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Readers Power Propublica 2016 ANNUAL REPORT the Propublica Staff Awaits the 2016 Pulitzer Prize Announcements

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Readers Power Propublica 2016 ANNUAL REPORT the Propublica Staff Awaits the 2016 Pulitzer Prize Announcements Readers Power ProPublica 2016 ANNUAL REPORT The ProPublica staff awaits the 2016 Pulitzer Prize announcements. ProPublica was proud to receive its third Pulitzer Prize, this one jointly with The Marshall Project, for explanatory reporting, for our article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” (Edwin Torres for ProPublica) Highlights of the Year at ProPublica Impact Our journalism spurred a host of meaningful changes. Facebook halted an advertising practice that facilitated racial discrimination. Law enforcement officials stopped using a drug test that had led to wrongful convictions. Judges struck down a state worker compensation system as unconstitutional. A chain of retail stores that took advantage of service members shut its doors and was forced to repay millions of dollars in improper charges. PROPUBLICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2016 1 Edwin Torres for ProPublica Important stories Memorable work ranged from the health impacts of Agent Orange exposure on the children and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans, to the shortcomings of algorithms used across the nation’s criminal justice system, to Houston’s vulnerability to a major natural disaster, to our launch of Electionland, a national reporting initiative that tracked voter experiences in real time, across thousands of polling sites. Awards ProPublica was proud to receive its third Pulitzer Prize, this one jointly with The Marshall Project, for explanatory reporting, for our article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape.” The same story won the George Polk Award for justice reporting. In addition, our series “Killing the Colorado” was a finalist for the Pulitzer for national reporting, Alec MacGillis’ work was honored with the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and our series with NPR News on worker’s compensation received the IRE Medal. A full list of awards can be found later in this report. PROPUBLICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2016 2 Edwin Torres for ProPublica Partnerships We extended our list of publishing partners to 139 news organizations, with a total of 35 in 2016 alone. Our partners over the past year included the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR News, Frontline, This American Life, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic. Growing platform Monthly average page views rose 12% to 2.6 million, while unique visitors climbed 15% to 1.1 million. Substantial growth came in ProPublica’s Facebook fans, up 70% to more than 210,000, while Twitter followers rose 13% to more than 465,000. We announced what we hope will be an important Regional initiative new thrust for ProPublica: regional reporting units, the first of which, ProPublica Illinois, will begin publishing in 2017. Business breakthrough Gifts were up all year, but accelerated dramatically after the election. Total fundraising for the year came to $17.2 million, increasing ProPublica’s reserve fund to more than $9 million, or almost seven months of projected 2017 spending. The number of total donors soared more than 600% to more than 26,000. PROPUBLICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2016 3 Readers Power ProPublica One key aspect of ProPublica’s business model is our funding, which comes almost entirely from philanthropy. Readers power our investigative journalism — not corporations, politicians or advocacy groups — and they donate because they believe our work can make a difference in our democracy and civic life. There is perhaps no greater indication of the strength of this relationship than the burst of contributions that followed the 2016 presidential election. Hours after the results were report, and organizations that I freedom of the press. If my small clear, small donors across the trust.” donation can help be part of a country began clicking our on- “I donated a modest donation larger sum that makes an import- line “donate” button. In the next to your news organization because ant statement today, then please few days, envelopes with checks I believe that the news of the 21st let it do so.” began trickling into ProPublica’s century must be supported by The momentum of giving ac- office, from $5 gifts to amounts average Americans,” wrote Dylan celerated after HBO’s John Oliver in the hundreds and thousands. from Kentucky. “Today’s major mentioned ProPublica in his small Many shared with us why they felt news organizations are selling a list of organizations worthy of moved now to support ProPublica product. With fewer and fewer support in the coming years. By by taking action on its behalf. individuals buying subscriptions year-end, smaller gifts had come “I’ve been a fan for a few years,” to newspapers and magazines, the