NGOs as credible news sources: This one says absolutely

I've been interviewing some interesting people lately on the topic of foundation-funded journalism (or philanthropy-funded journalism). The occasion is the one-year anniversary of a meeting in New York sponsored in part by the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.

As we know very well, A LOT has happened since then, so I'm going to be writing a report soon on what participants make of the non-profit journalism world these days.

As part of the project, I'm going to blog about some of my interviews as I go. Last week I blogged about a proposal by Alex Jones of the Shorenstein Center that would establish a $2 billion endowment for PBS' "NewsHour." (One hour of very high-quality journalism available to everyone with a television.)

Today I blogged about a conversation I had with Carroll Bogert of Human Rights Watch on the idea of NGOs as new sources of journalism. Carroll believes that organizations like Human Rights Watch will become more credible sources of news than traditional news organizations are today. Interestingly, a bigger question for her is pushback from researchers at Human Rights Watch who are nervous about having part of their shop turned into a news organization.

Next week I'm planning to blog about another nonprofit niche -- national investigative reporting organizations.