Center for Public Integrity

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The Center for Public Integrity
Founder	Charles Lewis
Type	501(c)(3)
Founded	March 1989
Headquarters	Washington DC
Key people	Bill Buzenberg, Executive Director Geneva Overholser, Chairperson
Focus	Investigative Journalism
Method	Foundation and Member Supported
Slogan	Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest
Website	publicintegrity.org

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to producing investigative reporting on public officials, government policy and the interests that compete for influence^[1].

[edit] Description

Located in Washington, DC, USA, the Center for Public Integrity produces reports aimed to provide transparent and insightful reporting. Topics include the financing of political campaigns, the stewardship of public institutions by governing officials, the influence private interests wield in federal and state government, and the ultimate results of public policy.

The Center releases its reports via its Web site, press releases and traditional book publishing. The information it collects and analyzes often reaches the public secondhand through coverage in conventional news mediums like television and newsprint. The Center's highest-profile release, The Buying of the President, appeared on The New York Times bestseller list for three months^[2] after its January 2004 publication. The Center also collects and organizes the public records it gathers into online databases so that other reporters and the public have access to the information. In 2006, Slate media critic Jack Shafer described the Center as having "broken as many stories as almost any big-city daily in the last couple of decades"^[3].

Because it is funded by a network of private donors and philanthropic organizations rather than advertisers, the Center operates on a business model different from most traditional news organizations.

[edit] Organizational History

[edit] The Founding (1989-1990)

The Center was founded in March 1989 by Charles Lewis after an 11-year career as a television reporter that included a stint as correspondent Mike Wallace's producer for the CBS News program 60 Minutes^[4]. Frustrated by his sense that the current system failed to adequately investigate corruption in Washington, Lewis quit his job at CBS and founded the Center. At the time, he wrote:

In recent years, a disturbing paradox has increasingly gnawed at me: America's best and brightest reporters, working for the most respected national news organizations, too often do not investigate the country's most important stories. ... While about 4,000 accredited reporters work today in Washington, not much muckraking is actually going on. There needs to be a group of respected journalists in Washington who on a regular basis are doing insightful investigative studies of the systematic problems hampering government and the political process.^[5]

After starting out with headquarters in his home in Northern Virginia, Lewis began by securing funding and garnering support from a variety of a prominent public figures -- early advisers included Arthur Schlesinger Jr., James MacGregor Burns, James David Barber, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Father Theodore Hesburgh, Bill Kovach and Hodding Carter III.^[2].

[edit] Origin of the Name

In an essay marking the 10th anniversary of the Center's founding, Lewis wrote:

Initially the idea of having "investigative reporting" in the name appealed to me. But the landscape was crowded with groups having those words in their names: the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) in Missouri, the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington. It was not just that figuring out a way to include investigative and reporting in a memorable name without repeating all the other memorable names was going to be a problem. The whole reputation of investigative reporters was not exactly at its highest point at the time. Was this really how I wanted this group to be identified?

So I asked a friend who was not a journalist, "What should this be called?" We tried to come up with the central theme to our discussions and we realized that the theme was integrity. And then we refined that theme to public integrity. I went to my new Board members and suggested the name. We knew that it sounded a little pompous. A little pretentious. A little strange. But it ended up being a very useful name because when anything arose remotely involving ethics, or impropriety anywhere, any time, in any field of endeavor, we would get the call.^[4]

[edit] The Lewis Era (1990-2004)

In May of 1990, Lewis used the money he had raised and his house as collateral to open an 1,800-square-foot (170 m²) office in Washington at 1910 K Street, N.W.^[4]. In its first year, the Center's budget was $200,000^[2]. By the 1992 elections, Lewis had added three full-time staffers. The Center continued to grow over the years, relocating to 1634 I Street, N.W. in 1994, and by 2006 it employed more than three dozen employees. Its offices are now located at 910 17th Street, N.W.

In 1996 the Center launched its first Web site, but did not begin to publish reports online until 1999^[2].

