Mar 22
2014
The State of Investigative Post, 2014
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by Jim Heaney, editor of Investigative Post
Investigative Post recently celebrated its second anniversary and I want to use the occasion to recap the past year and provide a peek of what lies ahead in 2014.
When I contemplated leaving The Buffalo News several years ago I wrestled with the prospect of losing the platform that comes with writing for the largest media outlet in the region. That was no small consideration because journalism, to have value, must have impact, and to have impact, must reach a broad audience.
Using those benchmarks, Investigative Post had a successful second year, and is poised to have an even better one in 2014.
We doubled our accumulated audience last year, from 3 million to 6 million viewers, readers and listeners through our website and the media outlets we distribute our work through.
More than half our audience came via WGRZ TV and WGRZ.com, the balance through the distribution of our work in Artvoice, WBFO and, on occasion, The Buffalo News. Those combined outlets give Investigative Post the largest distribution network of any news outlet in all of Upstate New York.
We also expanded our reach through social media, via the huge followings our partner at WGRZ has built on Facebook and Twitter, and a doubling of Investigative Post fans and followers on those platforms. As a result, referrals from social media have grown to account for more than one-third of our website traffic. Likewise, we’ve seen a big jump in traffic from mobile sources thanks in part to the recent introduction of an iPhone friendly format.
Which is to say, yeah, we’ve built an audience.
That audience, combined with some top-shelf reporting, has enabled Investigative Post’s journalism to have impact.
Digging by Dan Telvock, our environmental reporter, forced the state to commit to testing near Gallagher Beach and expand air monitoring around the Peace Bridge. Much to the chagrin of state officials, I might add. (The Gallagher Beach story, by the way, was voted our top story of the year by readers.)
A series of investigations by Dan into the sorry state of recycling in Buffalo also resulted in changes last year. The city housing authority is preparing to launch a recycling program, the public schools have expanded theirs and City Hall hired a recycling director after letting the job sit vacant for years.
Our reporting also interjected a needed dose of reality into the public debate over key issues. Gov. Cuomo’s false claims regarding the Peace Bridge. The devastating public health impact of Peace Bridge traffic on West Side residents. The long history of public subsidies enjoyed by Delaware North. The good and bad of the Buffalo Billion.
Thus, Investigative Post over the past year went 2 for 2, to use a baseball term. We expanded our audience and delivered stories that made a difference.
We also chalked up progress working with professors at the University at Buffalo, Canisius College and the Rochester Institute of Technology to tap their expertise in the economy, environment, data, technology and journalism.
On a different front, we took important steps toward building Investigative Post into a sustainable non-profit organization. We added Catharine Miles-Kania and her fundraising prowess to our board, which is headed by Lee Coppola. We gained membership into the Investigative News Network, which doubles as our fiscal sponsor. We also built a potent database of more than 5,000 donors to non-profit organizations and political candidates that we’re using to recruit a broad base of financial supporters.
Investigative Post has an ambitious blueprint for the coming year.
We plan to revamp our website this spring, add distribution partners and continue to grow our audience. We doubled our accumulated audience over the past year and anticipate further growth in 2014. (What other media outlet in town is growing their audience?)
We also want to add a couple of reporters. Right now it’s just Dan and I. We produced a lot of content last year, some 70 stories and interviews for WGRZ, another 75 stories and blog posts for our website, many of which found their way onto the pages of our print partners. (No wonder Dan and I are tired.)
We get a lot more tips and otherwise come up with a lot more story ideas than the two of us can handle. We have enough work to keep a half-dozen reporters busy. We’ll start by hiring a couple.
Doing so is going to require a successful fundraising effort. We’ll continue to look to foundations and large individual donors who recognize the value of watchdog journalism to our community. We also plan to launch an event series and membership campaign to build support among smaller donors, much along the lines of what public broadcasting does. And, as our roster of distribution partners grows, so, too, should our stream of earned income.
One thing I’ve realized these past two years is that Investigative Post is going to be in a state of perpetual startup for a good while longer. The challenge before us is to build a news organization whose DNA includes both innovation and traditional journalistic values, and it’s going to take time to put all the pieces in place. It’s an exhausting, but exciting prospect.
Investigative Post is a small reporting shop when compared to the major news organizations in town. Pound for pound, though, I think we’re a potent outfit. We’re striving to be an independent watchdog with both brains and bite.
So far, so good.
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