As journalists across the country know all too well, investigative journalism is expensive, and as a result, it’s becoming harder for newspapers and magazines to pull off in-depth investigations. With that in mind, nonprofit newsroom ProPublica focuses on investigative stories with “moral force.”
In 2010, an article on euthanasia at a New Orleans hospital made ProPublica the first online news organization to win a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Last year, a series of ProPublica stories investigating Wall Street bankers won a Pulitzer for National Reporting.
Ebyline chatted with Mike Webb, ProPublica’s Director of Communications, about the intersection of social media and news reporting. Webb tweets at @ProPubPR.
How is ProPublica’s coverage different than in previous years?
When we first started out, we were almost exclusively long form investigative journalism with the occasional blog post. We hired a blogger Marian Wang who used to write daily and we just promoted her to be a reporter, but we have other people to do that. We riff off the news or a significant source of the news. …we’re still all about investigative journalism and copywriting services. That hasn’t changed, but we’ve tweaked a few things here and there.
It’s been noted on the site that certain stories allow readers to fact check an article along with the reporter. Can you talk about this process?
The reporter Marshall Allen and they (news developers) talked about showing the sources where Allen was getting the information. And Allen had to fact check it as it was including the sources in the story made a little sense. It’s difficult to do so we haven’t done it with every story…Our news application developers are very involved with the reporting process, so the reporter and news application developer can come together-it’s a neat experiment to let readers in on the reporting process. It gives you a level, it helps validate the work that you’re doing, people can see for themselves that it’s not biased, it’s true information.
Editorial note: For an example of the way news application developers used their skills, see Allen’s article here.
How can freelancers break into ProPublica?
It’s very difficult–we have a limited budget. The freelance budget is not huge, also because our editors prefer to work with reporters they know very well, and they trust, and they know they can work quickly and accurately. We actually don’t use a lot of freelance content, we used it a bit early on, then we stopped. Then this year we had two freelance pieces. Both of those came from established relationships. In general if a freelancer wanted to work with us, if the editors really loved it, then they would have a conversation with which way to go. We don’t do a lot of freelance work–it’s infrequent. Stephen Engelberg is our managing editor, he’s very open to good ideas for our stories, but after that I can’t say. The process is not the same every time. It’s not any straight process. ..Absolutely, a freelancer can approach us with a story idea and we can consider it.
How has social media played a role in your stories for ProPublica?
So, for the most part, we use it (social media) in a lot of different ways. Amanda Michel used to head our social media team. We were trying to find how the stimulus money was being spent. Amanda asked people to help us check projects that were beginning in their cities and states, they were doing background checks on companies, they were taking photos to see show where the work had started, they were just doing their own reporting and feeding that information to Amanda and we were able to work their quotes and information into what our full time staff was doing. Obviously we use Twitter and Facebook to get stories out, we get very good tips that way and incorporate it into our stories. …a lot of it is a promotional vehicle to spread our stories, and share as many stories as possible.
Editorial note: For an example of a story that was reported with the ProPublica Reporting Network, see Michel’s Our Stimulus Spot Check: Summer Wave of Projects Nears Crest
Any closing remarks?
The news apps team are the thing that’s most overlooked. They’re doing some really spectacular work. Our most popular feature is the Dollars for Docs project.
Our two lead health care reporters Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein had a conversation with Dan Nguyen (the news app developer). Tracy and Charles were frustrated with pharmaceuticals who were paying a doctor at a convention or at an educational training. It was very difficult to obtain that information and they mentioned that to Dan. And he said I could gather that and put it in an apple format. And he did it and we built an app called Dollars for Docs to see if they’re being paid by any pharmaceutical company. …very time consuming getting everything together. It’s one of our most popular projects because people go in and look all the time.
