Reasons your newsroom isn’t doing investigative journalism:

• There’s no time

• There’s no money

• There’s no time or money for the tech

Reason why that might change:

• The Data-Driven Reporting Project

Last week, the Google News Initiative and Northwestern University’s Medill announced a partnership to help fund local, data-driven investigative work with $2 million in support. 

Here’s what you need to know:

• Applications are due by April 5. Here’s how to apply.

• It’s for local newsrooms and freelancers “working on document-based investigative projects that serve local and/or underrepresented communities in the US and Canada.”

• That work can be published on any medium. 

“The DDRP can help investigative reporting projects that stall or cannot start because of a lack of time or technical resources,” Jeremy Gilbert, Knight professor of digital media strategy, told me in an email. “The funding is flexible. Some projects might need resources to acquire the data/documents. Others might need help with analyzing the information they have. And some projects might require time to shape the stories.”

Questions? Send them to [email protected]. 

The deadline to apply for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism is April 6! Get a $10k grant to report on a mental health issue of your choice, intensive training on mental health reporting and join a global network of top journalists. Apply now.

Apply for a Fellowship (cartercenter.org)

Ukraine, in-person events and more:

International Journalists’ Network has a robust list of support for journalists in and covering Ukraine and how to support them and follow their work. 

Plus: See how fact-checkers around the world are debunking misinformation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Journalist Jakub Parusinski created a GoFundMe to support Ukrainian media and another to support the Kyiv Independent.

There’s also important reporting coming from local journalists in the U.S. who are telling the stories of Ukrainian Americans in their communities, including the work of WBEZ’s Anna Savchenko. Anna is a Poynter-Koch fellow, and she’s covering this story from Chicago and sharing on Twitter the updates she gets from her dad in Ukraine. 💙💛

Learn (maybe in person):

• On March 4, you can learn about the role geography plays in local news representation from Bay Area News Collective.

• News Product Alliance’s annual conference takes place virtually on March 10 and 11. You can learn more here.

• Join me and some smart journalists in a free, three-part virtual workshop on covering the American Rescue Plan. This training, sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, takes place March 29, April 12 and April 26. 

• IRE’s annual conference, which is hybrid, takes place June 23-26 in Denver.

• AAJA’s annual conference takes place July 27-30 in Los Angeles.

• NABJ-NAHJ’s annual conference takes place August 3-7 in Las Vegas. 

• ONA’s annual conference, which will be hybrid this year, takes place Sept. 21-24 in Los Angeles.

• Check out Trusting News’ step-by-step guide on how to label and describe opinion content. 

• From Better News, learn how The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune flipped its workflow to better meet the needs of its audience.

• Also from Better News, learn how the Knoxville News-Sentinel shifted coverage to better serve Black communities. 

• Want to start your own newsroom? Check out the second edition of Google News Initiative and LION Publishers’ Startups Playbook.

• Also from LION, sign up for a six-week, self-guided course in the News Founder Challenge.

• You have until March 16 to sign up for the Center on Global Energy Policy’s Energy Journalism Initiative, a free program open to journalists covering energy and the environment that takes place June 13-17. 

• It’s important, when we talk about starting new things, to remember that they don’t always last forever. Read Local News Initiative on how a startup ended.

• Here’s a database of doctors and long COVID patients willing to talk with journalists.  

• SciLine pulled together quotes from contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

• Reminder from my colleague Doris Truong that word choices and framing matter.

• And sign up for Solutions Journalism Network’s cohort of newsrooms covering labor issues. Newsrooms that are selected will get training and $50,000. The deadline is today!

Read:

• What is happening at the Chicago Reader? My colleague Angela Fu wrote about how a dispute over a vaccine column spiraled into a conflict that threatens the future of the Chicago Reader.

• Read Poynter’s Amaris Castillo wrote about Black women in broadcast journalism who’ve fought for #NaturalHairOnAir.

• Amaris also wrote about my Tampa Bay Times colleague Gabrielle Calise, who covers an audience-favorite beat every newsroom should have — nostalgia. 

• Good news: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has renewed its support for Public Media Journalists Association’s Editor Corps, “which provides short-term editing assistance to public media newsrooms facing significant burdens.” 

• Congrats to Rene Sanchez, who’s the new editor of The Times-Picayune, The Advocate and nola.com, following the retirement of editor Peter Kovacs (congrats Peter!) And congrats to The Star Tribune’s new editor after Sanchez’ move, Suki Dardarian. 

• Finally, in my freelance obits gig at the Tampa Bay Times (which Poynter owns), I used the excuse of a Valentine’s publication day to share the stories of a few people who remember their loved ones each year through those “In Loving Memory” ads.

That’s it for me. If you’ve had a case of the Februaries (boy I have) I hope they’re fading.