ISSUE

Spring 2009

Voyages of Discovery Into New Media

At the crossroad of old journalism and new media, digital news entrepreneurs lead us on voyages of discovery into new media. From MinnPost to MediaStorm, these entities are using visual media, interactivity and social media to watchdog government abuse and the justice system, identify environmental dangers, and tell enduring stories. In doing so, they illuminate possibilities.

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Articles

Technology

Using Multimedia to Tell an Investigative Story About Innocence

‘Two departments within our newspaper—editorial and new media—had to work closely together to construct the project.’
Christine Young
April 14, 2009
Technology

Defining an Online Mission: Local Investigative Reporting

At the nonprofit voiceofsandiego.org, ‘From our first day our job has been to fill the gaps between what people want from their local media and what they have.’
Andrew Donohue
March 31, 2009
Technology

An Investigative Reporting Partnership: A Serendipitous Collaboration

‘At Northeastern University in Boston, where I joined the faculty in 2007, students in my investigative reporting seminars have produced 11 Page One stories for The Boston Globe in just…
Walter V. Robinson
March 30, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

A Water Trail of Antibiotics in India

Margie Mason, an AP reporter then based in Hanoi, Vietnam and now a Nieman Global Health Fellow, contributed to the PharmaWater story with reporting about the large amount of antibiotics being…
March 30, 2009
Nieman Notes

Choosing Risk In a Volatile Economic Environment

A journalist concludes, ‘A timid reaction assumes forgoing the opportunity to innovate at this exciting juncture of history.’
Andrés Cavelier
March 25, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Investigating the Pharmaceutical Industry on a Blog

‘… evidence itself often emerged as the centerpiece, which has a strong impact on the audience when they see for themselves the incriminating paper trail.’
Ed Silverman
March 25, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

A Small Newspaper Tackles a Big Investigative Project

The persistence of two reporters pays off in revealing how local government failed residents who worried about connections between corporate behavior and the high incidence of brain cancer.
Kevin P. Craver
March 25, 2009
Technology

The Web: Fertile Ground for Investigative Projects

‘Digital journalism could not be the sole domain of breaking news and blogging, and it had to be more than the repository of electronic reprints.’
Maud Beelman
March 24, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Toppling the ‘Big Three’—Medical Care, Behavior and Genes

‘Unnatural Causes’ mixes reporting of research rarely featured in traditional news coverage with visual storytelling in the hope of sparking a health equity movement.
Madeline Drexler
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Digging Through Data and Discovering a Profitable Handshake

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team set out to determine why the state’s health care costs are so high and ended up revealing a hidden deal between powerful forces.
Marcella Bombardieri
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Diving Into Data to Tell Untold Medical Stories

‘The U.S. press seemed to accept as established truth that cholesterol lowering is vital and that statins are the closest thing to wonder drugs. I’m not any smarter than my…
John Carey
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Changing the Drumbeat of Typical Health Reporting

At HealthNewsReview.org ‘… we are on the lookout for those stories that include unsubstantiated claims made in the course of reporting about health.’
Gary Schwitzer
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Silenced Words: An Op-ed That Couldn’t Find a Home

John Abramson, Jim Wright, and Merrill Goozner, author of “The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs,” coauthored an op-ed about the JUPITER trial that was…
Jim Wright
March 23, 2009
Technology

Reliable News: Errors Aren’t Part of the Equation

In the transition to digital journalism, accuracy—as an indicator of quality—must maintain its place at the top of the list of essential ingredients.
Craig Silverman
March 23, 2009
Technology

Tracking Toxics When the Data Are Polluted

How computational journalism can uncover what polluters would prefer to hide.
James T. Hamilton
March 23, 2009
Technology

Crowdfunded Reporting: Readers Pay for Stories to Be Told

‘Reporting for Spot.Us, where money directly changes hands, is the same as reporting any story for Wired.com. For Spot.Us, the ethical promise inheres in the transparency of the funding.’
Alexis Madrigal
March 23, 2009
Technology

A Digital Vision of Where Journalism and Government Will Intersect

‘… the journalistic process of assembling information and connecting the dots to inform tough questions will be easier.’
Bill Allison
March 23, 2009
Opinion

‘Plunder’ Explores What Happens When an Important Story Is Poorly Told

‘In retrospect, editors and reporters should have looked more carefully and consistently at the consequences of deregulation on Wall Street and Main Street.’
Susan E. Reed
March 23, 2009
Opinion

Afghanistan: Pictures Not Taken

‘When the press started to feel empowered to show and tell the truth, it was only a matter of time before the military and government powers would retaliate.’
Travis Beard
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

The Other Side of China’s Economic Miracle

A Chinese reporter describes how he learned about the injuries and illnesses that befall migrants who work in factories where exported products are made.
Ran An
March 23, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Revealing How Dentists Profit By Abusing Children

