Philanthropic foundations are stepping up to help address the crisis in journalism and especially critical reporting, according to a new report from the University of Southern California's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. "The collapse of the traditional economic model has increased both the need for nonprofit journalism and also the receptivity toward it," says Geoffrey Cowan, dean emeritus of USC's j-school and director of its CCLP. Thanks to Bilbo for a tip about this study.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Biz: Nonprofits Hope to Fill Gap
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
8:28 PM
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Interesting: Building an Investigative News Network
My top-secret source in the world of non-profit investigative journalism, Bilbo, writes of an event that apparently has all the world of us investigatorial sluggos abuzz - the "Building an Investigative News Network" do happening this week at the Rockefeller family estate in Westchester County, New York. Read all about it here.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:31 PM
Interesting: Hersh, Bamford On Cultivating Sources
Interesting discussion of cultivating high-level sources for investigative projects on Cecil Rosner's blog. Cecil, a CBC investigative vet, attended the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Baltimore and reports on a discussion on sources by renowned journalists James Bamford and Seymour Hersh, who have broken some of the decade's best stories on the intelligence world.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:40 AM
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Congats To Us!
Congratulations to us! The Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (of which I'm v-p) has just gotten word from the Canada Revenue Agency's charities directorate: We now have charity status - the first media organization of this kind to be granted the status in Canada.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:44 AM
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tools: What's the Meaning of Life? Ask Google's Freaky New Brain
Just added three cool sites to my "Resources: Tools & Search" bar of links in the right-hand column. Wolfram, Google's freaky new artificial intelligence sideline, offers two really interesting new tools I've linked down there:
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:21 AM
Web 2.0: Divining the Collective Brain
Great idea from this item at the Online Journalism Blog, one of my regular RSS reads through iGoogle. (If you don't know what iGoogle is, go here pronto. It's a very cool aggregator tool you can customize to scan all your fave sites.) OJB suggests that journalists and news organizations should make a habit of creating "datastores." These are simple spreadsheets and other databases linked from their stories that give raw data for the public to chew on.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
8:55 AM
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Awards: Amnesty Media Prizes Recognize Investigations of Killings, Torture
WikiLeaks reports that its editor Julian Assange has won Amnesty International's 2009 New Media Award for his work exposing the involvement of Kenyan police in hundreds of recent extrajudicial killings and disappearances. See more on the atrocities here. An Amnesty Media Award also goes to The Guardian for its investigation of how Britain's MI5 outsourced torture of British citizens to Pakistani security agencies. See more on these and the other Amnesty Media Awards here.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:26 AM
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Web 2.0: Help Me Investigate
Is crowd investigative journalism a new model for the business? Can it help spread democracy? Or is it just a gimmick that sounds all digitally and cool but really has limited potential? A UK experiment hopes to find out. Leading UK investigative journalists have teamed up with Channel 4 to create Help Me Investigate, a platform that lets people team up to investigate local and broader issues. A parallel program is Talk About Local, which aims to spread digital literacy in marginalized communities, says this item in the Birmingham Post.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
9:22 AM
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Biz: Learn Lots at MagNet Conference
Magazine writers, editors, authors and publishers are putting on quite the conference this year at the annual MagNet event in Toronto June 2 to 5. A prominent line-up of speakers will talk about feature writing, pitching, the biz of freelancing, new media, creative non-fiction - and that's just some of the writing-related workshops. Other workshops will cover digital media, publishing, circulation, copyright and lots more. See more at the MagNet site.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:31 AM
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Investigations: Canadian Financial Advisors Steer Clients to High-Fee Funds
