2009-06-23
LONDON – A British Fund for Investigative Journalism has been founded by a group of Britain’s most experienced investigative reporters. The new fund is to be brought to life as an incubator for ideas regarding investigations as well as innovative fundraising methods.
A new initiative for alternative funding for investigative journalism is taking shape. Stephen Grey, former editor of the Sunday Times’s Insight Team and a member of the advisory board of Journalismfund.eu, is running the project along with author Misha Glenny, the Guardian’s investigations editor, David Leigh and nine other investigative journalists. They aim is to ‘provide seeds from which big stories can grow’, the founders say in an open letter and on their website, asking for support. It is not an attempt to compete with the media business though, they underline, yet to fill a different urging need. That is the need for a more risky, challenging reporting and film-making.
Certain details about how the fund will operate are yet to be revealed. Initially, money will be raised by inviting straight-forward donations. The fund will champion complete editorial independence and choice of subjects for investigations will be made without any involvement by those sponsoring the project.
The British initiative part of an emerging movement of experiments dealing with alternative ways of funding investigative journalism.
Apart from Journalismfund.eu a number of other funds provide grants for research to individual journalists or small teams. And in this past year several initiatives have picked up the idea.
Written by Ida Zidore Christensen
