ICIJ founder Charles “Chuck” Lewis is amongst a choose group of muckrakers who’ve been named as the latest alumni members of the Worldwide Consortium of Investigative Journalists, honoring their years of contributions to world investigative reporting.
The alumni membership class was created to acknowledge devoted journalists who’ve retired from lively investigative work, however who nonetheless keep an in depth relationship with ICIJ’s community.
“Even after a reporter retires, it’s uncommon that they will ever totally step away from journalism — for these ICIJ alumni members, it’s typically baked into their DNA,” stated ICIJ member Francisca Skoknic, who at the moment chairs ICIJ’s Community Committee. “It’s necessary that we proceed to seek out methods to attract on their experience, whereas additionally acknowledging the affect they’ve had on our career.”
The reporters being honored as alumni at the moment are:
- Chuck Lewis (United States), a former ABC Information and CBS Information 60 Minutes producer, best-selling writer or co-author of six books, and the founding father of two Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit information organizations.
- Invoice Birnbauer (Australia), an investigative reporter and senior editor at The Age and The Sunday Age newspapers for greater than three a long time, who has authored a number of books and produced tv documentaries.
- Julio Godoy (Guatemala), considered one of Guatemala’s prime investigative reporters who was compelled to flee the nation in 1990 after going through down violent makes an attempt to silence him, together with being kidnapped and having his newspaper workplace bombed.
- Pete Carey (United States), a multi award-winning former investigative and enterprise reporter for the The (San Jose) Mercury Information.
- Charles Onyango Obbo (Uganda), a veteran reporter who has written for quite a lot of publications in Uganda and the area and whose work has been honored with quite a few awards.
For Chuck Lewis, that is considered one of a variety of current honors marking his affect on journalism. In June, he acquired the Investigative Reporters and Editor’s Ring of Honor and the World Investigative Journalism Community’s Award for Extraordinary Service to Worldwide Investigative Journalism, capping a decades-long profession full of each groundbreaking reporting and dozens of awards and accolades.
Lewis left CBS Information’ 60 Minutes program to discovered the Middle for Public Integrity in 1989, envisioning a nonprofit nirvana for investigative journalists who would be capable to dive deep into any concern free from the pressures of a industrial newsroom. Eight years later, he based ICIJ to take this investigative reporting throughout borders.
Reporters in each newsrooms went on to win Pulitzer Prizes, the Middle for Public Integrity in 2014 for an investigation on black lung in coal employees, and ICIJ in 2017 for its work on the Panama Papers. ICIJ grew to become an impartial group that very same yr, and continues to pioneer world collaborative journalism via its membership and partnership community.
“Because the founding father of the ICIJ, he has been one of many pioneers within the subject of the nonprofit information group. His private contribution decisively formed the journalism panorama within the U.S. and all over the world,” ICIJ’s Community Committee stated in its alumni invitation to Lewis. The ICIJ Community Committee has created a particular class of membership — honorary alumnus — to acknowledge Chuck’s distinctive and important a part of ICIJ’s story.
Lewis went on to turn into a professor of journalism at American College in Washington, D.C., and continued to encourage generations of journalists, urging them to “examine the bastards, whoever they’re.”
Between them, the 5 new alumni members have about two centuries’ price of journalism expertise, and all participated in a few of ICIJ’s earliest investigative tasks.
Australian reporter Invoice Birnbauer remembers receiving his invitation to affix ICIJ in 1998, and at first questioning if it was a rip-off — the thought of journalists working collectively was a novel idea.
“After researching the journalists who signed the invitation — Charles Lewis and Maud Beelman — I believed that maybe it was for actual. It’d simply work,” Birnbauer stated in an e mail to ICIJ. “The extra I considered it, the extra I might see the way it might advance accountability into a brand new age. The remainder, as they are saying, is historical past.”
Birnbauer now runs Democracy’s Watchdogs, an Australian-based nonprofit that highlights investigative journalism and supplies assets to aspiring reporters. However he nonetheless appears to be like ahead to staying in contact with the ICIJ community as an alumni.
“Being a part of the ICIJ has been a spotlight of my profession professionally and in addition has launched me to many individuals who grew to become lifelong associates,” he stated.
“We’re fortunate to have labored with all these reporters for therefore lengthy, and look ahead to persevering with our relationship with them as alumni,” stated ICIJ Govt Director Gerard Ryle. “Congratulations to all of you, and thanks in your unbelievable contributions to our craft.”
One other ICIJ member, former New York Occasions reporter David Burnham, had additionally been invited to turn into a community alumni, nonetheless sadly died in October. Burnham, who rose to prominence for exposés on New York Metropolis’s police division, was remembered by colleagues as a tenacious journalist with a fierce dedication to the information.