Canadian mutual funds scored last for their high fees in an international ranking by research firm Morningstar, says this item. While Canadian funds got an overall B-minus grade, they earned a failing F for high management expenses and other charges. One of the chief reasons is a rather troubling conflict-of-interest among financial advisors. They typically get an annual "trailer fee" of 0.5 to 1 percent for each year they keep clients in a particular fund, the study found. The trailers are unique to the Canadian market. Morningstar raised questions about the integrity of some advisors, saying they direct clients to funds that pay out higher trailer fees.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:51 PM
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Awards: Deadline for Dave Greber Social-Justice Award
The deadline for submissions for the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Awards fast approaches: June 12. The $2,000 award for Western Canadian freelancers is intended to support social-justice reporting.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
2:35 PM
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tools: Search Traffic Offers Crystal Ball
An interesting New Scientist story says searching real-time web activity - like Twitter - can help predict trends in the economy, travel, home sales and more. This could be a fascinating tool for journalists. The story says car-related search queries cut the error rate of forecasted sales of autos and vehicle parts by 15 percent. Search query data came from a cool site called Google Trends, which allows you to explore search traffic for various keywords, including by country and date. Also interesting is the new Google Insights for Search, which allows advanced searching. I've added both tools to my resources links to the right.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
9:20 AM
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
FOI: U.S. Military Intel Bulletin Back Online
The U.S. Army has agreed to put back in the public domain its Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Federation of American Scientists. FAS's Secrecy News blog reports in this note how a growing body of military and intelligence documents have gotten shifted out of the public domain. Past issues of the MIPB are now available at the FAS site here.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:17 PM
Monday, April 27, 2009
Awards: Congrats to Us!
The Canadian Association of Journalists and National Magazine Awards Foundations have announced their annual journalism and writing awards. Click here for the finalists for the CAJ prizes for investigative reporting and here to see the NMA prizes for that and a bunch of other stuff.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
3:03 PM
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tools: Site's Expert Volunteers Answer Questions Free
Trying to figure out how to set up an Excel spreadsheet to crunch some city hall data? Can't understand a coroner's report or scientific paper? Surf to AllExperts.com. A volunteer expert there just wrote a Macro in Excel for me that will save me hours of time. I got my answer back in under an hour and a half, and it was free. Amazing. (Thanks, Tom Ogilvy. You rock.) This site has thousands of top experts in numerous fields waiting for your questions. You can also check out a database of previous answers and seek out specific experts based on reader ratings or their profile. The site claims there's no catch (though when you ask a question you are prompted to sign up for various commercial offers; these you can decline). I've just included these folks on my "Search" resource list in the links column on the right.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
6:22 AM
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Awards: Ridenhour Prizes for War on Terror Whistleblower, Vietnam Exposé
Journalists and whistleblowers who exposed warrantless wiretapping, Vietnam-era massacres of civilians and U.S. constitutional violations in the war on terror were recognized in the sixth annual Ridenhour Prizes. These awards, established by the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation, celebrate truth-telling and investigative journalism in honour of late Vietnam vet whistle-blower and investigative journalist Ron Ridenhour. I first saw something on the latest awards at the blog of the Project on Government Oversight, an interesting D.C.-based nonprofit that works to expose government corruption and waste.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
9:15 AM
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Depression 2.0: Your Guide to Bailout Gloom
Can't keep all the multi-gazillion-dollar bailouts, caved-in banks and failed policies straight? Was it this complicated during the '29 Crash? Don't get depressed about trying to figure out Depression 2.0. Check out ProPublica's nifty new Bailout Guide webpage. It includes search features for specific institutions and states, updated items on who got how much, in-depth features on the programs, links to other stories at other sites and "a breakdown of every taxpayer dollar spent."
