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| The statue of William Penn sits atop Philadelphia City Hall. |
Or, maybe not.
Like ProPublica (investigative) and The Texas Tribune (state government and politics), the effort in Philadelphia is coming in response to a perceived decline in the formerly robust reporting offered by mainstream media.
As newspapers saw ad revenue decline and circulation fall, they cut in depth and breadth, eliminating things like investigative teams and statehouse bureaus as they tried to cover the basics with reduced staffs.
In response, foundations and philanthropies have stepped in to help salvage some of the lost coverage. In Philadelphia -- sixth largest city in the country -- that role is being played by the William Penn Foundation, which announced last week it would underwrite formation of what it's calling an independent journalism collaborative.
"[W]e believe in the role that high-quality journalism plays in making our region a better place to live," says a letter from foundation president Feather Houstoun. "We see robust public affairs coverage as critical to having an engaged, informed public and accountable public institutions, and like many of you, we are concerned about our region's ongoing capacity for that type of journalism."
That concern was borne out in the report the foundation commissioned from the J-Lab, an incubator for new-media experiments housed at American University in Washington, D.C. It was written by Jan Schaffer, executive director at the J-Lab and a former business editor and Pulitzer Prize winner at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The report found that by many measures -- staffing, "news hole," air time, story count, key words -- "The available news about Philadelphia public affairs issues has dramatically diminished over the last three years."
And not only are the city's civic leaders concerned about the state of
