Part Three: ICIJ Case Study

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was founded by Chuck Lewis in 1997 as part of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Public Integrity (CPI). Observing the rapid globalization of the 1990s, ICIJ’s founders believed that a journalism organization with an international mindset could be well suited to report stories that sprawled beyond any single country. As a time of rapid globalization places “extraordinary pressures on human societies,”⁶⁰ according to ICIJ, the organization aims to be a globalized reporting network which counterbalances these pressures.

In October 2016, the CPI announced that ICIJ would spin off to become a free-standing organization. In a press release, the CPI stated: “The CPI’s Board of Directors has decided that enabling ICIJ to chart its own course will help both journalistic teams build on the massive impact they have had as one organization, and allow each to pursue new opportunities and options for funding and pursuing their crucial work.”⁶¹ According to ICIJ director Gerard Ryle, the fundamental differences in ICIJ’s networked, collaborative structure and processes were at odds with the more traditional Center for Public Integrity, which focused on U.S. national, watchdog, and government accountability reporting. Furthermore, international philanthropic entities are governed by the laws, rules, and regulations of the state in which they are based. And, there can be limits to donations on international organizations. An independent ICIJ will then potentially have access to a different and/or increased pool of funders.⁶²

In this chapter, we examine how ICIJ’s impact imperative affects the organization’s approach to story choice, production, and distribution. We also ask what challenges are associated with this model and share what other journalistic organizations can learn from the experience of ICIJ. We use ICIJ “Evicted and Abandoned” investigation into the World Bank as a prism for separating the structures, processes, calculations, and strategies that together form ICIJ’s high-impact model.