INK Centre for Investigative Journalism is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. The Centre supports and imparts basic investigative reporting skills to young reporters in newsrooms that have significant budget constraints and are struggling to maintain investigative journalism desks. Their work focuses exclusively on truly important stories.

Investigative journalism is at risk. Noticeably, the sheer quality of serious news stories has quite frankly diminished and has come to be regarded by some in newsrooms as time-consuming and expensive, high risk, high maintenance, and highly litigious impracticalities. New models are, therefore, necessary to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of democracy.

Why Now?

It is true that the number and variety of publishing platforms are exploding in the Internet age. But very few of these entities are engaged in original reporting. In short, they face a situation in which sources of opinion are proliferating, but sources of facts on which those opinions are based are shrinking. The former phenomenon is almost certainly, on balance, a societal good; the latter is surely a problem.

What They Do

INK has created an independent newsroom, located in Gaborone and led by some of the nation’s most distinguished editors, and staffed at levels unprecedented for a non-profit organisation.

The Centre strives to be fair. They give people and institutions that their reporting casts in an unfavorable light an opportunity to respond and make sincere and serious efforts to provide that opportunity before they publish. They listen to the response and adjust their reporting when appropriate. They aggressively edit every story they plan to publish, to assure its accuracy and fairness. If errors of fact or interpretation occur, they correct them quickly and clearly. They aim for a working culture that embraces all of these principles and insist that they infuse all that they do.

How They Do It

They have six publishing partners, which include the Sunday Standard, Botswana Gazette, and Business Weekly & Review. They are in negotiations with other publications to offer their services to a diverse audience including radio. They believe in a collaborative effort to reach a greater audience. To achieve this, they also publish their stories in The Namibian and the Mail & Guardian through the M&G Centre for Investigative Journalism (Amabhungane). They have a newsroom of 5 working journalists and interns, all of them dedicated to investigative reporting on stories with significant potential for major impact.