INNOVATIONS 3: Innovations on Narrative Forms and Platforms for Investigations

In the US, the biggest constraint on watchdog reporting is diminished resources brought about by declining advertising and circulation revenues. This panel will look at successful models of news organizations that have pursued watchdog journalism despite shrinking budgets. The first speaker will be an editor from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which continues to support investigative or projects teams even with reduced resources. The paper’s watchdog unit recently won the AP Innovators Award. The paper’s watchdog editor, Mark Katches, will talk about civic responsibility and also how watchdog journalism has an audience. WNYC, New York’s public broadcasting radio network, has pioneered crowd-sourcing – getting listeners to help in research and reporting – as a way of getting community involvement in investigations. At the same time, investigative reporting is going global. In China, a new generation of investigative reporters has braved the restrictions of the Chinese Communist Party to report on level corruption, financial scams and social issues. Weiqiang Ye of Caijing will speak about muckraking in China, while Daoud Kuttab will speak on finding the spaces for this kind of journalism in the Arab world.
Moderator: Brant Houston, Knight Chair for Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois Mark Katches, investigative editor, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (winner, AP Award for Innovations in Investigative Reporting) Brian Lehrer, WNYC Radio: Public radio as a home for investigative reporting; “crowd-sourcing” and other techniques Daoud Kuttab, Chairman of ARIJ (Arab reporters for Investigative Journalism) and Founder of AmmanNet: Finding space for investigative journalism in the Arab world Weiqiang Ye, Assistant Managing Editor, Caijing: Muckraking in China amid Communist Party restrictions