San Diego: launch of new Watchdog Institute to provide data driven investigative journalism

The issue of funding, which at the outset was ambiguous, was to an extent clarified by Hearn
in an interview yesterday. The project is non-profit and was launched independently of the U-T. The paper has however, made financial commitments to the venture and will be its 'lead partner'. According to Winner, the partnership demonstrates the "strong financial commitment to continuing to provide public service work." The benefits of giving "support" to such a project are clear; Hearn said that although some investigative stories will be openly available to all media outlets, they will be offered exclusively to the U-T first.  

This relationship is apparently quite particular in this field. Over the past few years, as newspapers have been forced to cut back for lack of resources, on investigative stories, journalists and philanthropists have launched their own non-profit investigative organisations to compensate. Yet as the VoiceofSanDiego points out, it does not appear that "any newspaper has developed as tight of a relationship with a non-profit organization as The Watchdog Institute expects to have with the U-T".  

Unsurprisingly, the Voice is following this development closely. The Voice is frequently cited
by media commentators as a leading example of the online, non-profit venture in local news provision. The project is primarily dedicated to investigative journalism with a local focus, thus it appears that that both enterprises will be working within the same remit. This is an unusual situation for one city and one could question whether there is sufficient need for the teams of both organisations to be scavenging for unreported information on issues of local interest. There is however, an important distinction in their missions; whereas the Voice generates stories for its own online publication, the Watchdog is an institution, which collates information that will then be passed on to media outlets.

That the principle beneficiary of the centre's work is the U-T, however, creates an interesting tension.  Arguably, the Voice has been able to sustain an increasing popularity since its inception in 2005 largely because of the paper's deficiencies in the area of local investigative reporting. It will be interesting to see if the paper does improve its performance in this area thanks to the work of the Institute and the ramifications that this will have on the Voice.  Indeed, San Diego was already a dynamic microcosm of the current fabric of media reporting as local coverage is provided in several mediums by rival publications. 

The independence of the Institute from the U-T, however, has been stressed in all communication. It will have relations with San Diego State University, although according the spokesperson, it is doubtful that the university will fund the Institute. Similar non-profit investigative enterprises associated with universities have been established in places such as Wisconsin and New England.

Source: Voice of San Diego