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
4:14 PM
Depression 2.0: $100B Hedge-Fund Bailout May Skirt Law
The Obama administration's $100-billion bailout of hedge funds skirts
TAGS: investigations, market, finance
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
9:39 AM
Monday, April 13, 2009
Interesting: Nuclear Dumping Gave Rise to Somali Piracy
Amid the fast-growing Somali piracy epidemic, here's a different take from Johann Hari writing in The Independent. He writes of a little-known crisis of nuclear and chemical dumping that has exacerbated the woes of this already-afflicted nation. The dumping prompted Somali fishermen to take to speedboats to dissuade - and "tax" - the ships depositing barrels of waste from Europe off-shore, Hari writes. And so were the pirates born. Hari also provides some interesting context on pirates of yore.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:04 PM
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Investigations: Pulitzer Winner Documents Vietnam Atrocity Cover-Ups
The U.S. Army ignored confessions by its own soldiers about massacres and atrocities they committed during the Vietnam War, says Pulitzer winner Deborah Nelson, who documents the abuses in her new book The War Behind Me. The book centres around the slaughter of 19 Vietnamese civilians, including babies and an old man, according to this account of Nelson's talk at a book signing.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:54 PM
Awards: IRE '08 Winners Announced
The group Investigative Reporters and Editors has announced its 2008 award winners recognizing the most outstanding watchdog journalism of the year. Read more here.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:46 PM
Monday, April 6, 2009
Investigations: Huffington Post Starts New I-Fund
Here's some positive news for the times. The Huffington Post and Atlantic Philanthropies are giving a boost to investigative journalism with a new $1.75-million fund for investigative projects. Read more here. Thanks to Bilbo for the tip.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:24 PM
In the Courts: Jury Sides With First Nations Scholar in 9/11 Firing
Interesting series of stories on the court victory of First Nations scholar Ward Churchill over his politically charged termination as a professor at the University of Colorado. Churchill's firing came after he wrote an essay blaming 9/11 on U.S. policies, which resulted in Colorado's governor calling for his dismissal. Here is law prof Stanley Fish's take on the sordid affair in a New York Times opinion piece. And here is one of the initial news reports on the jury ruling. Churchill will be in Montreal Wednesday, April 15, to speak at Concordia University at 7 p.m. (room H-110). Email scott.montreal@sympatico.ca for more information. Thanks to Mike for alerting me to these stories.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:02 PM
Back From the Break
Sorry for my lack of posts for the past few weeks. I'm back from an extended family vacation in sunny Spanish Wells, the Bahamas. Beautiful place and beautiful people! (See more in this piece I did after our first trip two years ago.) I'll be resuming my regular posting schedule.
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:59 AM
Documents: Inside the CIA's No-So-Public Archives
"In a quiet, fluorescently lit room in the National Archives' auxiliary campus in suburban College Park, Maryland, 10 miles outside of Washington, are four computer terminals, each providing instant access to the more than 10 million pages of documents the CIA has declassified since 1995. There's only one problem: these are the only publicly available computers in the world that do so."
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:53 AM
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tools: IRE Launches Training Blog
Learn about cultivating a "watchdog culture" in your newsroom, computer-assisted reporting and the art of interviewing reluctant sources at the new training blog launched at the website of Investigative Reporters and Editors. If you haven't been at this site before, check out other cool features like IRE's calendar of workshops around the U.S., its voluminous database of investigative stories, tipsheets, beat guides and research resources, and its job centre. Tambien en español.
TAGS: tools, investigations
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:40 AM
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Investigations: Canada Drops in Transparency Ranking
Canada has gotten a downgrade in its ranking for government and judicial transparency and integrity from watchdog group Global Integrity. The group says in a report that Canada "continues to struggle with controlling the influence of money in the political process." It's critical of secrecy in financial contributions to political candidates and loans to candidates and parties.
Also problematic: "a revolving door effect between lawmakers and lobbyists" because of a lack of a cooling-off period for post-government employment; lack of personal asset disclosure of Canadian Senators, which the group calls "a bizarre exception for one of the world's wealthier and more developed democracies"; and weak judicial accountability. Canada's legal framework is rated as strong, but there is a "large" gap in the actual implementation of laws, which has slipped. Canada's ranking was downgraded from "strong" to "moderate" since the 2007 report.
Thanks to Democracy Watch for its notice about the report; its press release about the report is here.
TAGS: transparency, investigations, corruption
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:01 AM
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Investigations: NYT on Russian-Backed Chechen Ruler's Dark Ways
Vlad Putin's man in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is the subject of a harrowing tour de force of investigative journalism by C. J. Chivers in this New York Times item. Chechen strongman Kadyrov's slain exiled former bodyguard, Umar Israilov, gave accounts of atrocities extraordinary even by the dark norms of this blood-soaked territory, Chivers reports.
