As many more journalists seek to create their own newsrooms, whether online or cross-platform, the keep-you-up-at-night question remains the same. Who is going to pay us? How do we sustain these ventures? (I have written here at LR about my own Journalism start-ups, including InvestigateNY.)
Over the weekend, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting in Boston, a not for profit journalism center that started a small movement of start-up centers nationwide, leveraged one of their successful revenue streams: training. About a dozen reporters and civilians gathered to learn interviewing techniques, computer assisted reporting and how to mine the internet for stories.
NECIR is one of about 40 regional reporting centers that are members of the Investigative News Network whose mission is to support non-profit investigative start-ups with the goal of making them sustainable.
Most of these Centers are affiliated with a University and run by legacy journalists from TV and print. The New England Center (at Boston University) is directed by Joe Bergantino (formerly a reporter for ABC News and WBZ-TV) and Maggie Mulvihill, (formerly of the Boston Herald.)