.
Tim Porter, a news-industry consultant and former newspaper editor, says that those papers cutting back their staffs by 10-15% inevitably will see a decline in the amount and quality of investigative reporting -- if they make no other decisions. But a hit to a budget-cutting newspaper's quality isn't inevitable, if the right decisions are made about where to cut.
Count Porter among those who contend that investigative or enterprise reporting is what makes a newspaper franchise. It's just about the last thing that a publisher or editor should think about cutting back. Investigative reporting can thrive even after budget and staff reductions, he says, if editors decide that that's what the paper will be known for.
Where can money be saved? On things like cutting duplication -- not sending reporters to distant events that other news organizations are covering, and running their content. (Do you really need to send a sports columnist to Wimbledon?) Or on reducing staff time spent on neighborhood news and relying more on citizen reporting. Then devote saved resources to originating important in-depth stories within the community. Become known for enterprise reporting that enlightens and informs local readers about what's going on in their communities -- information that cannot be found anywhere else.
Porter suggests an exercise for editors: Imagine that you are starting a new publication (print and online) from scratch, with a staff and budget matching what you have now. How would you design this news operation? Probably not like it's set up now, he says. Now take the results and redesign your news operation.
Newspapers Falter, Public Radio Ascends
For a point of view that's less optimistic that such high-minded decisions by newspaper editors will actually happen, let's turn to Bill Marimow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning (twice) investigative reporter and former editor of the Baltimore Sun, who now is managing editor and acting vice president of news for National Public Radio.
Marimow's perception is that even two years ago, investigative reporting by newspapers was on the decline. He's served as a Pulitzer judge, and says he noticed that as the newspaper industry's fortunes declined, good investigative entries to the Pulitzers became limited mostly to the likes of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Seattle Times. That's a "very worrisome" trend, since in previous years a wider range of newspapers was producing Pulitzer-quality investigative journalism, he says.
Marimow thinks that newspaper owners like Knight Ridder, Gannett, and the Tribune Co. (he's worked for KR and Tribune) are now so focused on profit margins that editors have become distracted from finding and running great stories. "When editors become focused on accounting rather than journalism, you have a problem for democracy," he says. When more items on Poynter's Romenesko media blog are about the news business than about the actual journalism, "that's depressing."
NPR could turn out to be a place that makes up for investigative-reporting diminishment at U.S. newspapers. Marimow was brought in to beef up the radio and Web network's investigative capacity, and he's encouraging every reporter who has a beat to include in-depth and enterprise reporting into their work schedules. He cites as an example a recent story by NPR's John McChesney about the death at the hands of CIA interrogators of Iraqi detainee Manadel al-Jamadi, which ran for 22 minutes on-air and took McChesney months to produce.
Marimow says that NPR's new commitment to investigative reporting is not in reaction to troubles in the newspaper industry -- though it well may fill a void if newspapers falter in their commitment to in-depth reporting in reaction to financial pressures. Rather, he says, it's made possible by the Joan Kroc $200 million grant to NPR received last year, and supported by NPR president Kevin Klose, a former reporter at the Washington Post.
Public radio's contribution to investigative reporting could extend to the local level, Marimow suggests. Indeed, he thinks that public member stations should be developing the same sort of beat system employed at NPR to encourage investigative and enterprise reporting that supercedes that done by weakened local newspapers -- possibly funded by public radio, its member-listeners and other sources such as foundations.
Newspapers, Marimow suggests, are in trouble because the industry's problems are causing them to lose some of their best editors; those who are filling their shoes are demoralized by the situation; and students considering journalism as a career are deterred from signing on at newspapers. As a result, "local (public radio) stations could outperform newspapers." ... That's an interesting statement coming from a guy who spent all but the last year and a half in the newspaper industry, some of it as a top editor.
Collaboration May be the Key
Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, says the days of big newspaper investigative teams are long over, and new forms of investigative journalism are emerging. He expects to see more collaboration as a way to pool resources and save money while still producing important journalism -- along the lines of PBS Frontline's collaboration with the New York Times and NYTimes.com on some of its documentaries.
(A local newspaper and Web site teaming up with a newly empowered local public radio station might be useful in saving local investigative journalism while operating on tightened budgets.)
Importantly, Houston says, there's real strength being seen in investigative journalism being produced in the non-profit world, by institutions such as the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting. CIR, operating on a budget that includes only about a half million dollars in grants and contributions, helps develop investigative projects for publication or broadcast by media outlets and Web sites.
In a worst-case scenario where newspaper investigative reporting is seriously undermined by the industry's troubles, it's possible that the importance of such institutions will increase -- though they'll need to attract new funding to stay up with the task.
