Board Chair Brant Houston moves to emeritus role after 17 years guiding InvestigateWest

Brant Houston, who has served as a volunteer member of InvestigateWest's board of directors since the newsroom's founding in 2009, is stepping into an emeritus role after 17 years of leadership, including most recently as board president and chair.

Houston helped guide InvestigateWest from a startup nonprofit newsroom into one of the Pacific Northwest's leading sources of investigative journalism, steering the organization through the funding crunches and industry upheaval that have reshaped local news across America. He will continue to be involved with InvestigateWest as chair emeritus.

“Brant has been present at every turning point in InvestigateWest's history,” said Executive Director Jacob Fries. “He brought us the hard-won knowledge of someone who has literally written the book on nonprofit journalism, and he did it as a volunteer — out of pure devotion to the mission. We are deeply grateful for his stewardship and glad he's staying close as chair emeritus.”

The initial idea for InvestigateWest was conceived in 2009 as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped printing and laid off most of its staff. Rather than walk away from the industry, six former PI journalists — Robert McClure, Rita Hibbard, Carol Smith, Kristen Millares Young, Daniel Lathrop and Lewis Kamb — decided to build something new: a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to watchdog reporting. 

They quickly turned to Houston for help in those early days.

“Without Brant Houston, InvestigateWest surely would not have survived its startup stage,” McClure recalled. “He is one of just a handful of people about whom that can be said. Brant was pivotal in the founding of InvestigateWest. As a nationally renowned journalist and leader in the nonprofit news movement, Brant lent instant credibility to the organization. But he didn’t stop there. He was far from a figurehead. He rolled up his sleeves and did the work to ensure InvestigateWest survived, then provided leadership as he ushered InvestigateWest into its current thriving status.

“I can’t say enough about how Brant guided this endeavor from the beginning, even as he took on similar roles at other such budding nonprofit news organizations around the country,” McClure continued. “Brant is a national treasure.”

Houston's imprint on nonprofit and investigative journalism extends well beyond InvestigateWest. Since 2007, he has held the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, where he teaches investigative and data journalism. Before joining the Illinois faculty, he spent 14 years at Investigative Reporters and Editors, the country’s leading professional association for investigative journalists, serving as executive director for a decade. 

While at IRE, in the late 1990s, Houston began teaching computer-assisted reporting skills abroad, eventually co-founding the Global Investigative Journalism Network with Danish journalist Nils Mulvad. As GIJN tells the story, the idea can be traced to a glass of wine at Mulvad’s home in Denmark in the spring of 2000, after the two had wrapped up a gathering of European reporters. 

“Why don't we invite the world next time?” Houston asked. 

The resulting 2001 conference in Copenhagen drew more than 300 journalists from 40 countries and led, two years later, to the founding of GIJN itself, which today includes more than 250 member newsrooms around the globe. Houston continues to chair GIJN's board.

The same year he joined InvestigateWest's board, Houston also co-founded what is now the Institute for Nonprofit News, then called the Investigative News Network, and served as its first executive director. He’s also sat on the boards of many other nonprofit newsrooms, including Investigate Midwest, Wisconsin Watch, Block Club Chicago and inewsource in San Diego.

“A couple of decades ago, Brant Houston foresaw great changes coming in journalism — and then he made them happen,” said Sue Cross, former CEO of Institute for Nonprofit News. “He pioneered the new nonprofit news field that reframed reporting as a public good. He works tirelessly to make it possible for reporters, like those at InvestigateWest, to help us understand what is happening in the world around us.”

In 2023, Houston published a book, “Changing Models for Journalism: Reinventing the Newsroom,” that examines the collapse of traditional newsrooms and the rise of the nonprofit models at organizations like InvestigateWest.

That vantage point, as both a chronicler of nonprofit journalism's rise and a hands-on champion of many of its emerging newsrooms, made Houston an unusually valuable board member, colleagues say. 

“Brant Houston not only defined the nonprofit journalism space, but he worked tirelessly to promote, protect, organize and lead many of them,” said Jeremy Gilbert, the Knight Chair of Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern University’s Medill School. “Brant oversaw growth and professionalization of the InvestigateWest board and the newsroom. We owe him sincere thanks for all he has done and all he will surely continue to do. Among Brant’s many contributions was supporting our visionary executive director over the past four years as InvestigateWest has rapidly grown and expanded its impact throughout the region.”

Gilbert is now stepping into Houston’s shoes as board president for InvestigateWest. Also serving on InvestigateWest’s board are Paul Joseph Brown and Beverly Wyse, co-vice presidents; treasurer Celia Wu; secretary Tina McCorkindale; and directors Lindsay Roitman, Jen Sizemore and Mark Wittow.

Houston said throughout the years that InvestigateWest had been fortunate to have boards of directors that gave many hours of service to ensure the organization’s continued existence and growth. He said the current board is especially strong and deeply experienced in management and fundraising and that he looks forward to staying involved in an advisory role.

He especially praised the passion and fortitude of InvestigateWest’s executive directors, past and present.

“It has been an honor to work with InvestigateWest’s leadership,” Houston said. “The dedication and energy of Robert McClure and Jacob Fries — and the constantly exemplary investigative journalism they have produced — has been inspirational not only to me, but to the profession at large.”