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Former WSJ Managing Editor Heads up Unique Journalism Venture

During a time when newspapers are cutting back on budgets for investigative reporting, the man who had the top editorial slot at the Wall Street Journal for 16 years is heading up a new venture that hopes to sell long-term investigative pieces to magazines and newspapers.

Paul E. Steiger, who had been managing editor of the Wall Street Journal until May, has signed on as president and editor in chief of Pro Publica, a nonprofit group that will engage in the “deep dive stuff and the aggressive follow-up” that Steiger says is the most challenged in the budget process, according to The New York Times. The group will then attempt to sell the pieces to the newspaper or magazine where the piece fits best.

The company, created by Herbert M. Sandler and Marion O. Sandler, former chief executives of the Golden West Financial Operation based in California, will have a newsroom in New York City and 24 journalists. Some have been hired from major publications, according to Steiger, while others are talented people with only a few years’ experience.

There has been nothing quite like this attempted in the past. The closest may be the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington. Both groups support in-depth reporting and have had success getting it published, but their budgets are tiny compared to Pro Publica’s and they do not employ the journalists whose work they finance, according to the article.

A challenge to the company will be the fact that, outside of news from wire services, the largest newspapers are generally loathe to publish investigative work from other organizations. Experts, however, say that that resistance is dissolving in the face of financial struggles.

“They’re looking for alternative means of paying for ambitious journalism,” said Stephen B. Shepard, dean of the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and a former editor of BusinessWeek. “Steiger has the credibility and judgment to bring this off, and if they do good work, it will get picked up.”

Steiger acknowledges that working with publications may be tricky, and says that each deal will require flexibility to make it work.