A real danger in newspapers' decline is if investigative reporting diminishes at medium-sized regional and smaller-town newspapers, says consultant Porter. If foundation-funded non-profits and NPR serve at the national level, what happens if a local newspaper fails to dig into important stories for lack of resources? Perhaps institutions like CPI and CIR can increase their abilities to work with more news organizations at the local level so that enterprise reporting gets done, or perhaps similar organizations will emerge at the local level to help fill the void.
Bloggers and Independents
So, what if local newspaper editors don't get their act together enough to save investigative journalism at their companies; will their communities suffer and remain ignorant of important issues? I suspect not, because people who want to do that sort of in-depth journalism will find a way to do it and publish it. (And those investigators do not have to come from newspapers.)
The low cost of publishing on the Internet makes it likely that journalists and bloggers who take an investigative bent will publish such work independently, if they have to. As several experts who I interviewed for this article said, investigative journalists often put in extra hours on projects because they are passionate about telling the story -- and don't get paid extra for it. A lack of or very little money for independent Web publishing probably won't deter the investigative journalist with a story he or she really wants to tell.
The IRE's Houston sees the Web as reviving the era of I.F. Stone-like independent investigative reporting. With the costs of publishing to a large audience so low, it's likely that some independent reporters will discover an economic model that supports what they do. Houston thinks that in-depth niche-topic reporting has the potential to be particularly lucrative online.
And what about liability issue for such independent investigative online journalists? Houston thinks that libel insurance will be there for independent journalists, and says that IRE could push for some media lawyers to provide pro bono services to those independent investigators in need.
Yahoo!'s Role?
Independent investigative journalism may suggest the image of stalwart reporters toiling away on important issues but not being noticed for lack of a big media brand backing them up. But that's probably an outdated notion. In these days of blogs and online-news aggregators like Google News, an important story from a small but credible source can quickly gain speed spreading around the Internet.
Neil Budde, director of news for Yahoo! (and former publisher of WSJ.com), thinks that the Internet will allow some forms of in-depth journalism to have a home outside mainstream news organizations. The Internet may keep it alive even if newspapers falter.
As for Yahoo!, Budde's news division is experimenting with new forms of in-depth journalism, as represented by Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, an online-exclusive regular report by freelance war correspondent Kevin Sites as he travels around the world (on Yahoo!'s dime) to news hot spots.
The Sites project is Yahoo! "testing the waters" of new forms of online journalism to see if the model works and can pay out, Budde says. The company will do "a few more" Hot Zone-like projects in the coming year, but not a lot yet until the model is proven. Requirements for such content are that it be unique and that it be highly audience-interactive.
Would Yahoo! fund in-depth investigative journalism? Budde thinks it more likely that non-profits (like CIR and CPI) will be the ones called on to underwrite it in the event of newspapers' pullback -- and Yahoo! would play a role in distributing it to its massive audience.
"We're not trying to replace newspapers," Budde says, "but we are open to being a home for high-quality journalism to reach a wider audience." His preference remains to continue working with traditional news organizations, together pulling in a bigger audience for good journalism. And Yahoo! also has a role to play in helping a wider range of people -- potentially including independent investigative journalists -- earn enough revenue via its ad network infrastructure to support their important work.
Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic. My personal expectation is that most newspapers will not step up to the plate and devote themselves to making investigative journalism the core of their brand as budgets tighten and staffs get cut. After all, we've got America's second-largest newspaper company, Knight Ridder, up for sale because investors are unhappy with its stock performance -- and the prospect of private-equity firms ending up owning the company. If that happens, the cost cutting at its papers could get ugly. (Hey, please prove me wrong!)
Bill Dedman certainly disagrees with me. He's a Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist currently working as managing editor for the Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph who says, "I'm choosing to be hopeful" about newspapers' prospects for continuing to emphasize investigative journalism despite the industry's troubles and a dubious future outlook.
Where newspapers can be unique, he says, is in digging deep into what's going on in their local communities. That's what readers will buy, and that's what can save newspapers and their Web sites from all the competition from Internet sources. At the Telegraph, Dedman says he's putting more emphasis on beat reporters doing short-term enterprise stories -- "more doubles and triples, and the occasional home run," as he puts it.
I just hope there are enough editors like him to keep investigative reporting well funded. Newspapers' survival may depend on it. But if newspapers do blow it, democracy's need for investigative journalism probably won't go unmet, as other institutions move to fill the void.
Steve Outing (steve@poynter.org) has covered the online news industry for E&P since August 1995. He is also senior editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
