In recent years, Type Investigations has undergone a significant shift, doubling the percentage of stories we publish with local and regional newsrooms. The Type Investigations Springboard Project builds on that foundation by expanding the breadth of our work with outlets that serve historically marginalized communities. Springboard offers an infusion of editorial, research, and financial support to help these newsrooms strengthen their own investigative capacity.
A recent CUNY survey shows that local and diverse newsrooms are eager to produce more investigative journalism. These newsrooms recognize the value of investigative journalism in catalyzing community engagement. They know that enterprise reporting is a critical tool to advance our democracy and hold it to account, and that exposing injustice empowers communities to more strongly advocate for themselves.
How it Works
Type has worked with more than two dozen such newsrooms over the last five years alone. Some of them have turned to us for financial support on specific projects; others wanted help editing a thorny story or fact-checking it. But we also want to reach newsrooms that might not know what we have to offer.
We’ve already developed a database of nonprofit newsrooms we’d like to approach. Once in contact, we’ll meet with newsroom leaders and learn what hurdles they’ve encountered in their investigative work and how we can help overcome them together, whether that means pairing reporters with mentors, providing trainings on public records research, or polishing drafts. To do that, we are investing staff time in networking, outreach, research, and editing. We are also creating an infrastructure for weighing and prioritizing partners’ requests.
Results
We’ve published investigations with Documented, St. Louis American, Cicero Independiente, Detroit Free Press, Gulf States Newsroom, Baltimore Beat, and several other local and diverse outlets. In each case, we were able to help these outlets achieve their own goals. The stories themselves have created major buzz in the industry, and more importantly, led to real-world change.