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On this page
  • Investigative Journalism on Oil, Gas and Mining: Has Donor-Driven Use of Digital Technology Made a Difference (2019)
  • Democracy’s Detectives - The Economics of Investigative Journalism (2016)
  • AFRICA
  • Investigative Journalism in Africa: An Exploratory Study of Non-Profit Investigative Journalism Organisations in Africa (2018)
  • NORTH AMERICA
  • The Rise of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in the United States (2018)
  • MORE RESOURCES
  • WHAT IS MISSING?

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  1. RESOURCES
  2. Academic studies & papers

Investigative journalism

Academic research into the effectiveness of donor and foundation-supported investigative journalism.

PreviousGender EqualityNextCollaborative journalism

Last updated 3 years ago

Was this helpful?

This resource page is a work in progress. Please get in touch to let us know what is missing .

For non-academic research, reports and articles on the impact and effectiveness of go to:

Cappelen Damm Akademisk - ANYA SCHIFFRIN & RYAN POWELL

Journalists around the world now use big data and data visualization to report and write powerful stories about the effects of resource extraction. They use mobile and social media platforms to disseminate their work. Much of this coverage was driven by foundations and Google who believed in data journalism and funded training and tools to promote it. It’s not clear, however, whether the journalism has an impact and if it can develop an enthusiastic audience and help generate revenue for the outlets that report and publish data-driven journalism.

Havard University Press - JAMES T. HAMILTON

Democracy’s Detectives puts investigative journalism under a magnifying glass to clarify the challenges and opportunities facing news organizations today.

Drawing on a painstakingly assembled data set of thousands of investigations by U.S. journalists, James T. Hamilton deploys economic theories of markets and incentives to reach conclusions about the types of investigative stories that get prioritized and funded.

Hamilton chronicles a remarkable record of investigative journalism’s real-world impact, showing how a single dollar invested in a story can generate hundreds of dollars in social benefits.

AFRICA

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism University of Oxford - NTIBINYANE NTIBINYANE

NORTH AMERICA

Routledge - BILL BIRNBAUER

MORE RESOURCES

WHAT IS MISSING?

Chapter 12 of R. Krøvel & M. Thowsen (Eds.), (pp. 137–158).

Although not focussed primarily on the role of foundations, this research into investigative journalism in Africa does highlight some of the challenges of a reliance on foundation funding. It shows, for example, that, ‘most donor organization prefer to award organizations grants on yearly basis. What this means is that every year organizations are supposed to submit proposals for funding. This is a timeconsuming exercise that also brings about uncertainty and has a potential of destabilizing the organizations’. ()

This book examines the rapid growth, impact and sustainability of not-forprofit investigative reporting and its impact on US democracy and mainstream journalism. It includes chapters focussed specifically on the sustainability of foundation funding, the agendas of foundations and the ethical issues that arise from philanthropically funded journalism. ()

For non-academic research, reports and articles on go to

This resource page is a work in progress. Please get in touch to let us know what is missing .

Making Transparency Possible. An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
Democracy’s Detectives - The Economics of Investigative Journalism (2016)
Investigative Journalism in Africa: An Exploratory Study of Non-Profit Investigative Journalism Organisations in Africa (2018)
Humanitarian Journalism
The Rise of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in the United States (2018)
Humanitarian Journalism
investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
using this form
using this form
investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative Journalism on Oil, Gas and Mining: Has Donor-Driven Use of Digital Technology Made a Difference (2019)
LogoMaking Transparency Possible
LogoDemocracy’s Detectives — James T. Hamilton | Harvard University PressHarvard_Press
LogoThe Rise of NonProfit Investigative Journalism in the United StatesRoutledge & CRC Press