The president of the non-profit investigative journalism website on measuring impact, team work – and Edward SnowdenRichard Tofel has had a dream. It came upon him the night before we meet and he is still a little rattled by it. In it, he found himself performing his old role at Dow Jones, where he rose to become assistant publisher of the Wall Street Journal. "I was back in Dow Jones, and there were a million committees and a thousand departments and forms to fill," he says. After a beat, he adds: "It was not a happy dream."The good news for Tofel is that for more than five years he has worked at the gloriously lithe and bureaucratically unencumbered ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism outfit where he is president. "There are advantages to having 10,000 people, but the saying about turning round the battleship is true. The media business is changing so quickly, there are enormous advantages to those who can change quickly with it."On Monday night, Tofel takes that message of small and flexible is beautiful to London, where he will be addressing the One World Media awards honouring outstanding coverage of the developing world. He will talk about the subject that is increasingly preoccupying him: how to measure impact in journalism. The issue, you might say, is as old as the printing presses. Grub Street has traditionally done it, scurrilously, by counting "scalps" – resignations exacted of people in high office. Newspapers have also tracked circulation or... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-26 00:00:00 UTC ]