Lewis served as director until January 2005. At the time of his departure, the Center claimed to have published 14 books and more than 250 investigative reports^[6] and have a working staff of 40 full-time workers based in Washington partnering with a network of writers and editors in more than 25 countries^[2].

Lewis has continued a draw a salary. According to filings with the IRS, he received $99,000 from the Center in 2005^[7] and $86,000 in 2006^[8]. This is a reduction from his previous salary, which was reported at $180,000 at the time of stepped down as executive director^[9].

[edit] The Baskin-Rawls Era (2005-2007)

In December of 2004, the Center's board of directors choose a successor, television journalist Roberta Baskin. Baskin came to the Center after directing consumer investigations for ABC News's 20/20 and serving as Washington correspondent for PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers^[10].

After the handover from the founder and long-time director Lewis, many of the Center's senior staff also left the organization^[2].

In September of 2005, the Center announced that it had discovered a pattern of plagiarism in the work of staff writer Robert Moore for the Center's 2002 book Capitol Offenders. The Center responded by hiring a copy editor to review all of Moore's work, issuing a revised version of Capitol Offenders, sending letters of apology to all of the reporters whose work was plagiarized and returning an award the book received from Investigative Reporters and Editors^[11]. Moore went on to work for a political consulting firm that specializes in opposition research^[12]^[13]. In March 2007, Moore told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Center's official version "is not accurate in telling the full story of why I left the center," but did not elaborate^[13].

In early 2006, The National Journal reported that Center staffer Bob Williams alleged he was fired for raising concerns about a no-bid consulting contract then-Managing Director Wendell Rawls received from the Tennessee Valley Authority, "where an old friend served as chairman^[14] ." Baskin and Rawls declined to comment on Williams' accusations about his departure, but both disputed his contention that Rawls' contract was an example of cronyism and later contested the story's account of a "heated" confrontation at a staff meeting^[15].

Baskin held the position until May 24, 2006^[16], when Rawls stepped in to serve as acting director. Writing in 2007, Lewis would describe the Center's output during Baskin's tenure as "generally unremarkable" and report that fundraising for 2005 and 2006 amounted to only half the total Lewis raised during 2004, his final year^[2].

[edit] The Buzenberg Era (2007-Present)

In December 2006, Rawls was succeeded by William E. Buzenberg, a vice president at American Public Media / Minnesota Public Radio^[17]. According to a report by Lewis, "the number of full-time staff was reduced by one-third" in early 2007^[2].

[edit] Notable Work

America's Frontline Trade Officials (1990)
- The Center's first report, America's Frontline Trade Officials reported that nearly one half of White House trade officials over a 15-year period became lobbyists for countries or overseas corporations after they left public service. According to Lewis, it "prompted a Justice Department ruling, a General Accounting Office report, a Congressional hearing, was cited by four presidential candidates in 1992 and was partly responsible for an executive order in January 1993 by President Clinton, placing a lifetime ban on foreign lobbying by White House trade officials^[2]."
Fat Cat Hotel (1996)
- "This Public i report, written by Margaret Ebrahim, won the 1996 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Newsletter Journalism. The report profiles 75 fund-raisers and donors who stayed overnight in the Clinton White House^[18]."
The Buying of the President, 1996, 2000, 2004
Windfalls of War
LobbyWatch
Patriot Act II
Power Trips
Silent Partners

[edit] Honors

The Center's work has been honored by journalism awards from PEN USA, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association of Capital Reporters and Editors, the National Press Foundation, the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and others^[19]. A full listing may be found here.

[edit] Spinoffs

Created in 1997, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists network includes 92 leading investigative reporters and editors in 48 countries. The group has collaborated on numerous online and printed reports on corporate crime, arms trafficking, terrorism, U.S. military policy and human rights issues. Global Integrity, another international project, was launched in 2001 to systematically track and report on openness, accountability and the rule of law in various countries.

[edit] Funding

The Center for Public Integrity is supported by individual contributions and grants awarded by charitable foundations. A list of the Center's funders may be found on its official Web site. Donations are tax-deductible. The Center ceased accepting contributions from corporations and labor unions in 1996^[4]. In its first year, the Center's budget was reported to be $200,000^[2].

