OUR HISTORY
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) is an independent, nonprofit media agency that specializes in investigative reporting. It was founded in 1989 by nine Filipino journalists who realized, from their years in the beat and at the news desk, the need for newspapers and broadcast agencies to go beyond day–to–day reportage.
As one of the oldest nonprofit investigative reporting centers in the world, the PCIJ is recognized globally as a pioneer in the field of nonprofit accountability reporting and is a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
The PCIJ believes that the media play a crucial role in scrutinizing and strengthening democratic institutions, defending and asserting press freedom, freedom of information, and freedom of expression. The media could—and should—be a catalyst for social debate and consensus that would redound to the promotion of public welfare. To do so, the media must provide citizens with the bases for arriving at informed opinions and decisions.
The PCIJ was set up to contribute to this end by promoting investigative reporting on current issues in Philippine society and on matters of large public interest. Its mission is to develop investigative journalism and to create a culture for it within the Philippine press and elsewhere.
The PCIJ funds investigative projects for the print, broadcast, and digital media. It publishes books on current issues, produces video documentaries, and conducts seminar-workshops on journalism and public policy issues.
In the more than 30 years since its founding, PCIJ has published over 1,000 investigative reports and over 1,000 other stories in major Philippine newspapers and magazines, produced five full–length documentaries and scores of documentaries for TV, and launched over two dozen books.
In addition, the PCIJ organizes training seminars, and offers the services of its journalism trainers, to news organizations in the Philippines and South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the African subcontinent.
The PCIJ has won over 150 major awards, including nine National Book Awards, a Catholic Mass Media Award, and more than two dozen awards and citations from the Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Investigative Journalism.
PCIJ stories make an impact. Well–researched and well–documented, these reports have contributed to a deeper understanding of raging issues, from politics to the environment, from health and business to women and the military.
Some of these reports have prodded government action on issues like corruption, public accountability and environmental protection. Still some other reports have triggered the transfer or resignation of senior public officials and justices, and formed part of the evidence in the impeachment, and eventual trial for plunder, of a Philippine president, Joseph Estrada.
A founding member of the Access to Information Network (ATIN) and a member of The Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition in the Philippines, the PCIJ has pioneered in asserting and indexing access to information practices of various government agencies, and since 2002, has led public advocacy for the passage of a Freedom of Information Law by the Philippine Congress.
A founding member of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), the PCIJ has conducted journalism skills and investigative reporting seminars for journalists in both open and restricted democracies of the region.
A founding member of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists (FFFJ), the PCIJ coordinated, edited and published the Fact-Finding Mission Report of the FFFJ into the Maguindanao Massacre, which has been cited by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as “the most authoritative” thus published.
The PCIJ has been acknowledged as a model among independent media organizations. It is the recipient of institutional awards, including the Agence France-Presse’s Kate Webb Award for exceptional journalism work in difficult or dangerous circumstances, and the AJA Award for Press Freedom from the Asia Journalist Association (AJA), an organization of journalists from over 20 countries throughout Asia.
Read more about the PCIJ and its history:
Rigoberto Tiglao, Muckraking in the Philippines, Nieman Reports, September 15, 1998.
Sheila S. Coronel, Squeezing Substance Into the Sensational and Superficial, Nieman Reports, March 15, 2008.