Can partnerships among key institutions support local, investigative journalism? That’s the question Sandy Rowe, former editor of The Oregonian, sought to answer as the Knight Fellow this year at the Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics and Policy at Harvard University.

Her report, published last week, features two Knight Community Information Challenge projects – I-News – the Rocky Mountain News Network and Oklahoma Watch – that are part of a growing breed of independent, nonprofit, investigative news organizations that have start up support from local foundations.

In her paper, “Partners of Necessity: The Case for Collaboration in Local Investigative Reporting,” Rowe argues that partnerships between foundations, universities, traditional news outlets and other institutions may provide sustainable sources for important local watchdog reporting as traditional sources wane.

“The sprouting of more than 50 investigative news sites in the last four years has nurtured hope that they will fill the substantial gaps in accountability reporting. Today, however, most of these budding local only  cycle away from hitting their own version of the wall. Some are taking root, many others will not.  Anyone who thinks there’s an easy rescue in sight for rebuilding local investigative reporting capacity is wrong. Newspapers, traditionally the source of most investigative coverage in communities, will not be able to restaff newsrooms robustly and, more likely, will face additional cuts; no new business model is within reach; many of the new online local sites are not sustainable in their current form and no evidence suggests government will step in to help fund journalism in the public interest. Given those circumstances, what can change this picture?”

Rowe believes partnerships of key institutions with independent journalists may provide workable models.

She notes that I-News in Colorado, a Year-3 Community Information Challenge winner with support from The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County, is using foundation funding to launch a model in which partner newsrooms in traditional media pay for I-News content and reporting assistance.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma Watch, another Year-3 winner, has the support of several Oklahoma foundations, including the Tulsa Community Foundation, as well as higher education, the two major newspapers in the state, and other media partners.

In the important area of watchdog reporting, Rowe concludes: “Partnerships allow editors to define ambitions upward instead of downward as they have for the last half-dozen years.”