Highlights of a Transformative 2018
Thanks to increased funding over the past three years, including support this year from the Ford Foundation, FIRE is pleased to announce major advances in our services and in our establishment of long-term sustainability. It's support from friends like you that makes our growth possible; I hope you'll join me in making a gift to ensure we continue to thrive in 2019.
Our 2018 highlights include:
- The hiring of Ted Bridis—most recently director of the Associated Press’s Pulitzer-winning Washington investigative team—as FIRE’s new investigative editor.
- The launch of another successful round of applications this summer, with a dozen new FIRE stories in the works.
- The ongoing development of FIRE stories with The Boston Globe, New York Times magazine, the BBC, BuzzFeed News, and Reveal. (The Globe story is due out after the holidays).
- The renewal of partnerships with Investigative Reporters and Editors (research) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (legal).
- The arrangement with a new pro bono collaborator, the International Senior Lawyers Project, to advise FIRE reporters on freelance contracts with outlets across all media.
We also are in the final planning stages of an innovative national online community of freelance investigative reporters (if you are a freelancer, we welcome your thoughts at firenewsroom.org/program/FIRE-online).
Furthermore, with $50,000 in new support from the Ford Foundation, we were able to conduct a national needs assessment of journalists of color, while also providing six journalists with FIRE diversity fellowships.
Lastly, thanks to our recent grant from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation ($170,000 over 2 years) we have launched a strategic planning process designed to ensure long-term operational sustainability.
We are working hard. At FIRE we believe that freelance investigative reporters—a long-neglected part of public-interest journalism—deserve the best possible infrastructure, services, and resources. A fair and healthy future increasingly depends on properly supported investigative freelancers. Especially in a time of upheaval in newsrooms, our constituents are integral to public-interest journalism, and thus to democracy.
Please support FIRE any way you can.
Thank you!
Laird Townsend,
FIRE director