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There are a few programs in the U.S. that do that. I got to be part of one back in 2007, News 21, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. To your point, just ha

There are a few programs in the U.S. that do that. I got to be part of one back in 2007, News 21, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. To your point, just having someone from the outside skeptically examining official claims led to people losing their jobs: http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/08/28/holy_land_experience_chief_resigns http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/08/28/holy_land_experie... That's the follow-on piece to a longer story that's apparently only readable in raw HTML now: http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/08/23/the_holy_land_experience_who http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/08/23/the_holy_land_exp... It didn't take much for the leadership change to happen there. I read a few stories about the place getting acquired by a T.V. network with a bad reputation. I interviewed as many people as I could by phone over a few weeks. Then I flew there and spent 3 days wandering the park interviewing as many people as I could. Then I wrote out the story they had told me and my editors worked it over a bit to help it hang together better. When it was published, it didn't seem like I'd actually found anything terribly interesting. However the simple fact of stitching everyone's testimonies together was enough to show that the company's leaders weren't all telling the story people thought they were, and that led to the ouster. The News21 program recruited about 100 graduate journalism students, gave us each $7500, and had us report on very narrow topics for 3 months. My team was assigned to "religion and public life" and while this was a private theme park, it was a place where religious themes were displayed very openly. Others in our group went to Mount Rushmore for 4th of July, which is apparently a very religious affair, the Mormon pagaents in upstate NYC, and so on.

ShabbyDoo 15y ago
Fascinating that you've actually done this! What is sad to me is how little effort was required to bring about this level of transparency. I'm not suggesting that you did not work hard on this series, but it's not like 10 investigators spent a year interviewing everyone possibly connected. Perhaps the bright side is that you've demonstrated the potential upside of non-profit transparency work by showing how low-hanging the fruit might be.
- chernevik 15y ago
  Even among well-respected government institutions, requiring real answers to real questions is regarded as a little bit rude. The sophisticated ones will suffer it, knowing such questioners don't really matter much. But the people asking the questions are never brought "inside" to where the real decisions get made. If there were more people asking real questions, and more higher placed and public people, it would get a lot harder to sideline such gadflies. The real shame is that our institutions and culture could rise to a higher standard if required to. Today's concessions to political "necessity" forestall tomorrow's advance to systems that actually work.

ShabbyDoo 15y ago

Fascinating that you've actually done this! What is sad to me is how little effort was required to bring about this level of transparency. I'm not suggesting that you did not work hard on this series, but it's not like 10 investigators spent a year interviewing everyone possibly connected. Perhaps the bright side is that you've demonstrated the potential upside of non-profit transparency work by showing how low-hanging the fruit might be.

chernevik 15y ago
Even among well-respected government institutions, requiring real answers to real questions is regarded as a little bit rude. The sophisticated ones will suffer it, knowing such questioners don't really matter much. But the people asking the questions are never brought "inside" to where the real decisions get made. If there were more people asking real questions, and more higher placed and public people, it would get a lot harder to sideline such gadflies. The real shame is that our institutions and culture could rise to a higher standard if required to. Today's concessions to political "necessity" forestall tomorrow's advance to systems that actually work.