Archives June 2010

Inside FRONTLINE

The Need for Collaborative Storytelling

June 13, 2010
"To continue to have an impact, we at NPR have, frankly, had to learn how to get over ourselves and collaborate in a new way." -NPR president Vivian Schiller, in her IRE keynote address Given that journalists introduced the concept of getting "scooped" by a competitor, it should come as no surprise that news organizations have historically resisted working together. Today, however, collaborations are arguably far more important to journalism's future than the increasingly irrelevant struggle to break the news first. This transition was a major theme of this year's IRE conference. "The concept of competition has completely evaporated," Robert...
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Inside FRONTLINE

The Value of Investigating...

June 12, 2010
Regardless of the uncertainty surrounding funding for investigative journalism, enterprising reporters continue to do indispensible, impactful work. Below are some examples from Friday's (6/11) panel at the IRE Conference -- "Year in Investigative Reporting." It was hosted by Doug Haddix and Mark Horvit from the IRE and was a powerful demonstration of the public service and enduring relevance of these projects. It also served to highlight journalists' creative use of the Internet to clarify complex issues. (Thanks to Doug Haddix for sharing the PowerPoint. The descriptions below are adapted from the presentation, which will be posted on the IRE Web...
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Inside FRONTLINE

Who Will Pay for Investigative Journalism?

June 10, 2010
This is Nathan Tobey, FRONTLINE's online engagement coordinator. For the next few days, I'm blogging from the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Conference in Las Vegas. Before I left, Mike Sullivan, FRONTLINE's executive producer for special projects, pointed me to the investigation that put the IRE on the map. A year after the organization's founding (1975), one of its members, Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, was murdered while looking into land fraud and organized crime. The IRE came together, and 38 journalists from newspapers and TV stations across the country went to Arizona to finish reporting Bolles' story. Three decades...
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