Longtime Boston investigative reporter Joe Bergantino, who co-founded the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, announced today that he will be retiring from the position of NECIR’s executive director.
Bergantino, who is assisting the center’s advisory board in finding a successor and will stay on in his current role through a transition period, will assume the title of Executive Director Emeritus either later this year or in 2016. He will continue to be actively involved in several of the center’s training programs, assist the new executive director in fundraising initiatives and business development when needed, lead the center’s video projects and begin exploring the creation of an investigative documentary unit. Bergantino also will be a member of the center’s advisory board.
"Joe Bergantino has built the New England Center for Investigative Reporting into a relevant and important news outlet for pursuing significant news others seek to keep hidden, and as a quality training program for practicing and aspiring watchdog journalists," said Bill Ketter, chairman of the NECIR Advisory Board. "He will remain involved and will play a major role in selecting his successor as executive director, with the aim of enhancing the center’s capacity to serve the public welfare with investigative stories and training that expose malfeasance and make a difference."
Concerned about the future of investigative reporting in New England, Bergantino came up with the idea of creating a nonprofit investigative reporting center in October 2007. The center’s mission is to generate in-depth, high-impact investigative stories and to train a new generation of investigative journalists. Over the past seven years, NECIR has done more than 100 investigative stories, won several local and national awards and has trained more than 500 students and journalists.
After stepping down as the I-Team Reporter for WBZ-TV (CBS Boston) in May 2008, a position he held for 22 years, Bergantino devoted full time to securing funding and partnerships for the center. With a $250,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and additional seed money from Boston University, NECIR opened its doors in January 2009.
In the summer of 2008, Bergantino and center co-founder Maggie Mulvihill decided to base NECIR at BU in response to an invitation from the Dean of BU’s College of Communication Tom Fiedler. In 2013, the center moved its editorial operations to WGBH News (NPR & PBS) but continues to base its training division at BU.
During Bergantino’s tenure as executive director, the center’s staff has quadrupled and now includes four full-time reporters, among them a Pulitzer Prize winner and two Pulitzer finalists; an investigations editor, a training manager, audience engagement director and digital producer. The center’s budget has quadruped from $300,000 to $1.2 million.
“What Joe has accomplished in growing NECIR from a modest idea into one of the nation’s most successful producers of investigative journalism far exceeded my most optimistic expectations,” said Fiedler, a former newspaper reporter and editor. “He can take pride in knowing that NECIR exemplifies how a non-profit organization not only can transform the way investigative reporting is sustained, but also on the way that future journalists are trained,” Fiedler added.
With the guidance of NECIR’s advisory board, Bergantino developed a successful business plan for the center. More than half of NECIR’s budget is now funded by earned revenue—mostly from training and story sales. In addition, the center’s partnership with WGBH and its content agreement with WBUR(NPR) generate almost $400,000 for NECIR.
The center’s Summer Investigative Reporting Workshop for high school students, launched in 2009, is now the largest and most successful program of its kind in the nation. This past summer, 132 students from 26 states and 15 counties attended.
“Investigative reporting is my lifelong passion. Building NECIR from an idea into a reality has been the most fulfilling experience of my almost 40 year career in journalism,” said Bergantino, who turns 64 later this year. "I’m confident that the talented staff we now have in place will bring NECIR to new heights. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with this unique organization that is doing so much to ensure that investigative reporting thrives in the present and in years to come,” he added.
In addition to leading the I-Team at WBZ-TV, Bergantino was a correspondent for ABC News from 1986-1991 and an investigative reporter for the then Washington Post-owned TV station in Miami from 1979-1981. During his career, Bergantino has won many of the broadcasting industry’s most prestigious awards including a duPont-Columbia Award and Citation, a Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting on the disadvantaged d and a Gabriel Award.
He has won several local Emmy awards including one designating him Best Investigative Reporter in New England. He was twice nominated for national Emmys for his work in 2002 and 2004. In 2014, Bergantino was the recipient of the Yankee Quill Award, presented by the New England Academy of Journalists, which recognizes the lifetime achievement of those “who have had a broad influence for good, both inside and outside the newsroom.”
Bergantino has an M.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism, an M.A. in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he concentrated on foreign policy and a B.A. in History from The College of the Holy Cross.
He is a Clinical Professor of Journalism at Boston University and has taught journalism courses at Boston College since 1995.