The Centre for Investigative Journalism
The Centre for Investigative Journalism
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The business of journalism is changing fast.

With the collapse of traditional advertising revenue models, the argument that thoroughly researched investigative journalism is a public good that needs to be properly funded cannot be made too strongly or too often.

At the CIJ we’re interested in supporting innovative alternative methods for keeping investigative journalism financially sustainable. Whether through diversifying revenue streams, philanthropic grants, or working directly with NGOs and interest groups we want to incubate alternative business models to ensure good journalism pays.

One area in which we see potential is in those outlets pioneering different ways of engaging with people to build not just readerships, but communities for their work. There are many methods of doing this but some of the best involve giving their audience ways to meaningfully engage in both the production of the journalism and the management of the organisation. In return, audiences are becoming supporters or members who give regular donations to sustain the investigative work.

We’re always interested in supporting other community journalism projects. We can provide advice, guidance and even help you pitch for funding to cover training for your outlet. If you are working with or setting up an investigative community journalism outlet, contact us at tom [at] tcij.org to discuss how we might be able to help.

Partners

2022: Collaborative Community Journalism

During 2022, The Centre for Investigative Journalism, with funding from the Trust for London, delivered a project aimed at strengthening links between London-based community journalism outlets and community campaign groups.

2021: Collaborative Community Journalism

In late 2019, the Trust for London committed to supporting the CIJ to bring our experience in supporting independent public-interest news across the UK back to the capital. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we reluctantly postponed the project while we translated our training and events to online formats.

2020: Collaborative Community Journalism

The Trust for London has committed to funding a full training and mentoring programme in the community journalism sector, allowing us to bring our experience of supporting independent public-interest news across the UK, back to the capital.

2018: Community Investigations Training Programmes

Wanting to build on our success with the workshops we held during 2016 and 2017, and backed by repeat funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, in 2018 we partnered up with some of the most established organisations we’d engaged then and worked closely with them to put together tailored programmes which would run for much longer and take a cohort of trainee contributors through their own investigations.

2018: Data-Driven Community Journalism

During 2018 we ran a focused training programme for community journalists specifically targeted at helping them to use the techniques of Data Journalism for their investigative reporting. Participants were chosen by application and we were able to support them to travel to a series of our trademark hands-on classes and work through their own investigations with the support and mentorship of our data journalism experts.

2016-17: Community and Citizen Journalism Workshops

Having identified both the demand for and the desire to produce more public-interest investigative journalism from within the community and citizen journalism sector across the UK, we spoke to many representatives in 2016 to determine the main barriers to advancing this.