News

Investigative Journalism Key Measure of Democracy Health

By |

A democracy is measured by its citizens’ ability to speak freely, Catalina Botera, special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Organization of American States, said yesterday during the opening plenary at the eighth biennial Global Investigative Journalism Conference. “Half the population doesn’t live in a democracy. The other avatar.jpg.75x75px50 percent struggle to protect freedom of speech,” she said. “In the alleged democracies, the thermometer is free speech. And investigation journalism is the mercury. Only if we protect investigative journalists can we say we live in a democracy.”

News

Delivering Muckrakers’ Tales Without the Advertisers

By |

Establishing new avenues for digging-in and delivering on the muckraker’s craft is a double-edged sword: freeing investigative journalists from kowtowing to advertisers but requiring that they navigate through some lean times. “The commercial model has been: make money from advertising. And you rarely go after your own advertisers,” longtime investigative journalist Charles Lewis told a packed room on Saturday in a panel discussion on successful business models at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC13). “Most media models function from advertising. You could see their ads.