"This paper compares and contrasts four centers: The Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Herzegovina (CIN), The Journalism Training and Research Initiative in Bangladesh (JATRI), the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism in Jordan (ARIJ), and The Caucasus Media Investigations Center ( ... CMIC) in Azerbaijan. No officials or funders ever announce failures or label projects like these failures. But this paper posits that those centers designed and run by journalists to actively report are more effective in fulfilling their role as watch-dogs, as well as more sustainable. They perform better at developing future practitioners and instilling an investigative reporting tradition in new places. This examination suggests that donors hoping to implant successful centers increase their chances when they match ambitions to the political and legal climate of host countries, commit to multi-year involvement, and select passionate leaders with clout in the eyes of other journalists in their host regions. This study suggest that centers designed by outsiders and run by non-journalists tend to evolve into generalized research, resource and training centers." (Introduction) more

"Covering elections is not just coverage of one “grand event,” and training must reflect that. Short-term training just in advance of election day has been mostly discounted as ineffective. More must be done to cast elections as part of a critical on-going political process and to equip journali ... sts to understand, monitor, and report about that. Training journalists to cover elections must be paired with other legal and election infrastructure reform if meaningful change is the goal. International donors could have great influence by pushing harder for formation of election commissions with actual clout in countries where they work and for clear election laws, especially campaign finance transparency laws. Framing and passage of laws to protect journalists who cover politics also should be on donors’ agendas." (Conclusions, page 27) more