The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is a non-profit organization established in 2010 to bolster investigative journalism in the UK. It aims to identify financial models to make investigative journalism sustainable through a £2 million pledge. The Bureau is staffed by 3 employees and 10-20 freelancers. Investigative journalism is facing a crisis due to declining revenue from ads and sales, content reproduction, and rising costs. The Bureau works to make investigations financially sustainable through multi-platform production and international collaborations. It publishes its work on its website and partners with broadcast and print media outlets in the UK and internationally.
11. The Bureau How do we work? Self Publication : www. thebureauinvestigates .com Broadcast : Panorama, Dispatches, C4 News, Newsnight, File on Four, Al Jazeera English and Arabic. Print: Sunday Times, Observer, FT, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph. Over two dozen front pages.
This is borne out in the output: the cutbacks in news organisations are hitting investigative journalism particularly hard We had 500 applications to the Bureau from journalists, overwhelming majority of which said they don’t have any time or resources in their current reporting roles to do any investigative, long term work.
Current mode of single platform distribution doesn’t work - Our output led by the belief that if you invest considerable resources into an investigation then single platform production is not financially viable Investigation not defined by background of jsts who are conducting it. They get the story then bring in a writer or director or programmer to shape it into different media. Alongside, train jsts to be proficient across these platforms. an investigation generates broadcast sales (biggest), also print, or book, has a website, - explore paid content online – for carrying out the journalism itself, and for distributing it plus new tech for doing the investigations – CAR/programming; podcasts, video games, phone apps;
Collab with FT – we each put in equal number of journos, they get the print exclusive, but give us the opportunity to go away and make a doco English radio doc, French splash and German TV prod all from same content; or investigation that makes print and TV and can be reversioned in French, Spanish, German Works on any pan-European or international story – but not for nationals. The Bureau’s hope is p
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