Nonprofit investigative journalism: organisational structures, missions, and practices in the digital era

Park, Michelle 2024. Nonprofit investigative journalism: organisational structures, missions, and practices in the digital era. Mutsvairo, Bruce and Skare Orgeret, Kristin, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Digital Journalism, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 267-282. (10.1007/978-3-031-59379-6_17)

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Abstract

How new digital-born nonprofits keep the most traditional practices of investigative journalism? This chapter explores how traditional practices of investigative journalism have remained in an ever-changing industry. This is explored through case studies of digital-born nonprofit newsrooms, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) in the United Kingdom and the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ) in South Korea. Traditional business models for investigative journalism show a faltering at shielding editorial independence from external political and economic forces. Consequently, a deterioration of working conditions for newsworkers to conduct investigative journalism has led to the crisis in independent accountability journalism. To counteract the crisis, digital-born news organisations supported by nonprofit funding models have emerged and grown markedly since 2008. My findings from newsroom ethnographies—observation and interviews—reveal that emerging nonprofits continue to maintain the traditional practices of investigative journalism. The BIJ prides themselves in dedicating a rigorous fact-checking process as part of their work to ensure the validity of their investigations. They make a physical copy of a folder for an individual investigation, collating supporting evidence for fact-checking. Journalists at the KCIJ highlights their organisational support in long-term investigations, which sometimes take several years. Both of journalistic activities can be a considerable drain of time and resource for these newsrooms. The opportunities given to newsworkers are closely related to their nonprofit financial models, foundation funding for the BIJ and membership for the KCIJ. These newsrooms argue that their nonprofit funding systems allow them to be neither partisan nor commercial. Therefore, such business models help shield their newsroom autonomy from outside pressures, so that they are able to undertake work that they think is important in order to produce impactful investigative journalism.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:	978-3-031-59378-9
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2025 12:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/175541

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