from more than 26,000 donors, wrote DKW from Georgia. “The incentive to produce hard-hitting and amounted to more than $2.9 stories are always deep — some- journalism becomes less intense.” million dollars. times longer than I think I have “I believe in investigative jour- We understand the responsibil- time for — but every time I read nalism and the Fourth Estate,” ity that comes with this generosity one I’m so grateful you’re doing wrote Cindy from Wyoming. “But — one ProPublica will meet by the work you do in the way you do more importantly, I give today expanding our staff and extending it. I should have given sooner, but because I am horrified by the our ability to call out abuses and the election has been a wake-up election and the threats Trump hold those in power to account call that I need to help support has made against journalism, through painstaking and fearless organizations that research and journalists, freedom of speech and accountability journalism. PROPUBLICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2016 4 Palm Beach, Florida, about sever- al dozen people shouting at early voters with bullhorns, we posted a story that prompted the local sheriff’s office to intervene and stop the intimidating behavior. Our team also looked closely at allegations of widespread voter fraud. Looking at thousands of ju- risdictions and millions of voters, we were able to say conclusively that there was no evidence of either widespread fraud or voter intimidation. Instead we caught signs of people using social me- dia to spread fabrications. When an image circulating on Twitter, captioned in both English and Spanish, claimed to show an im- migration officer arresting a Lati- no man in line to vote, we quickly determined the image was a fake In our most wide-ranging collaboration yet, ProPublica organized Electionland, a — a composite of two different national reporting initiative that revealed voters’ experiences in real time. photographs — and there were no (John Brecher for ProPublica) reports of anyone arrested by ICE officials while voting. “Most newsrooms in America Protecting the Vote exercising their right to vote. We are asking an important but pre- did this with a team of more than a mature question while polls are In 2016, we served our readers thousand people, including about open: ‘Who’s winning?’” said Scott with abounding examples of this 600 journalism school students Klein, ProPublica deputy manag- kind of work, particularly relating who pored through social media ing editor and the project’s leader, to the election — before, during reports and upward of 400 local at the launch of the initiative. and after. journalists across 50 states who “Electionland is an experiment In our most wide-ranging signed up to receive and report on that asks whether we can help em- collaboration yet, ProPublica or- tips we received. power newsrooms to cover other ganized Electionland, a national Electionland, which launched vitally important questions that reporting initiative that revealed during the early voting period, day: How is the election itself go- voters’ experiences in real time. gave us an unprecedented re- ing? Who’s voting and who’s being Working with Google News Lab, al-time understanding of voting in turned away?” Univision, WNYC, First Draft, the the United States. From problems USA Today Network and the City with hours long lines in Cali- University of New York Graduate fornia to misinformation about Giving Voice to a School of Journalism, we used voter ID requirements in Texas, Forgotten Class cutting-edge technology, social the project allowed us to publish media newsgathering and na- more than 400 stories while polls tional data from a nonpartisan were still open and issues could ProPublica’s coverage leading up legal call center to find problems be addressed. For example, when to the election also proved trail- that would prevent citizens from we spotted complaints from West blazing. This was clear when the PROPUBLICA ANNUAL REPORT, 2016 5 election returns rolled in on the evening of Nov. 8, and stunned newsrooms around the country regrouped and dispatched their reporters to the places where, it was now clear, Donald Trump had planted the seeds of his victory. Within days, reports sprang up on the new Trump voters, date- lined from coal country and hol- lowed-out factory towns. But ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis didn’t have to rush off. He’d been visiting the heartland throughout 2016, measuring the gathering wave of frustration and anger. In July, ProPublica and Politico pub- lished MacGillis’ story on the Day- ton, Ohio, area, where industrial decay had become fertile ground for the politics of Donald Trump. MacGillis pushed deep into the Alec MacGillis’ “The Great Republican Crack-Up” was a prescient piece of lives and fortunes of Dayton’s peo- journalism in which the reporting captured the pulse of discontent in the Rust Belt ple and their interlocking fates. and steered ProPublica readers ahead of the curve. (Ty Wright for ProPublica)
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