What is IRW?
The Investigative Reporting Workshop is an innovative, journalistic training hospital and editorially independent, nonprofit newsroom based at American University in Washington, D.C.
We do the hard work missing in the media today
We pair undergraduate, graduate student and early career journalists with full-time professional editors and partners at professional newsrooms to produce investigative and enterprise projects that would otherwise go undone. Through our collaborations, we empower our partners to produce ambitious journalism they would have otherwise been unable to accomplish.
To date, IRW has published hundreds of investigations, contributed to Pulitzer Prize winning projects and finalists, and trained more than 240 students.
Our newsletter keeps you up-to-date on our deeply reported, award-winning investigations.
More journalism needs investigative rigor
We believe accurate information is necessary for democracy. We need access to reliable information about the world we live in for a healthy government and society.
Yet, there’s too much space between the best of journalism and the bulk of journalism – a problem deepened by economic incentives of for-profit media.
And, for too long, too many people have been excluded from investigative journalism, which has resulted in too many important stories remaining untold.
That’s why we’re dedicated to producing ambitious journalism while training the next generation of journalists — who learn the skills to produce top-quality reporting by doing top-quality reporting with some of the best in the industry.
In the last year, IRW produced and co-produced 30+ stories on topics including the environment, health, sexual harassment, immigration, race and politics. IRW collaborates with major national newsrooms as well as focused nonprofits, including a substantial partnership with The Washington Post, co-publishing more than 35 stories and contributing to hundreds of others.
