Watchdog Institute Changes Name, Watchdog Mission Remains Strong

The Watchdog Institute is launching a name change and a formal partnership today with KPBS, the PBS-NPR affiliate in San Diego. The partnership underscores a new level of collaboration between the organizations, which over the past year have investigated the whooping cough epidemic and inequities in K-12 school funding in California.

The Institute, which opened its doors in San Diego State University’s School of Journalism & Media Studies in 2009, is now known as Investigative Newsource.

Founder and executive director Lorie Hearn said the new name “ is a natural outgrowth of the evolutionary process we’ve gone through as a young startup. Investigative Newsource better defines who we are, and plainly reflects our quest to be a source of credible, investigative, nonpartisan journalism.”

Hearn said the partnership with KPBS strengthens the commitment of both organizations to public service journalism in the region, particularly as KPBS debuts a nightly, half-hour television news show this week.  “By sharing our expertise and resources, we can provide more and deeper projects of importance to the community,” she said.

The Newsource reporting staff will move into KPBS’ newly renovated newsroom, also located on the SDSU campus, in October.  The closer working relationship will be particularly evident in investigative projects that involve data analysis, and in-depth content about local congressional delegates being covered by the Newsource’s Washington, D.C. bureau.

The projects will be offered for KPBS’ multi-platform distribution – television, radio and online and to Newsource’s  local and regional print collaborators, including the San Diego Union-Tribune, the North County Times, the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the Orange County Register, as well as to KGTV-Channel 10.

Newsource, under the Watchdog Institute name, was incorporated in California in August 2009.  The organization is recognized by the IRS as a tax-deductible nonprofit. For information about Newsource and its projects, visit: www.inewsource.org.