[edit] Budget

	2002^[20]	2003^[21]	2004^[9]	2005^[7]	2006^[8]
Program Services	$3,211,035	$3,431,602	$3,436,047	$3,156,524	$3,310,376
Management	$158,635	$647,919	$781,966	$814,311	$856,808
Fundraising	$312,476	$283,785	$327,890	$429,868	$569,753
Expenses	$3,682,146	$4,363,306	$4,545,903	$4,400,703	$4,736,637
Revenue	$2,934,193	$4,314,611	$6,494,199	$3,138,139	$3,207,695
Excess or Deficit	($747,953)	($48,695)	$1,948,296	($1,262,564)	($1,528,942)

[edit] Praise

“	The Center for Public Integrity has rescued investigative journalism from the margins and showed us how important this kind of reporting is to the health of democracy^[4].	„
—Bill Moyers

“	An indispensable truth-teller in a treacherous time^[4].	„
—Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

“	What has long impressed me about the Center in particular is its combination of realistic militance and fine scholarship.^[4]!	„
—James MacGregor Burns

“	In a political culture without apparent guiding principles, in a time when those who own our great media conglomerates stress markets above journalism, the Center for Public Integrity has offered an increasingly potent antidote.^[4].	„
—Hodding Carter III

“	Ethics must be reintroduced to public service to restore people’s faith in government. Without such faith, democracy cannot flourish. [The Center's] ambitious agenda is filling a desperate need.^[4].	„
—Walter Cronkite

“	In Washington, D.C., a city that is home to a surplus of committees and organizations with names that suggest they are pursuing worthy causes on behalf of all Americans — when in fact they are not — there is one group that lives up to its name: The Center for Public Integrity. ... The Center has no axe to grind, except to look out for the best interests of all citizens. In so doing, it has turned out one thought-provoking, fact-filled, nonpartisan study after another on the major issues of the day — all required reading for those who are committed to good and honest government^[4].	„
—Donald Barlett and James Steele

“	No one should be in doubt as to the value of the work of the Center for Public Integrity or the suffering that it causes. For much modern political and economic life and also, alas, for much media expression, nothing is so inconvenient, so unwelcome and often so powerful as the cold truth. This, the CPI for our pleasure and for our benefit provides^[4].	„
—John Kenneth Galbraith

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Sources of Funding

Criticism of the Center frequently addresses the source of its financial support^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]. Despite its claims to be a nonpartisan news organization and profession of the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics^[29], the Center has been accused of bias towards left-wing political causes because it has accepted money from organizations and individuals that favor liberal policies and/or actively oppose right-wing political causes.

In a 2007 essay, the Center's founder Charles Lewis offered this about the Center's fundraising habits:

The issue of perceived financial “purity” and exactly from whom the Center should seek and accept money from has been an introspective feature of nearly every board meeting since 1989. Eventually, beginning in 1995, for example, we stopped raising funds from companies and labor unions because of their direct economic interests in influencing public policy; the nonpartisan Center has never accepted money from government, advocacy organizations, paid advertising or anonymous donors.^[2]

[edit] Funding from George Soros

George Soros is a Hungarian-American billionaire^[30] who has supported an array of political causes active in reforming the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, including the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, the Czechoslovakian human rights organization Charter 77, the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, the opposition to the Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic^[31] and the Republic of Georgia's Rose Revolution^[32]. In 2004, he asserted himself in American politics by donating millions of dollars to groups opposing the election of President George W. Bush^[33].

Soros himself has become a public critic of Bush and the Republican Party, speaking out in books published under his name and in interviews with journalists. Republican activists have responded with strong criticism of Soros and the causes he supports. Conservative television host Bill O'Reilly has identified Soros as a leader in what he calls "the secular-progressive cause^[34]." O'Reilly alleges that Soros exerts a destructive influence indirectly through groups his foundations fund. In October of 2006, O'Reilly commented:

He's given money to some of the worst people in United States of America. ... He wants radical change in this country. ... [H]e's damaging the country. He is the single most dangerous individual in the United States of America. And his assassins, the people he hires to harm the people with whom he disagrees. And he sits back and he goes, "Oh, I don't know what they're doing." Bull.^[35]

O'Reilly and other critics point to Soros' support of groups whose agenda many conservatives oppose, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Moveon.org^[36].

