California Watch: Newbie Reaches Two Million Readers
Last week, California Watch — the band of 12 merry journalists newly employed to write investigative/enterprise pieces of public policy impact — hit something of a media home run. It placed its story (on the state of California holding on to report on the increase in the number of women dying from pregnancy complications) in bigger regional media as diverse as the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED public radio and KGO-TV. Plus in other papers throughout the state. Total reach: more than two million, adding together digital and analog readers, according to Robert Rosenthal, who heads the project. Now imagine most traditional outlets setting out to produce stories that could be quickly and easily re-used and distributed on TV, radio, newspapers and digital media. That’s a reach gained by a journalistic entity that didn’t exist six months ago. There’s something powerful here about starting with a blank slate — tabula rasa, a tablet of a different kind — and actually innovating new journalism models.