Said one director of investigative journalism outfit ProPublica when it launched (my itals):
ProPublica may help lead the way to crafting new approaches addressing the market failure that seems to be taking hold in some segments of publishing, and that threatens a real loss to the health of our democracy.
Market failure, eh? Looks like the market hasn’t quite failed enough.
Hot on the heels of the ProPublica/60 Minutes takedown (below) of risible, US-funded newschannel Al Hurra, researched by ex-WaPo staffer Dafna Linzer, appears the Washington Post‘s two-parter on risible etc. [HT: Jack Shafer].
Pace the felicitous timing, it does serve as a reminder that the failing market can still churn this stuff out quite effectively without the help of millions of dollars worth of philanthropic cash.
If PP is just going to provide investigative ‘branding’ and outsource some research work for a non-charitable institution headed by Leslie Moonves, then forgive me while I ask – are the people funding it nuts?
Al Hurra
To change the subject slightly, it might be interesting to find out which shadowy consultant-types made all the initial money from setting up Al Hurra. I met one of them in Istanbul, back in 2005. It was obvious then that he had never grappled with:
- international TV news (it’s a small world)
- the essential practical problem of staffing Middle Eastern broadcast operations – i.e. everyone is either Egyptian or Lebanese (barring a few Palestinians)
In the case of Al Hurra, they hired a lot of Lebanese Maronite journalists. BBC Arabic probably has something of the opposite tendency (although tellingly, the BBC won’t reveal the national breakdown of its staff on the Arabic service).
Of course, Egypt and Lebanon are two MENA countries brimming with the educated-but-frustrated classes that provide the kind of dangerous individuals who want to be journalists in the first place…