In ‘Drilling for Dollars,’ a local TV reporter presented shocking visual and audio testimony about a situation in which children were being needlessly treated and harmed because of corporate greed.
Roberta Baskin
March 23, 2009
Technology

The New Front Page: The Digital Revolution

A former newspaper editor figures out how to fund serious digital journalism with an annual budget less than what newsrooms sometimes spent on one investigative project.
Joel Kramer
March 23, 2009
Nieman Notes

Presidential Dogs

President Warren G. Harding being photographed in front of the White House with his dog, Laddie. 1922. Photo courtesy of the National Photo Company/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.“Sasha…
Elinor J. Brecher
March 23, 2009
Opinion

Coming to a Political Beat Near You: Policy Wars Over Global Warming

As intense partisan politics begin to infuse the climate change story, what do journalists and journalism students need to know?
Tom Yulsman
March 23, 2009
Opinion

An ‘Open Notebook’ Project About Climate Change

RELATED WEB LINKExplore Yulsman’s open notebook project »RELATED ARTICLE“Coming to a Political Beat Near You: Policy Wars Over Global Warming”– Tom YulsmanWhen Tom Yulsman set out to write this article,…
March 23, 2009
Opinion

Spring 2009: Words & Reflections Introduction

News Photography in Afghanistan, Climate Change and Politics, and Economic Calamity and Coverage
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Investigating What Harms People—As an Independent Reporter

A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter writes about ‘hurdles to obtain meager funding or to overcome editors’ reluctance to support the stories’—and offers suggestions.
Loretta Tofani
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Medical and Public Health Concerns: Off-Limits in the Russian Press

‘The problem facing public health reporters is not the police; it’s a medical system with little transparency and fear of unemployment.’
Karl Idsvoog
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Probing Toxic Plastics at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In “Chemical Fallout: A Journal Sentinel Watchdog Report,” Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger, reporters at this metro newspaper, explored in depth the evidence that long-term health effects may be caused…
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Investigating Medical and Health Issues: Introduction

If data talked, oh, the stories they could tell. Today, enterprising reporters are “listening” to what data can tell them. By harnessing technology’s tools, they dig with increasing speed and…
Melissa Ludtke
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

What Happens When No One Is Watching?

When Congress relinquishes its oversight role of the Food and Drug Administration, the press reduces its watchdog role when it comes to drug safety.
Morton Mintz
March 20, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Spreading the News

RELATED ARTICLE“Toppling the ‘Big Three’—Medical Care, Behavior and Genes” – Madeline DrexlerDuring the past year, more than 400 outreach groups and other organizations have convened thousands of events centered on…
Madeline Drexler
March 19, 2009
Technology

Spring 2009: Introduction

At the crossroad of old journalism and new media, digital news entrepreneurs lead us on voyages of discovery into new media. From MinnPost to MediaStorm, these entities are using visual…
Melissa Ludtke
March 15, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

An Online Database Reveals Health Hazards

Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s data, The Center for Public Integrity finds reason to be concerned about some pesticides found in familiar products.
Michael B. Pell
March 15, 2009
Technology

Using Social Media to Reach Young Readers

In reporting on a case of a police informant who’d been murdered, the Tallahassee Democrat relied on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and text messages to get its reporting to young readers.
Julia Luscher Thompson
March 15, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Investigative Reporting on Medical Science: What Does It Take to Break Through the Commercial Spin?

‘… it is almost impossible to get the story right when the fundamentally commercial goals for which the study has been done are covered up with so much industry-sponsored expertise.’
John Abramson
March 15, 2009
Technology

Video News Reporting: New Lessons in New Media

‘What would it take to create good video journalism for online audiences, inexpensively and in an idiom that looked neither too homemade nor too much like TV?’
Nick Penniman
March 15, 2009
Technology

Long-Form Multimedia Journalism: Quality Is the Key Ingredient

As a producer of social documentary projects—viewed on digital platforms—Brian Storm talks about the excitement of doing journalism in this way, at this time.
Brian Storm
March 15, 2009
Technology

Watchdog Analysis: Offering Context and Perspective Online

At the Beacon in St. Louis, reporters attempt to ‘provide context to illuminate why something is happening, explain what’s at stake, and assess what might—or what should—happen next.’
Margaret Wolf Freivogel
March 15, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Examining Water Supplies in Search of Pharmaceutical Drugs

‘Secrecy, it turned out, was our biggest enemy, but not for the reasons investigative reporters typically encounter ….’
Richard T. Pienciak
March 15, 2009
From the Curator

Change Is in the Air at Lippmann House

Applications for fellowships are on the rise, as a multimedia curriculum is readied for the new fellows who will engage in the industry’s digital transformation.
Bob Giles
March 15, 2009
21st Century Muckrakers

Blogs, Watchdog Reporting, and Scientific Malfeasance

‘Bottom line is that it takes time and money to do the kind of muckraking that newspapers have always excelled at, and I’m not sure the blogosphere can reliably reproduce…
Alison Bass
March 8, 2009