About IRW
The Investigative Reporting Workshop is an innovative, editorially independent, nonprofit newsroom based at American University in Washington, D.C.
Undergraduate, graduate and early-career journalists work under the guidance of full-time professional editors and in partnership with professional newsrooms to produce investigative and enterprise projects. To date, IRW has partnered on hundreds of investigations and trained more than 240 students.
IRW’s partnership with The Washington Post over many years included contributions to coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. IRW students have also partnered with the Post on investigations into corruption in professional body building, no-knock warrants (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), how the NFL has blocked the rise of Black coaches, and doctors who spread deadly COVID misinformation.
Other reporting partnerships have included more than 15 co-productions with PBS FRONTLINE, and collaborations with NBC News, WAMU-FM, Reveal News, the New Yorker, ABC World News Tonight, Politico, the Philadelphia Inquirer, McClatchy newspapers, and Mother Jones magazine.
Investigative journalist Charles Lewis and former American University journalism division director Wendell Cochran co-founded IRW in 2008, envisioning an organization modeled on the Children’s Television Workshop, which produced “Sesame Street,” and which evolved into an incubator of educational television. IRW supported several nonprofit newsrooms’ growth over the years, and Lewis was one of the founders of the Institute for Nonprofit News.
An archive of IRW work prior to 2023 is available at: https://archive.investigativereportingworkshop.org/