Origin Stories: CIR

4.17.24

In April 1977, Lowell Bergman and I were discussing how to form a new journalism organization in the wake of the demise of our informal muckraking unit inside Rolling Stone.

Over the preceding two years at the magazine's headquarters at 625 Third Street in Soma, we'd pulled together a half dozen or so reporters to pursue investigative stories, which had resulted in some good stories and also a ton of trouble.

Along with a bunch of awards, we had proven an ability to attract death threats and huge libel suits, among other forms of attention. We had both been unceremoniously dumped by Jann Wenner just before Christmas 1976 when he announced he would be taking the magazine to the east coast.

Our idea was to form a non-profit to carry on that type of work and Lowell brought an ally into the mix -- Dan Noyes, who he'd met in the "Arizona Project." That was a group investigation into the murder of journalist Don Bolles, which in turn led to the creation of another non-profit group, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

The three of us -- Bergman, Noyes and myself -- co-founded the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) later in 1977. A large group of advisers helped us launch the organization and we settled into an office in downtown Oakland.

But back in April, we had been still discussing what such an organization should be, what it should do, what its essential identity should be.

Today, 47 years later, CIR and IRE have long been staples of the journalism world and we are working individually on our memoirs. In that context, Lowell recently unearthed an old type-written letter he had sent to Dan that April. Dan and I had not yet met and Lowell wanted to introduce him to my thoughts on the subject.

    "I talked with Weir --as expected he is enthusiastic. Interestingly, David presented the following perspective: (the group should have) two major groups of activity: publications and community involvement."

This old letter is a prime example of why I spend so much energy beseeching people to preserve their journals, letters, notes and files whenever possible. Until Lowell sent a copy of it to me recently, I had absolutely no memory of having said those things.

But clearly I was envisioning not only a journalism organization but one that would attempt to root that work in the communities where we worked.

The Bay Area was our base. It was a region with deep contradictions -- idealism, activism and hope with violence, cynicism, and deeply entrenched reactionary media organizations, notably the old Hearst daily, the San Francisco Examiner.

We couldn't know it at the time, but that same newspaper would be transformed by a talented group of our peers, including the heir to the Hearst publishing empire, Will Hearst, into an excellent newspaper in its final decades.

We participated in that transformation. We also found our way into relationships with dozens of other media groups -- CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, 60 Minutes, 20/20, Mother Jones, New West, New York, NHK, BBC, etc., here and around the world.

There were many ups and downs in the early years, including press conferences denouncing us, and/or announcing libel suits and more death threats, but ultimately CIR survived and thrived. How that came to be is the story the three of us need to tell in our memoirs.

NOTE: Early in 2024, Mother Jones and CIR merged into a single organization.

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