NIEMAN FOUNDATION LAUNCHES WATCHDOG JOURNALISM WEB SITE

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism, at Harvard University, has launched a new Web site to encourage watchdog reporting by drawing on authorities in various fields to suggest questions for the press to ask.
The Web site, www.NiemanWatchdog.org, offers reporters and editors the expertise that resides at Harvard and other centers of learning and information, including the professions, activist groups, politics, and government.

Barry Sussman, editor of the new Web site, said, “Independent experts are often eager to help journalists identify what is important. They’ll provide questions, show why their questions are important, and serve as sources for reporters who choose to follow up and do stories.”

On its first day, the Web site offered questions for stories on the military, the environment, the economy, taxes, terrorism, education, prisons and other aspects of the criminal justice system, voting disenfranchisement and problems with voting machines, health care disparities, opinion polls, and other subjects. In addition, it has commentary and examples of showcase (best practices) watchdog reporting.

The Web site is targeted at concerned citizens as well as at print, broadcast, and online reporters and editors, and encourages comments and contributions from users. It is an outgrowth of the Nieman Foundation’s Watchdog Project, created in 1996 with funds given by Murrey Marder, a retired diplomatic correspondent of The Washington Post and a Nieman Fellow in 1950.

In addition to the Watchdog Project, the Nieman Foundation has since 1938 been the home of the Nieman Fellows, the oldest mid-career fellowship for journalists in the world. The fellowships are awarded to working journalists of accomplishment and promise for an academic year of study in any part of the university. More than 1,000 from the United States and 76 other nations have studied at Harvard as Nieman Fellows. The foundation also publishes the quarterly magazine Nieman Reports and is the home of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism.

#

(Source: news release)