The Initiative for Investigative Reporting was launched at Northeastern University earlier this summer and its first story just got published.

It’s a public spending piece featured in the Dorchester Reporter:’ A theatre in Massachusetts that cost the city of Boston $8m in renovations, yet sits unused for 10 months of the year.

Boston’s National Public Radio affiliate WBUR aired a segment on the article and project on their daily show, Radio Boston.

The program at Northeastern is directed by Professor Walter V. Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and editor with 34 years of experience at The Boston Globe.

The project expands investigative journalism into the community through partnerships with local newsrooms, and is funded by Knight Foundation and the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

The program’s first Reporting Fellow is Stephen Kurkjian, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner at the Globe. Kurkjian and Pat Tarantino, a student reporter for the initiative coauthored the article.

The university-hosted web site, Watchdog New England, is currently under development and could be live next month. The initiative recently began working with its second partner, Cambridge Day.