TAGS: Russia, investigations
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:08 AM
Intelligence: NSA Claims It's Blind to VoIP... Okaaaaay
Thanks to Bilbo for bringing this curious story to my attention - an interesting item from the tech publication The Register about the U.S. National Security Agency's supposed difficulties in surveilling Skype. Hmm. Can't imagine those folks have any problem at all accessing Skype. Perhaps they are really looking for some kind of vaster data-mining surveillance capacity. Or perhaps they just want Osama to THINK they can't overhear him. Does it not seem strange that they would announce such a big hole in their capabilities? Spies are so tricky!
TAGS: intelligence, surveillance, NSA
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
9:05 AM
Monday, February 16, 2009
Da Biz: Online Nonprofit Focuses on Investigative Stories... And Thrives
As the financial imbroglio continues, the Voice of San Diego, an online nonprofit, is showing how investigative journalism can work in the new digital era. And how the news business can actually succeed. And, no kidding, even pay a decent income. All in this item in the LA Times.
TAGS: future of journalism, the biz
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:42 PM
Investigations: Lead-Footed FDA Stalls on Lipstick Safety Report
More than a year after a consumer-safety group reported that most lipsticks it tested contained lead, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to reveal results of an investigation of the problem, says this AlterNet.com item from Stacy Malkan, author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. Malkan reports that Health Canada is also conducting its own review of chemicals in cosmetics.
TAGS: investigations, health, FDA, safety
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:25 PM
Investigations: Army Neglect Blamed for Soldier Suicides
The suicide rate in the U.S. Army has skyrocketed, thanks in part to official neglect, says a Salon.com investigation. Four years after Salon uncovered medical neglect at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center - sparking a national scandal - Salon finds army health care still failing soldiers. Many of the suicides were preventable, it says.
TAGS: investigations, military
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:08 PM
In the Courts: Appeal in Confidential Informant Case
Case law about the protection of confidential sources continues to evolve in Canada. One of the latest cases went to appeal last month. It involves a Hamilton Spectator reporter, Ken Peters, who was fined $31,600 for refusing to reveal the identity of a source, says this item from the Canadian Association of Journalists, which is intervening in the case.
TAGS: legal
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
11:41 AM
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Biz: Can Investigative Reporting Save the Media?
What hope is there for investigative journalism amid the news of media layoffs and cuts to editorial budgets? Actually, lots, says Phil Williams, board member of Investigative Reporters and Editors. In this piece on the IRE blog, Williams, chief investigative reporter at the CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tenn., says some smart media managers are actually beefing up investigative reporting during the tough times because it's a proven way to get more viewers and readers. The item also talks about how reporters can deliver this message to their higher-ups.
These issues will get a good airing at the IRE annual conference in Baltimore June 11 to 14, which Williams plugs. And a plug from me: the Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (of which yours truly is v-p) is working on a panel discussion/fundraisier on this very issue in Toronto in the coming months. Stay tuned.
TAGS: future of journalism, Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting, the biz
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:17 PM
Friday, January 30, 2009
Books: Age of the Terminator
The Age of the Terminator is here. The science fiction-y era of killer robots hunting down bad guys, with nary a human input, is more upon us than we realize, says military analyst Peter Singer, who was coordinator of President Obama's defense policy task force during his campaign. In this interview at MotherJones.com, Singer talks about the scary developments he uncovered while writing his new book, Wired for War.
TAGS: military, investigations, books, technology
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:29 PM
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tools: Aviation Story Research Databases and Resources
Following the U.S. Airways crash in the Hudson River, Investigative Reporters and Editors has posted a link highlighting its great aviation-related webpage, which includes plenty of databases on aircraft types, accident records, airline regulatory info, tip sheets and aviation-related investigative stories.
