Build It Up And Knock It Down

November 17, 2008 in Journalism
Tags: berkeley, bob calo, city, david leigh, guardian, investigative, Journalism, newspapers, paul bradshaw, propublica

This was my November post for the ‘Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists‘ blogring.

The question was ‘If you had a million dollars to save journalism, what would you do?‘

So $1,000,000 or £670,765.31.

I would spend it on investigative website which would perform journalism in the public interest. Very much taking its inspiration from ProPublica, albeit with a much reduced philanthropic budget, our site would be able to conduct the long-form inquiries English newspapers can no longer afford.

It would have to be a lightly staffed outfit, overseen by one very experienced journalist – think David Leigh of the Guardian. This would inject our site with much-needed gravitas as well as providing inspiration for the lowly staffers. The editor-in-chief would get £75,000 and be happy with it because they want to do something innovative. I hope.

Then, beneath them, we would have a ‘words’ editor and a ‘pictures’ editor – drawn from the print and broadcast worlds to provide differing approaches. They would get £50,000 and an overwhelming sense of satisfaction to make up the shortfall in their pay-packet.

At the bottom of the pile, four reporters split equally into ‘words’ and ‘pictures’. Given the paucity of journalistic jobs I’m sure there would be plenty of bright young things willing to take the plunge. And we would exploit them, £25,000 for their entire waking lives.

That leaves us £400,000. Half would go into establishing the site, employing the technological genius to programme and equipping the team with all the gadgets they would need to conduct their work. The other half would be seed money so the reporters could investigate without the prospect of looming deadlines.

Perhaps the first couple of efforts would be offered free to the most suitable outlet, just to establish the merits of the new site and propel its profile into the stratosphere. Bob Calo from Berkeley spoke to us at City recently and highlighted that student journalism could be shown on national networks and attract fees of around $60,000. Obviously the market is smaller in Britain but it provides hope.

Perhaps a more exciting development could be to get the public involved with the experiment. An initiative such as Paul Bradshaw’s new proposal Help Me Investigate could be incorporated into our site. In fact, eventually we could just do away with the pesky reporters and only have the editors to evaluate and collate. I’m starting to think like an executive already, just think of the cost-cutting!