EFIJ: funding for European investigative journalism that breaks through national barriers

It is a common belief that well-researched, in-depth investigative journalism is in danger as newspapers worldwide are forced to cut costs in order to survive. By its very nature, investigative journalism is time-consuming, resources-consuming and not as likely to rake in readers as breaking news stories. But it is also one of the most crucial areas of journalism with regards to its impact, and necessary if the press is to maintain its vital role as watchdog over governments and powerful institutions in a democratic society, and therefore arguably essential to save. Guardian writers Bruce Ackerman and Ian Iyres recently wrote that solutions to the newspapers industry's woes should focus exclusively on "the collapse of investigative journalism, not the fate of particular delivery systems." The Editors Weblog spoke to Brigitte Alfter, director of a new European fund, which is doing just that.

The European Fund for Investigative Journalism was launched last week, as a project run by the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund, although it hopes to become a separate entity in the future. It seems as if there is an increasing need to fund investigative reporting separately from other forms of journalism. "Media is in a time of change," explained director Brigitte Alfter, "and recently investigative journalism has not been a high priority for editors and publishers." So the Fund aims to fill this gap, to "keep the quality up." Europe has been lagging behind the US in terms of finding alternative ways to fund investigative journalism: the US boasts national non-profit investigative reporting outfit ProPublica and local operations such as the VoiceOfSanDiego or MinnPost, as well as more established funds such as the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Why this is the case is not immediately clear and would require some research, but Alfter suggested that part of the reason was America's "strong philanthropic tradition, that we don't have in Europe." It is also possible that the number of newspaper readers has fallen faster in the US, due to more widespread internet usage, among other things, and therefore newspapers have been less able to fund such investigative journalism themselves.

"In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders"

The Fund will seek to promote European investigative journalism that crosses national borders, which Alfter sees as a very important aspect of such a project, and one that has not so far been emphasised enough. "In Europe we can see that politics, business, even organised crime all cross borders, while journalists and their coverage are often focussed purely on a national target group and are reluctant to cross borders," Alfter explained. Along this lines, the grants should provide enough money for the travel and translation costs that such a multi-country story would generate. Stories would be published on a national level, in the countries of those journalists who have contributed, and excerpts or even full stories will appear on the fund's website.

The plan is to invite proposals for stories on a quarterly basis. The first round of funding is 20,000 euros, provided by Norwegian foundation for freedom of expression, Fritt Ord. The proposals will be assessed by a four-member jury, who will serve for two years and remain anonymous throughout this time. Their anonymity is intended to be a kind of buffer that would mean that they cannot be influenced in their choices, and hence strengthen the credibility of the organisation, believes Alfter. She stressed the care that the fund has taken to make the criteria for choosing pieces public and transparent. Stories which give added value to mainstream coverage will be valued highly, as will those which have relevance to society, and those which involve collaboration between colleagues. One of the issues with investigative journalism is its lack of immediate newsworthiness, and Alfter explained that newsworthiness is not one of the most important criteria that the jury will be looking for. She commented that rather, she hopes that the outcome and impact of stories would be news in itself.

Investigative journalism is evidently more likely to succeed in attracting funding as it represents public interests, and society could suffer significantly without it. If the non-profit, endowed model of news-gathering is to become more prevalent, it is very possible that it would primarily support investigative reporting, to protect it from economic difficulty. Brigitte Alfter expressed her hope that one day the traditional media will once again find enough money to fund a suitable amount of investigative journalism, and explained that she would be delighted if this fund could serve as an inspiration for that. But for now, it appears that it must be funded separately, and she and her team are focussed on providing an impetus to European journalists to take on projects that "go beyond the day-to-day agenda and thus live up to one particular task of journalism, which is to be a watchdog and to provide relevant information to the public debate, that otherwise would not have got out." Hopefully, they will succeed.