Critics have used the Center's connections to Soros in efforts to discredit its journalism^[22]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]. The Web site of one of Soros' organizations, The Open Society Institute, discloses four grants to the Center, all made before his entry into the 2004 presidential contest. They are:

A $72,400 one-year grant in 2000 supporting "an investigative journalism series on prosecutorial misconduct."^[37]

A $75,000 one-year grant in 2001 supporting "an examination of wrongful convictions resulting from prosecutorial misconduct."^[38]
A $100,000 one-year grant in 2002 "to investigate the political spending of the telecommunications industry on the federal, state and local levels."^[39]
A $1 million three-year grant in 2002 "to support the Global Access Project."^[40]

The first two grants funded what eventually became the "Harmful Error" report, which was headed by Steve Weinberg. Weinberg is a professional journalist and former director of Investigative Reporters and Editors.

The telecommunications grant supported the launch of the Center's ongoing "Well Connected" project. According to the Center's site, other funding for that endeavor has been provided by The Ford Foundation^[41]. The project has won an Online News Association award for enterprise reporting^[42] and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Online Journalism^[19].

According to its Web site, the Global Access project -- now known as Global Integrity -- seeks to "collect and disseminate trustworthy, credible, comprehensive and timely data and information on governance and corruption trends around the world." It publishes the Global Integrity Index, "an annual ranking of 50-100 diverse countries in more than 290 indicators of openness, governance, and anti-corruption mechanisms^[43]."

[edit] The Center's Coverage of George Soros's Political Activity

Despite their previous connections, the Center documented Soros' political donations during the 2004 political elections as a part of its "Silent Partners" project, which won an Online Journalism Association award for enterprise reporting for its reporting on the "527" groups that bypassed campaign finance disclosure regulations to funnel millions of dollars to both candidates^[19].

[edit] Funding from Bill Moyers and the Schumann Foundation

A 1999 report in the Seattle Times raised questions about the ethical behavior of PBS journalist Bill Moyers by documenting examples of his work that featured sources whose organizations have been funded by the Schumann Foundation, a philanthropic group he heads^[44]. Among the recipients of Schumann grants featured in Moyers' journalism has been the Center's founder Charles Lewis^[44].

In 2004, Moyers and the Center were further criticized by Cliff Kinkaid of Accuracy in Media^[26], who emphasized that Moyers has also served on the board of the Open Society Institute^[45], a foundation started by a George Soros that has itself also funded projects at the Center.

[edit] Funding from Supporters of Legal Restrictions on Campaign Finance

Writing in The Wall Street Journal in March of 2005, commentator John Fund accused the Center of being a member of what he termed the "campaign finance lobby^[46]." Citing a speech by Sean Treglia, former program manager at Pew Charitable Trusts, Fund argued that a "stealth campaign" by "eight liberal foundations" fomented a false sense of public demand for new restrictions on the financing of public campaigns^[46]. In the course of his essay, Fund singled out the Center as a front group pushing Pew's agenda.

Reporters are used to attempts to hoodwink officials into thinking an issue is genuinely popular, and they frequently expose them. But when "good government" groups like the Center for Public Integrity engage in the same tactics, journalists usually ignore it^[46].

The Center's Bill Allison responded to criticisms arising from Tregalia's speech by emphasizing that Pew's contributions to the Center's work on campaign finance have always been forthrightly disclosed^[47]. In an published argument with blogger Ryan Sager, Allison also disputed the notion that the Center's work amounted to advocacy:

...The purpose of our grants is to do things like code hundreds of thousands of public records, put them in a database and post them on our Web site so anyone can use them. The amount of money we've gotten to push campaign finance reform is $0^[48].

In another essay on the Center's Web site, Allison challenged the Center's critics, and Fund specifically.