TAGS: tools, aircraft
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:12 PM
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Investigations: Doctors Keep Pharma Ties Secret from Patients
Cozy doctor ties with pharmaceutical companies are little-known to their patients or the public, reports this ProPublica item, based in part on this investigative series in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Fourteen of 20 doctors interviewed by the newspaper said they didn't disclose financial ties with pharma companies to their patients when prescribing drugs. The series also found dozens of doctors have side employment with these firms.
TAGS: investigations, pharmaceutical
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
2:16 PM
Interesting: How Obama Put Meltdown Engineers In Charge
Barack Obama has placed the architects of the U.S. financial meltdown in charge of saving the country, writes Mother Jones cofounder and investigative journalist Jeffrey Klein in this interesting item. "This is a Ponzi scheme far beyond Bernie Madoff's imagination. Simply put: The government is breaking the rules of capitalism to reward the most reckless capitalists," Klein writes.
TAGS: interesting, markets
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
1:54 PM
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Biz: Web News Surpasses Print, But Papers Grow in Popularity Too
The web surpassed newspapers as the source of most Americans' news in 2008, but the news is not all horrible for traditional media, according to this survey by the Pew Research Center. Forty percent said they got most of their national and international news from the internet, up a whole bunch from 27 percent in 2007. TV is still the main source, cited by 70 percent. But despite lots of talk about how print is dead, newspapers are holding their own. Thirty-five percent cited newspapers as their main source, up a percentage point from the previous year. This interesting earlier Pew report talks about how various segments of media consumers integrate online and traditional news sources.
TAGS: future of journalism, the biz
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:58 AM
The Biz: Why New Orgs Are Failing to Harness Online Ads
Happy New Year! Hope you had a good, restful holiday. This interesting item from Newsosaur on how news organizations are failing to harness online advertizing properly isn't about investigative journalism, but I think it's appropriate for the times. Best wishes in 2009!
TAGS: future of journalism, the biz
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:51 AM
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Investigations: Loan-Modification Scams Prey on Struggling Homeowners
The latest scam to hit burdened homeowners: loan-modification companies that charge exorbitant fees to help them negotiate better loan terms - a service that consumers can get for free from non-profits. The scam can actually make it harder for struggling homeowners to get help, says this Washington Post piece on the growing problem.
TAGS: fraud, housing, investigations
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:23 AM
Awards: P.U.-litzers for Stinkiest Media Performances
Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2009! Time for the annual P.U.-litzer Prizes for worst media performances. See the 17th edition here. The Hot-For-Obama Prize went to MSNBC's Chris Matthews for this hilariously weird remark the day Obama swept a primary in Feb. 2007: "My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."
TAGS: awards
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
10:12 AM
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Investigations: Post-Katrina Race War
"Katrina's Hidden Race War," published in The Nation Dec. 17, reveals the little-known story of a dozen African Americans shot in post-hurricane New Orleans. The Nation's A.C. Thompson found in a lengthy investigation that a militia of gun-toting white men ran amok in the city. The story reports police haven't fully investigated many of the crimes committed against African Americans in the hurricane's aftermath.
TAGS: investigations
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
4:58 PM
Da Biz: The Media's Subprime Debt Bomb
Amid the soul-searching about the media business and tough times ahead in the internet age, there's been little focus on one of the key fundamentals: massive debt. Many of our industry's problems aren't the result of the business model being screwed up per se, but rather because of really bad business decision-making - a fascinating parallel to subprime borrowing, in fact. This interesting article from Silicon Valley CEO Alan Mutter explains more.
TAGS: the biz, future of journalism
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:17 PM
Friday, December 12, 2008
Tools: Free Legal Search Engines
Just posted links to three cool free legal search engines in my resources blogroll for "the law, justice, organized crime and policing" (see right-hand bar): Justia, AltLaw and Public Library of Law. Use these babies to search for court decisions, regulations, law blogs, research and laws. Thanks to Bilbo for bringing this Wired story on these sites to my attention.
TAGS: law, search, tools
Posted by
Alex Roslin
at
12:44 PM

