Thanks to a shoutout from John Oliver, the election of President Trump, an insult from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and, oh yeah, its journalism, ProPublica is enjoying a pretty good run.
Just how good was disclosed on Friday, when the nonprofit investigative outlet put out its quarterly report to stakeholders. The report, which contains updates on ProPublica’s strategy and journalistic output, included a by-the-numbers page that reveals audience and donations have been growing by leaps and bounds since Inauguration Day.
- 4.3 million — average ProPublica.org pageviews per month (up 66 percent year-over-year)
- 2.2 million — average unique ProPublica.org visitors per month (up 105 percent year-over-year)
- 120,000 — email subscribers (up 26 percent since Jan. 1)
- 650,000 — Twitter followers (up 40 percent since Jan. 1)
- 320,000 — Facebook fans up 52 percent since Jan. 1)
- 17,000+ donors
In an essay Monday, ProPublica Deputy Managing Editor Eric Umansky explained how ProPublica’s take-no-prisoners approach to covering the Trump administration has unfolded in the months since the election:
…Our stories kept coming: about how Trump was hiring lobbyists to work at agencies they once lobbied, about the hundreds of officials Trump had quietly installed across the government, and about a Trump trust document that states the president can pull money from his businesses any time he wants. (It’s that last story that got the White House riled up and led Sean Spicer, to blessedly, label us a “left-wing blog.”)
We’re still in flux. We definitely don’t have all the answers. Like many newsrooms, we’re still grappling with how to handle coverage of the new administration. But we have found a few principles to be helpful.
Benjamin Mullin is the managing editor of Poynter.org. He previously reported for Poynter as a staff writer, Google Journalism Fellow and Naughton Fellow, covering journalism innovation, business practices and ethics. He’s also reported for USA TODAY College and The Sacramento Bee, and he was editor in chief of The Orion, Chico State’s student-run newspaper. An Air Force brat who grew up around Northern California, he’s still adjusting to the Florida sunshine.
