The fund is essentially for investigative journalism and building the capacity for media platforms to hold governments accountable across board. So the MarArthur Foundation has generously shared three-year grants to Nigeria’s three leading investigative journalism platforms. The good news is that they are all online platforms – The Cable, Premium Times and of course Sahara Reporters.
Interestingly, all the platforms had to incorporate not-for-profit arms to secure the funds – The Cable now has a foundation, SaharaReporters now has one registered in Nigeria; Premium Times thankfully already had a non-for-profit (The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism) securing funding over the years from the Open Society Foundation and Omidyar.
The projects are already up. The Cable has launched an investigative vertical called The Radar, and SaharaReporters already launched its Civic Media Lab.
Considering there is no discernible business model for investigative journalism in Nigeria, this really was the only-case scenario for these very useful outlets. And it’s perhaps a signal to other media platforms that advertising isn’t the only possible model and click bait isn’t the do-or-die it can appear to be.
The grantees all got between $250,000 and $500,000 each, and apart from these three favs of ours, there was also the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Bayero University Kano, the Daily Trust Foundation, amongst others.
We like.
We like very much.
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