About 100Reporters

 

100Reporters is a news organization dedicated to forging new frontiers in responsible journalism. It joins scores of award-winning reporters with whistle-blowers and citizen journalists across the globe to report on corruption in all its forms. The organization, spearheaded by veteran correspondents of top-tier news outlets, aims to raise the caliber, impact and visibility of citizen-driven investigative journalism, as a means of promoting transparency and good government.

Mission

100Reporters represents a new take on a familiar mission: using the power of the pen to hold government and business accountable. Every year, corrupt leaders and their cronies siphon more than $900 billion from the national economies of developing nations.

Thanks to advances in technology and heightened transparency among international institutions, we are in an unprecedented position to know and report more than ever before on both the flow of illicit cash, and on the spending habits of government officials and their friends.

Our mission is to cover corruption of all sorts, from the pervasive bribery that raises the cost of ordinary government services, to extortion, to the sweetheart contracts that perpetuate poverty and strangle competition.

Impact

As an investigative news organization, 100Reporters measures success by the change we help bring about. Our website, 100R.org, exists to put information about corruption and civic accountability directly into your hands. It publishes stories both on the 100Reporters website and through news outlets that have included The New York Times, the Washington Post, Denver Post, Indian Country Today, PRI’s The World, and many others.

Since its founding twelve years ago, 100Reporters’ award-winning reports have reached millions of readers and viewers through such collaborations, and have led to additional media investigations, government actions, and corporate concessions.

History

100Reporters was co-founded by Diana Jean Schemo and Philip Shenon, former correspondents for The New York Times. It was made possible through early support from the Ford Foundation.

Schemo is an author and award-winning veteran national and foreign correspondent, with more than 25 years at The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun. In 2015, she founded Double Exposure, the nation’s first and only investigative film festival, which remains a project of 100Reporters. Built with co-creator Sky Sitney, Double Exposure incorporates a four-day film festival with a concurrent three-day symposium bringing together filmmakers and journalists.

Shenon is an investigative reporter who spent most of his career at The New York Times. He is the bestselling author of “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation” and “A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination.”

100Reporters’ stories focus on what citizens the world over identify as the top problem in these tough economic times: corruption and public accountability.

Events

100Reporters is presents Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium, in Washington, DC each October. Now in its tenth season, Double Exposure premieres the finest new films driven by the investigative instinct. Its aim is to build public recognition of investigative reporting as essential to a vibrant democracy, and as vital to the cultural bloodstream. Its concurrent symposium brings together investigative journalists and filmmakers to explore common ground, learn from each other, and connect with leading industry insiders who can advance investigative projects.

Past speakers have included leading directors, journalists and whistleblowers, including Alex Gibney, Barbara Koppel, Ezra Edelman, David Simon, Tom McCarthy, Brian Knappenberger, Feras Fayyad, Lyric Cabral, Kirsten Johnson, James Solomon, James Risen, Betty Medsger, Elisabeth Bumiller, Martin Baron, Eric Lipton, Caitlin Dickerson, Ray Suarez, Lowell Bergman and hundreds more.

Speaking at the inaugural Opening Night, which screened the Washington premiere of the hit film Spotlight, director Tom McCarthy said, “Every city in America should have an investigative film festival.”

Invest

Early support from the Ford Foundation made 100Reporters possible, but anyone can invest in honesty.

You can support the work of investigative journalists in parts of the  around the overlooked by commercial media outlets, with either ongoing or one-time donations. Become a matching donor to encourage others to support newsmen and women around the world.

Can you support the cost of a full investigation? With a donation of $10,000 you can help publish a major project that holds government and business accountable to those they serve. In the past, these have included:

  • reporting on a World Bank fund that has spent over $3.5 billion on education in the world’s poorest nations, but produced little in the way of literacy or improved skills in math;
  • a tough look at sexual exploitation and assault by UN forces in Haiti, and the children they left behind;
  • a 50-state investigation into deaths of mentally disabled adults killed by the use of restraints. It found that of 24 deaths that occurred in the last 15 years, nine were ruled homicides. Criminal charges were pressed in only one case;
  • an investigation of family courts that place vulnerable children in divorce cases in the custody of parents despite known records of abuse.

A donation of $5,000 makes possible the work of a single journalist in the field. Your support, of any amount, is important, both in making our work possible and in showing that you appreciate reporting that digs hard to get at the truth.

You can make a one-time donation through PayPal, or sustaining donations that will keep accountability journalism a reality.