In one of its recent projects, reporters Joanna Lin and Mandy Hofmockel investigated the retailer chain Rainbow Apparel, who continued to sell lead-tainted jewelry even after repeated warnings from the attorney general’s office. The package included multiple articles, a video, and a specialized Google map that pinpointed the retailers throughout the state selling the jewelry. California Watch even offered free lead-testing to its concerned readers, an apt symbol of its dedication to the public interest.
In another recent story, contributing writer Will Evans wrote a compelling first-person investigative story about how his mother’s nanny was cheated by a mortgage scam.
Yet executive editor Mark Katches adamantly rejects the notion that they’re an activist publication. Evans’s piece, Katches said, was simply a manifestation of California Watch’s freedom to explore different types of storytelling.
“We’re investigative reporters who operate like investigative reporters at publications like The Orange County Register,” Katches said.
Either way, the investigative organization has caught the attention of newspapers throughout the state that are eager to use its content. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting’s executive director, Robert Rosenthal, their stories will often run in multiple publications in a single day, reaching over 25 million readers.
“If you think about this, we’re on every one of those newspaper’s websites, ” Rosenthal said. “The [stories] are pushed through on Twitter and Facebook, and on radio and TV across California.”
And although they’re still very much dependent on grant money, California Watch generates significant revenue through its content, which it sells to numerous publications.
“We’re taking our stories and reselling either the same or slightly different versions up and down the state,” Katches said. “We have a very flexible model of collaboration.”
This flexibility allows California Watch to work with news organizations of different sizes and mediums and, ultimately, create more revenue. In 2011, California Watch hopes to expand by offering news organizations different types of memberships.
“We will continue to sell stories as one-offs; we will continue to sell stories a la carte, but we’re also providing a menu of services to news partners and we’ve gotten a tremendous response so far,” Katches said.
So even while many traditional California news organizations can no longer produce their own investigative stories, they’re more than happy to pay for them—especially when they’re as good as what California Watch is producing.
-Colin Fleming
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — In less than two years, California Watch has become a force in American journalism, distributing its content to over eighty different publications and operating with the biggest investigative team in the state. Launched in 2009 as a facet of the Center for Investigative Reporting, California Watch dedicates itself to “high-impact reporting” on health, education, ecology, politics, and public safety.
