ABSTRACT
The Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica, and Mother Jones are the largest nonprofit investigative news organizations in the United States. They are prolific producers of investigative journalism and appear to have achieved financial stability. This makes them exceptions among US nonprofit news centers that are smaller and less financially secure. The circumstances in which the centers were created differed and they were launched in diverse media environments: two in the aftermath of Watergate in the 1970s, another in the late 1980s as media corporations sought to maintain big profit margins and cut costs, and the third in 2008 during the global financial crisis. This chapter analyzes their creation, progress, the reasons for their success, their finances, and the challenges they faced.