[Fund] doesn't cite a single instance in which the Center has attempted to "hoodwink" government officials (or anyone else, for that matter) into thinking campaign finance is a genuinely popular issue, because he can't. We simply don't operate that way. We don't do public relations campaigns. We don't lobby Congress. We don't petition the Federal Election Commission. We don't pretend we have legions of individuals contributing money to support our work. Our paid membership amounts to around six thousand people; we'd certainly be happy to have more.

We do put out factual information about a number of issues that interest us, one of which is campaign finance. And at least some of the public is interested in reading what we report. The Buying of the President 2004 was a New York Times bestselling book, and our 1996 report "Fat Cat Hotel," showing that the Clinton White House was renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign contributors, became a topic in the press, on Sunday morning talk shows, even in the monologues of late night comedians. The Center's founder and former executive director, Charles Lewis, also got to appear twice on the Comedy Central program The Daily Show. But that's the closest we've come to any sort of popularity; and how any of that could hoodwink anyone is a bit of a mystery.

And as for Mr. Fund, back in the days when campaign finance issues were of concern to him, he sought us out to lend authority to his writings on John Huang and quoted us in an Oct. 29, 1996, column on the subject. Is it Mr. Fund's view that when he wrote about various DNC campaign finance violations, he was trying to hoodwink federal officials into thinking that people cared about the issue^[49]?

[edit] Foundations Providing Support^[50]

Annenberg Foundation Arca Foundation Around Foundation Arthur D. Lipson Brodie Price Fund Carnegie Corporation of New York Charles S. Chapin Charitable Trust Cissy Patterson Trust Columbia Foundation – Christine H. Russell Fund Community Trust Daniel Solomon Tzedakah Fund of the Shefa Fund Donna Mae Litowitz Dudley Foundation Educational Foundation of America Eugene Vasilew Fanny and Leo Koerner Charitable Trust Ford Foundation Freedom Forum Fund for Constitutional Government Gaia Fund Giles W. and Elise G. Mead Foundation Goldman Environmental Foundation Gunzenhauser-Chapin Fund Haas Charitable Trusts Hafif Family Foundation JEHT Foundation Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University John & Florence Newman Foundation John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation John S. and James L. Knight Foundation	Joyce Foundation Katz Family Foundation Kismet Foundation Lear Family Foundation Lear Fund of the Proteus Fund Leavens Foundation Litowitz Foundation Los Angeles Times Foundation Low Wood Fund Lucy Gonda Foundation Lynn R. & Karl E. Prickett Fund Mark S. Thompson McCormick Tribune Foundation Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation Nathan Cummings Foundation New York Community Trust Omidyar Network Fund Open Society Foundation Park Foundation, Inc. Pew Charitable Trusts Popplestone Foundation Price Family Charitable Fund Princeton Class of 1969 Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund Rockefeller Brothers Fund Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust Sandler Family Supporting Foundation Scherman Foundation, Inc. Schuckman Peace Foundation Schumann Center for Media and Democracy	Stewert R. Mott Charitable Trust Streisand Foundation Susan Loewenberg Thomas Rosbrow Town Creek Foundation, Inc. V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation Victor Elmaleh Foundation Wallace Global Fund Whitehead Foundation William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Working Assets

[edit] Management and Staff

Board of Directors^[51]	Advisory Board^[52]	Management^[53]
Bill Buzenberg Hodding Carter III Alan J. Dworsky Bruce A. Finzen Bill Kovach Susan Loewenberg Paula Madison John E. Newman, Jr. Geneva Overholser(Chair) Allen Pusey Ben Sherwood Sree Sreenivasan Marianne Szegedy-Maszak	James MacGregor Burns Joel Chaseman Edith Everett Gustavo Godoy Josie Goytisolo Herbert Hafif Rev. Theodore Hesburgh Kathleen Hall Jamieson Sonia R. Jarvis Bevis Longsteth Charles Ogletree Harold M. Williams William Julius Wilson	Bill Buzenberg Executive Director Barbara Schecter Director of Development Cathy Roberts Sweeney Director of Finance and Administration Bill Hogan Director of Investigative Projects Alan Green Editor of Investigative Projects