Charles Peters on the Prize for Preventive Journalism

What is preventive journalism, and why is the foundation I head, Understanding Government, offering a prize of $50,000 for the best example of it published in the next year?   We define preventive journalism as reporting that identifies inept leaders, wrong-headed policies and bureaucratic bungling before they lead to disasters like the bad intelligence about WMDs and the travesty that was the response to Katrina.

I now realize that I must have had my first glimmer of the need for preventive journalism as a young West Virginian who would hear of a mine disaster, then read heartbreaking stories of weeping widows and indignant editorials demanding effective safety regulations. But in the years that followed, no reporter went down into the mines to see if they were safer. We only found out they were not after the next disaster when a new round of heartbreaking articles and indignant editorials would appear.

It is to stop such cycles of tragic futility that Understanding Government is giving the Prize for Preventive Journalism — and offering enough money to wake reporters and editors up to the crucial importance of finding out what’s wrong in time to keep bad things from happening.

An ample reward is necessary for two other reasons. One is that in a time when shrinking newsroom budgets are cutting back coverage of government agencies, an incentive is needed to begin to counter the trend.

Another reason for the reward is that too many reporters yawn at the prospect of covering government. But what is going to happen to the rest of us if no one takes a hard critical look at essential agencies like the Centers for Disease Control? We have already seen what the failure to give timely scrutiny to the CIA, the FBI and FEMA has cost us.

The reporting that we seek will look at government with a determination to find out not only what’s right and wrong but to understand why — which means penetrating a tangle of factors that include policy, leadership and the culture of a particular bureaucracy. The ultimate aim is to find solutions — to solve problems before they lead to serious harm. All of this is likely to prove difficult even for able reporters. That is why we want to give recognition to those who rise to meet the challenge.

Investigative reporters too often simply provide a flat one-dimensional account of what went wrong. They usually fail to explore the "why" behind the story. And when they do, as happens in the case of the better explanatory journalism, the reasons they identify are only political or economic. Rarely are cultural factors examined.

We learn, for example, that the FBI still has only six fluent Arabic speakers among its hordes of agents. But we are not told what it is in the bureau’s culture that produces this absurd result. We learn that the CIA ignored a cable warning that two of the 9/11 terrorists had come to the United States, but we are not taken inside the agency to understand why, as George Tenet testified, "no one read that cable."

The CDC cries for a reporter determined to explore its culture to understand why its officials delayed letting the public know about the danger presented by Andrew Speaker until after he had returned to the United States and after he had possibly exposed the Czech airline passengers to his disease. And to learn why Dr. Julie Gerberding initially defended the CDC employee who, aware of Speaker’s illness and travel plans, did not tell the rest of the agency what he knew. What we desperately need are solutions to whatever is wrong at the CDC so that we can make the changes that are necessary to ensure that the response to the next threat of dangerous disease is both swift and decisive.

It is this combination of investigative and explanatory reporting with solutions that makes the reporting sought by the Prize for Preventive Journalism unique.

 

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Understanding Government is a non-profit foundation dedicated to improving government effectiveness by increasing public understanding of how government works.  Founded in 1999, the organization supports journalism that reports on government and tracks government programs that have been especially effective or ineffective on its website, www.understandinggov.org. 

The Board of Directors of Understanding Government is composed of:

Charles Peters, founding editor of The Washington Monthly; Matthew Cooper, Washington editor of Portfolio magazine; James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly; James Gibney, Deputy Managing Editor, The Atlantic Monthly; Phil Keisling, Senior Vice President, Hepieric Inc. and former Oregon Secretary of State; Matthew Miller, Senior Advisor, McKinsey & Co. and Senior Fellow of the New America Foundation; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland; and Steve Waldman, editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.net. 

For further information on the Prize for Preventive Journalism, contact Edward Hodgman, executive director of Understanding Government, at ehodgman@understandinggov.org, by telephone at (202) 986-2700, ext. 254, or c/o The New America Foundation, 1630 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20009.  Nominations for the Preventive Journalism prize should be articles published after July 1, 2007 and should be sent to Understanding Government, P.O. Box 53338, Washington, D.C. 20009-9338.

 

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Prize announcement April 2, 2007

April 2, 2007 — For Immediate Release

 

Understanding Government announces $50,000 Prize for Preventive Journalism

WASHINGTON, D.C. April 2, 2007

Understanding Government today announced the Prize for Preventive Journalism, a $50,000 award to be given for the best article published in a magazine or newspaper about how government deals with a significant public problem.  The new prize is part of the Washington, D.C. foundation’s mission to foster better government performance through better journalism on the work of government.

“Our goal is preventive journalism,” said Understanding Government founder and president Charles Peters.  “We are looking for articles that identify inept leaders, misguided policies, and bureaucratic bungling before they lead to disasters like the bad pre-war intelligence about WMD and the travesty that was the response to Katrina.”  The foundation will begin accepting entries on July 1, 2007 for a one-year period and will award the $50,000 cash prize in September 2008. 

The amount of the prize is larger than for most journalism awards.  Peters explains:  “It’s been hard to get reporters to look at mine safety until after the widows are weeping.  The large award is designed to wake journalists up to the need to do this kind of reporting before it’s too late.”  Published articles submitted for the prize can cover federal, state, or local government, or a combination of these.  In addition to describing the issue and government’s response, entries must include proposals for how government can more effectively address a given problem.

Understanding Government is a non-profit foundation dedicated to improving government effectiveness by increasing public understanding of how government works.  Founded in 1999, the organization supports journalism that reports on government and tracks government programs that have been especially effective or ineffective on its website, www.understandinggov.org. 

The Board of Directors of Understanding Government is composed of:

Charles Peters, founding editor of The Washington Monthly; Matthew Cooper, Washington editor of Portfolio magazine; James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly; James Gibney, Deputy Managing Editor, The Atlantic Monthly; Phil Keisling, Senior Vice President, Hepieric Inc. and former Oregon Secretary of State; Matthew Miller, Senior Advisor, McKinsey & Co. and Senior Fellow of the New America Foundation; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland; and Steve Waldman, editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.net. 

For further information, contact Edward Hodgman, executive director of Understanding Government, at ehodgman@understandinggov.org, by telephone at (202) 986-2700, ext. 254, or c/o The New America Foundation, 1630 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20009.  Nominations for the Preventive Journalism prize should be articles published after July 1, 2007 and should be sent to Understanding Government, P.O. Box 53338, Washington, D.C. 20009-9338.

 

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