Incubating new economic models for journalism.

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Journalism in Russia: Still hampered, but improving

The difficulty of producing investigative journalism in Russia, where journalists are often threatened, is compounded by the economic hardships many publications face, according to Russian journalists who spoke last week at a conference in Washington, D.C. 

Reporting on Washington for those outside the Beltway

The decline of local news is highly visible in the nation's capital, where the once-robust tradition of regional reporting — covering the federal government as it pertains to specific regions, states and communities — is now a shadow of its former self. “When I started, regional reporting was very important,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution. “I've watched it, over time, fade away.”

 

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Reporting the aftermath of a crisis: journalism and accountability in Bangladesh

Journalists from Bangladesh, meeting last week in Washington, implored local and international media to take a broader look at the social issues surrounding the garment factory collapse, and focus on understanding the social, political and economic factors that led to the accident.  

Supreme Court says states can limit FOIA laws to citizens

The Supreme Court ruled this week that states are not required to extend their Freedom of Information act coverage to people who are not citizens of the state. The unanimous opinion also held, once again, that access to government information is not a fundamental right. Effectively, the court was saying — as it has many times in the past — that access to government information is a privilege that can be regulated largely as governments see fit. 

'Years' project visits solar farm

This week "Years of Living Dangerously" Producer Mishi Ebrahim and Associate Producer Jolie Lee traveled to North Carolina to meet with Joel Olsen, a local solar developer. Olsen, a North Carolina native, created O2Energies in 2009 to tap into the emerging solar industry in the state. He built one of his first solar projects in the small town of Mount Airy, the birthplace of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry for "The Andy Griffith Show," a CBS sitcom that ran from 1960-1968. Olsen said the location of the Mayberry Farm was symbolic, to show that "America's hometown" was looking forward in its energy use.

'Big Sky, Big Money' wins national journalism award

"Big Sky, Big Money," the PBS FRONTLINE production that followed a trail of "dark money" in Montana politics last year, has won an Investigative Reporters and Editors award.

Twitterocracy changes politics, journalism

Political journalists and campaign media strategists on Wednesday pointed to moments in the 2012 presidential election as examples of how the use of social media has changed politics — and journalism.

 

Workshop Partners

We publish online and in print, often teaming up with other news organizations. We post quarterly updates to our BankTracker project, in which you can view the financial health of every bank and credit union in the country, with msnbc.com, now nbcnews.com, and we co-publish stories in our What Went Wrong project with The Philadelphia Inquirer and New America Media. Learn more on our partners page.

'Betrayal' excerpts, Q&A

Donald Barlett and James Steele, and our Workshop project team, have been reporting and writing about how four decades of public policy shaped America's ongoing economic crisis. You can read excerpts from the authors' new book, "The Betrayal of the American Dream," which is due to be released in paperback in September.