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The inaugural effort of Pro Publica, a new, nonprofit investigative journalism initiative funded by a California philanthropy, gets a thumbs-down from a journalism ethics professor. Writing in the Miami Herald, Edward Wasserman of Washington and Lee University points out that Pro Publica’s collaboration with 60 Minutes on a piece detailing the many flaws of a U.S.-funded Arab-language news network in the Mideast is hardly the kind of independent-minded investigation originally envisioned.
First, Wasserman notes, having to link with CBS’ flagship newsmagazine dilutes Pro Publica’s brand, and second, at almost the same time that the 60 Minutes piece was airing, the Washington Post was running a nearly identical story, a troubling fact given that Pro Publica is supposed to be digging up the stuff that the corporate media types are too hamstrung to publish. Then there’s the fact that up to now, Pro Publica has been little more than an aggregator of investigative stories running elsewhere.
It’s important for Pro Publica to get its brand out there, but jumping into bed with 60 Minutes to do a story it likely would have done anyway — and a story that the Post did do anyway — makes you wonder exactly why the organization is needed in the first place. Big-corporation journalism is producing fewer of these necessary pieces around the country, and Pro Publica’s mindset and resources are desperately needed. But if it’s merely going to “subsidize” corporate pieces, as Wasserman put it, and run stories that are already being covered, what’s the point? | 501(c)
