The New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) is a nonprofit investigative reporting newsroom based at Boston University. Our mission is to ensure the survival of serious, in-depth investigative journalism in New England and to train a new generation of investigative reporters.

NECIR produces high-quality, high-impact multi-media investigative stories that require time and resources few mainstream news outlets can provide. All of our reporting is done by experienced, professional journalists with the assistance of student researchers.

Through NECIR’s monthly investigative reporting subscription service, called “The Public Eye,” our stories reach about one million readers, viewers and listeners. Our stories appear in newspapers and on TV stations across Massachusetts and New England. NECIR reports also run in The Boston Globe and on WBUR (NPR).

NECIR training programs include a Summer Investigative Journalism Workshop for high school students. This workshop is a great way to introduce high school students to the field of investigative reporting. Students gain valuable knowledge through our summer journalism program. We also offer an Investigative Reporting Certificate Program for international journalists, student internships as well as workshops for professional journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists. Since our launch in 2009, we have trained more than 200 aspiring investigative reporters.

NECIR was founded by Joe Bergantino and Maggie Mulvihill, two veteran Boston journalists who together have more than 50 years of investigative reporting experience. Along with Boston University College of Communication Dean Tom Fiedler, a former Executive Editor and investigative reporter for The Miami Herald, Bergantino and Mulvihill launched NECIR to address the precipitous decline in investigative reporting due—in part– to newsroom downsizing.

NECIR’s launch sparked a national movement that led to the creation of dozens of nonprofit investigative reporting centers across the U.S. NECIR staff have played a significant role in helping launch many of those newsrooms. NECIR is also a founding member of the Investigative News Network (INN), a national organization dedicated to supporting nonprofit centers.