$800K Goes a Long Way for the Center for Investigative Reporting
The Center for Investigative Reporting received $800,000 from the funding of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help create an investigative reporting channel on YouTube this July.
To make it even more “high-impact,” CIR is teaming up with the Investigative News Network. Together they will participate in online chats, engage with followers of the social media realm and promote the use of investigative reporting with video clips from major broadcasters such as ABC, NPR and the New York Times.
“The promotion strategy is a work in progress, but the Investigative News Channel team will include a full-time marketing/social media coordinator,” said Sharon Tiller, director of Digital Media at CIR. “YouTube and Google will both be actively involved, and we plan a very aggressive campaign to engage and build subscribers to the Channel.”
When we asked Tiller if it would involve journalism students, she replied with a big fat YES!
“We will reach out to all the journalism schools welcoming video submissions from current students and graduates,” Tiller said. “The process will be competitive, but we expect outstanding innovative work to come from the next generation of investigative journalists.”
Vice President for Media Innovation and Journalism at the Knight Foundation, Michael Maness, stated that the channel is meant to give investigative reporting an “authoritative” presence.
According to CIR’s press release, Executive Director of CIR Robert J. Rosenthal agreed to such enlightenment saying it could financially aid independent filmmakers and nonprofit organizations, like INN and CIR.
“We hope the Investigative News Channel will be a prominent distribution platform for emerging talent, as well as a modest source of revenue for content creators,” Tiller said.
CIR was founded in 1977, and is the oldest nonprofit investigative reporting organization. They focus on various issues, from the environment to campaign finance. Their work are featured through news outlets such as PBS, NPR and the Washington Post, feeding not-for-profit newsrooms around North America for the past 35 years. They definitely don’t plan to stop their innovations anytime soon.
“This will be the first YouTube News Channel to curate and aggregate the best work from a broad spectrum of partners–top brands and personalities,” Tiller said. “We also envision the Channel as a dynamic hub for trustworthy, engaging and gutsy investigative journalism that can grow [for] contributors.”
“We want to engage and create a community that wants and expects great investigative videos to make a real difference in the world—stories that connect the local and the global,” Tiller said.
YouTube channel’s team is still brainstorming names for the channel, according to Tiller. However, she stated that anyone can contact them with any “brilliant ideas.”
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