After two days of conversation on tackling threats to watchdog journalists worldwide and fostering the kind of innovation necessary to sustain investigative reporting, conference participants met in break-out sessions to identify next steps.

By Lauren McSherry
Moderator: Brant Houston, Knight Chair for Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois
Mark Katches, investigative editor, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (winner, AP Award for Innovations in Investigative Reporting)
Brian Lehrer, WNYC Radio: Public radio as a home for investigative reporting; “crowd-sourcing” and other techniques
Daoud Kuttab, Chairman of ARIJ (Arab reporters for Investigative Journalism) and [...]

By Hilke Schellmann
Moderator: Betsy West, associate professor, Columbia Journalism School
Alex Gibney, independent documentary film-maker: Financing and marketing investigative documentaries
Andrew Golis, deputy publisher, Talking Points Memo
Andrew Donohue, executive editor, VoiceofSanDiego.org
Bob Moser, investigative editor, Texas Observer
Brant Houston, Knight Chair for Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois
Five panelists from print, documentary and online investigative outlets [...]

One of the last remaining two-newspaper cities lost that status on Friday. Denver’s Rocky Mountain News closed its doors. In Seattle, another doomsday draws near. Hearst executives back in January put the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the auction block, giving it 60 days. If no savior steps in to buy it, that paper may go online-only, or shut down completely.

What does it mean for investigative journalism when formerly competitive markets become one-paper towns? For now, it probably means that some stories never see the light of day. But in Seattle and Denver as elsewhere, there are signs that new models will emerge.

This panel will show examples of these techniques and assess how successful they have been in terms of a) getting and analyzing information; b) telling the investigative story; c) getting the public involved; d) raising revenues for news organizations; d) building an audience for watchdog reporting and e) bringing about reforms. These goals are not always complementary and panelists are encouraged to discuss issues and problems encountered in the introduction of innovative information-gathering, story-telling, data presentation and community-building techniques.