Pro Publica

Last night, The News Hour on PBS did a story on ProPublica, a non-profit news organization that provides pro bono investigative journalism to newspapers and other new media outlets that have had to lay off their reporting staffs because of budget cuts. News outlets, particularly newspapers, are struggling to meet their bottom lines, and so they are increasingly turning toward cheaper forms of news, like opinion journalism, that are much cheaper to produce than hiring a staff to do actual reporting. ProPublica is attempting to offer a higher-quality alternative.

In a way, ProPublica is attempting to fill a void that has often been filled by public relations organizations, who in their role as press agents have created, pitched, and placed news stories for years, often anonymously. In the 1980s, video news releases produced by public relations and advertising firms provided packaged stories to television news programs, and in recent years, governmental agencies have taken up the practice as well.

VNRs are a controversial practice. The stories may sometimes be good, but they typically offer a distinctly biased version of events. When they are placed in newscasts—often with neither unediting nor comment—viewers are often unable to tell the difference between slanted coverage and actual journalism. As a result, the increasingly widespread integration of news organizations and public relations firms often makes things easier for news providers but more difficult for news audiences.

Where does ProPublica fit in? When it debuted in 2007, the New York Times reported that while the staff was top-notch, it was created and supported by philanthropists with liberal connections. In addition, its mission announces a distinctly democratic—perhaps liberal—bias:

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We strive to foster change through exposing exploitation of the weak by the strong and the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

Bias, of course, isn't a problem, since everyone has a bias. The problem is unannounced bias, in which biased coverage purports to be completely neutral. ProPublica will have to be careful in how it announces the investigative coverage it produces, not only for the sake of its own reputation but also for the industry as a whole. In a media landscape in which public relations firms, advertising agencies, activist groups, corporate communicators, and non-profit reporting organizations will increasingly compete with traditional news providers, perhaps ProPublica's greatest service will be to show how quality coverage should occur in a decentralized, chaotic, virtual world.