The Intercept is part of a proud tradition of muckraking journalism going back a century or more.
But today, the newspapers that employed most of those journalists are dying or dead.
In fact between 2008 to 2019, newspapers eliminated more than half of all newsroom jobs in the United States — 36,000 jobs in all. That’s almost 10 journalists laid off every single day, for an entire decade. And when newsroom jobs are cut, investigative reporters are usually the first to go.
The Intercept was founded to fill the gap created by the tragic decline of investigative journalism at traditional for-profit news outlets. But as more and more reporters are laid off at other news outlets, the need for The Intercept’s indefatigable coverage only grows.
Think about the biggest reporting scoops of the 20th century, like the My Lai massacre, first reported in stories published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Or the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal that was broken by the Boston Globe and The Phoenix, a story told in the award-winning blockbuster movie “Spotlight.”
And then there are the countless corruption scandals that didn’t get made into movies broken by reporters whose jobs no longer exist.
Investigative journalism is time-consuming and expensive, and high-impact investigations often take months or years to produce. So over the last 20 years, as subscription and advertising revenue has steadily declined, investigative reporters have been the first to go.
That’s why today investigative journalists have become one of the most endangered species on the planet.
The reality is that the old business model of newspapers is never coming back. Classified advertising has moved to the internet, and people simply are no longer subscribing to daily newspapers in the way they once did.
The Intercept was founded with a different model: We’re nonprofit and rely on donations rather than advertising revenue and subscription fees. We were fortunate to launch with the support of a large initial grant, but to be sustainable over the long haul, we need regular donors like you as well.
