On January 11, The Intercept reported that three members of Congress known for their extremist views, may have helped plan the Washington protest that devolved into chaos and violence at the U.S. Capitol. The story was picked up by other major media outlets. But it never would have seen the light of day were it not for the nonprofit group, Project on Government Oversight, a nearly 40-year old DC institution, known more for its hard-hitting attacks on waste, fraud and abuse in government than its journalism chops.
It was POGO investigator Jason Paladino who in late December spotted a tweet of a livestreamed video by “Stop the Steal” rally organizer Ali Alexander, bragging that he and Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Mo Brooks (Ala.) came up with the idea for a January 6 protest. Paladino archived the tweet and the video and later shared it with Intercept reporters. The video has since been deleted. Biggs and Brooks have denied any relationship with Alexander, and Gosar has not responded to reporters' questions.
POGO’s work was credited in this latest story, but more and more often, POGO investigators actually share bylines with their colleagues in the Fourth Estate:
- As the pandemic raged last May, the Daily Beast broke the story that Navy policies meant to protect civil mariners from COVID-19 actually put them in harm’s way, particularly on one Boston-docked vessel, where 52 persons were infected and at least two persons died.
- In 2019, Yahoo News dug into the influence of deep-pocketed special interests on the Trump Department of Justice, where a former senior DOJ attorney reportedly used her contacts to persuade high-ranking DOJ officials to quash a felony charge against her client, pesticide manufacturer Monsanto.
- In 2017, POGO Mother Jones exposed how then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions intervened in a bribery prosecution of two of his major political donors.
An evolving model
Times are changing. Journalism is evolving. The nonprofit model has been adopted by major investigative news outlets such as ProPublica, as well as local news sites like MinnPost. Many of these outlets were founded after traditional daily newspapers downsized or shut down altogether.
Nevertheless, POGO is doing something unique. The nonprofit uses its journalism not to support its advocacy agenda, but to inform it, according to POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian. POGO does the investigative work so that it can develop strategies for addressing the problems the reporting uncovers.
One byproduct of its journalism is more visibility and political clout. POGO is using its well-researched investigative reports to leverage attention not only in the media, but also on Capitol Hill, where POGO experts are often asked to testify or advise staff on legislative fixes. But while POGO has earned respect from Congress and received journalism awards for its work, it has taken years to build credibility in the media community. Even now, POGO has not earned the attention of foundations that support nonprofit journalism.
Brian suggests that POGO’s venture into journalism was really a throwback to its 1981 roots, when the nonprofit was founded as the Project on Military Procurement. Its scrutiny of wasteful Pentagon spending prompted headlines about $7,600 coffee makers and $435 hammers. But at that point, the goal was to serve as a conduit, not to create content, Brian explains: “It was a place for whistleblowers to get information to journalists.” By 1990, its scope had expanded to include the entire federal government, not just the Pentagon.
A turn to investigation
When POGO began lobbying on the Hill for specific policy reforms, it started doing in-depth investigations. While many nonprofits do reports and white papers to buttress their policy agendas, POGO took another tack. “We weren’t coming at our work with a pre-ordained agenda,” Brian says. Instead, the agenda evolved after “we had done these investigations and had the evidence.”
But that approach did not get them into the journalism club. POGO’s work was not perceived as independent. “We were not seen as colleagues in the journalism world,” Brian says. “We were seen as an advocacy organization.”
Things changed as nonprofit journalism became more common, as journalism outlets increasingly started skimping on in-depth reporting, and as POGO hired journalists with high-profile credentials. One big “get” was David Hilzenrath, an award-winning investigative reporter and 25-year veteran of the Washington Post.
In an email, Hilzenrath explained why he made the career move.
“As a reporter for the Post, I wrote about information that POGO brought to light,” he wrote, adding that he had been “deeply impressed by and more than a little envious of POGO’s work.” Joining the nonprofit, he said, “offered an extraordinary opportunity to focus on investigative work that matters.”
His colleagues now include Adam Zagorin, formerly a senior correspondent at Time magazine, and Mark Thompson, also a Time alumnus, whose reporting for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram earned him a Pulitzer Prize.
A mix of staff
About half of its staff is on the news-gathering side of the organization; the other half is policy advocacy and outreach, says Brian. And like all good news operations that separate their reporting staffs from their editorial pages, POGO has erected a wall to divide its reporters and editors from its advocates.
Along the way, POGO’s work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society for Advancing Business and Editing, and the Society of Environmental Journalists. Journalism awards, Brian says, have helped “validate the quality of our work when we’re putting it up against other traditional journalists.”
The combination of journalism and advocacy has been effective, she says. But not in the way one would necessarily expect. “Our model hasn’t yet fit comfortably into philanthropic portfolios as investigative journalism,” Brian notes. But other funders have been impressed with POGO’s work.
Funders like the results that were made possible by the journalism: more visibility, increased clout on Capitol Hill as congressional staff consider POGO a trusted source of information, and more impact, as POGO experts are now often asked to testify at hearings. Additionally, the work of POGO’s experts is regularly “cited by policymakers either in press releases or on the floor,” Brian says.
“So while we may have lost the battle so far of getting … direct support for the investigations, we're winning the war,” she says. “Foundations perceive this hybrid approach to be a successful model.”
POGO’s hybrid structure is reflected in the titles it bestows. Some members of its journalism team are called investigators. Hilzenrath gets the title of “chief investigative reporter.”
Zagorin is called a “senior journalist,” while Pulitzer Prize winner Thompson is considered a national security analyst. Jason Paladino, whose reporting on a flawed Navy helicopter program became the basis for a documentary, is a national security investigative reporter.
Asked about some of the titles, Brian admits it might be time for more uniformity. “We should probably be cleaner on that,” she acknowledges. But while the job titles may be a bit confusing, it is easy to see where POGO’s journalism ends and its advocacy begins.
Recommendations for action are not included in the investigative pieces, Brian notes. They are separate content. For example, Paladino’s story on federal drone surveillance of protestors includes a link to a separate POGO guide about avoiding intrusive scrutiny.
Where the money comes from
The nonprofit does not take donations from corporations, labor unions or governments. It refuses any donor that has an interest in the outcome of a particular investigation.
Eighty percent of its money comes from family foundations, she says. Major donors include Democracy Fund, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust. But these days, about one-fifth of its annual budget of between $6 million and $7 million comes from individual donors. That’s good news, Brian says, because “they are less fickle than foundations tend to be.”
Sometimes, nonprofit websites are the place where interesting staff blogs go to die. But that’s not true for POGO. Brian says that its site gets 100,000 views a month, and its newsletters and alerts draw about 200,000 subscribers.
POGO has recently expanded the sets of issues it investigates. In 2017, the Constitution Project became a part of POGO, expanding its focus. POGO had long focused on the “classic” abuse of power — the problem of people in government who use their power for private gain. But the Constitution Project looked at abuse of power in a larger context — when government power is being used against those with the least power in society. As a consequence, POGO has recently been examining issues related to law enforcement and policing, including subjects like bail reform and the death penalty, Brian says.
She has hopes that someday POGO’s work will “be considered in the ranks of our colleagues at ProPublica or the Marshall Project.” Journalism is evolving, she observes, and the lines between the Fourth Estate and advocacy are not as distinct as they were in the days of Walter Cronkite.
Eight years along, Hilzenrath remains happy with his career transition.“The organization is not content to expose problems,” he observes. “It wants to see them solved.”
Editor's Note: This story was updated with new information on January 18, 2021.
Photo credit: Photo Kozyr/Shutterstock.com
