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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Len Bruzzese, deputy director, 573-882-2042


Sept. 18, 2001

KNIGHT FOUNDATION AWARDS IRE $2 MILLION GRANT

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. a $2 million grant - the largest grant in IRE's 26-year history.

The foundation's board of trustees approved the grant, which will be distributed over a four-year period, the foundation announced.

"Good investigative journalism is the bedrock of a free press and is an indispensable tool for citizens of a free society," said Hodding Carter III, president and CEO of the foundation.

"Bad investigative journalism is detrimental to everyone concerned - press, public and government. Our support for IRE is based on its long track record of teaching and encouraging the very best in the field. We hope a number of others will join us in giving IRE the financial stability it needs."

IRE is a nonprofit journalism organization and educational institute based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. It has more than 4,000 members in the U.S. and abroad. With an annual budget of more than $1.5 million, it runs extensive training programs for mid-career journalists, provides resources in newsgathering techniques, publishes magazines and books and operates a Web site (www.ire.org) through which journalists can tap these resources.

"The generosity of this grant is overwhelming," said Brant Houston, executive director of IRE. "The grant boosts our efforts in annual fundraising and in our endowment drive and allows us to focus on more services for journalists."

"Equally important, this grant comes at a time of crisis and change when investigative reporting is needed more than ever - not only to cover and probe unfolding events and systemic failures, but also to protect our civil liberties."

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation was established in 1950 as a private foundation independent of the Knight brothers' newspaper enterprises. It is dedicated to furthering their ideals of service to community, to the highest standards of journalistic excellence and to the defense of a free press.

The partial-matching grant will support both IRE's operations and its endowment drive. IRE will receive $500,000 for its annual operating budgets and $500,000 for its endowment fund. Under the terms of the grant, the second $1 million will be given out on a two-for-one matching arrangement. For every $2 that IRE raises for its endowment, the foundation will give $1.

IRE is in the second year of a $5 million endowment drive to achieve greater financial security. Currently, the organization operates on membership dues, training and resource fees, and annual grants. Prior to the grant, the endowment currently stood at $1.2 million.

The Knight Foundation has supported IRE in the past - both through general operating funds and through grants for minority training fellowships.