Grant boosts Centre for Public Integrity

The grant will enable the centre's non-partisan, award-winning watchdog journalism to engage national and international audiences more effectively using all forms of digital media.

Specifically, the grant will allow the centre to:

• Hire a chief digital officer to develop a new digital strategy aimed at increasing the impact of the centre's journalism;
  
• Develop new ways to engage the centre's audience in selecting, producing, and delivering stories, including a newly redesigned website;
  
• Launch the Ujima Project, an open source computer-assisted reporting tool for investigative reporters internationally;
  
• Help produce at least 30 new major reporting projects over the next two years;
  
• Experiment with new fund-raising models and for-profit revenue streams.

The centre has named John Solomon, an award-winning journalist who led investigative teams at the Associated Press and the Washington Post, as its new chief digital officer.

Poised to deliver faster, better

"The centre is now poised to deliver its brand of investigative journalism faster and better than ever before while creating new revenue streams for additional investigative staffing and sustainability," said executive director Bill Buzenberg.

The grant is part of Knight Foundation's Investigative Reporting Initiative, a US$15 million (about R105 million) effort to help develop new models for investigative reporting on digital platforms.

"America needs investigative journalism, and investigative journalism needs new funding sources," said Eric Newton, Knight Foundation's vice president for journalism. "The Centre for Public Integrity will use digital technology to turn those needs into an opportunity to show what can be done."

So far this year, the centre has produced more than 350 stories on the environment, public health, public accountability, federal and state lobbying, military spending, and financial disclosure.

For more information go to www.publicintegrity.org/