Ruhl Lecture Featuring Stephen Engelberg: Editor-In-Chief of ProPublica

Stephen Engelberg, Editor-in-Chief, ProPublica

In the swanky annals of the Gerlinger Lounge located on the University of Oregon's campus Stephen Engelberg Editor-In-Chief of ProPublica -- a nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest -- delivered a guest lecture entitled Accountability Journalism in the Digital Age. Mr. Engelberg has many ties to the state of Oregon: he was a managing editor of The Oregonian in Portland from 2002 until 2008 before he moved on to ProPublica; his father is also a University of Oregon alum.

The main theme of Engelberg's lecture obviously pertained heavily to accountability in journalism; one of the core values attached to the concept of a free press. ProPublica is devoted to keeping individuals in the public eye accountable and there is no better example of this than in their contribution of the Dollars for Docs application. The application allows citizens to input their physicians into a database (which was developed entirely by ProPublica) who have prescribed them medication. The application will then tell citizens whether or not their doctor is being paid by the pharmaceutical company that created the medication they are being prescribed. The application was built in response to a growing number of doctors and physicians taking large payments from big pharmaceutical companies in exchange for pushing their newest drugs onto patients and publicly endorsing them at lectures. Engelberg noted that in some cases doctors were earning $200,000 to $300,000 annually from pharmaceutical companies for endorsing and prescribing their drugs and could even make $10,000 in an hour to endorse the drugs at lectures.

A screenshot of the dollars for docs application on ProPublica's website

Not only is this application able to be utilized by everyday citizens but also by smaller news publications around the country who cannot afford to pay programmers full time to create databases and applications. This disruptive technology prompted medical schools and medical practices around the country to begin vetting their physicians to not take the money offered by large pharmaceutical companies to peddle their newest drugs. Now that's what I call power journalism.

Along with talking about the concept of accountability in journalism today Engelberg also covered the current state of the journalism industry as a whole. He seemed very passionate about re-commodifying journalism: “I’m going to make a wild prediction so bear with me here. I think we may have to persuade people to pay for the product that we’re giving them,” Engelberg said. He then went on to use the example of the Bell, California civil budget scandal as an example of the need for the public to invest in the news at a local level. These city administrators approved a budget that went unchecked by local media and as a result, the public was taken advantage of. As a journalist myself I can obviously appreciate the monetary gain that would be had by my profession but I feel this vision is ultimately unrealistic. In the age of Twitter and Facebook people simply will not invest in something that they feel they can get for free through other channels.

Despite Engelberg's call to re-commodify news, he expressed optimism for the future of the journalism industry as a whole citing the Internet as an ironic hero of the industry, "Lost in the chaos there is some good news. The Internet which destroyed the newspaper industry represents endless possibilities in the field of journalism." I would like to echo the endorsement of Mr. Engelberg and say that I believe in the future of journalism and as long as our societal structure stands, journalism will be there standing right behind it watching over it making sure it doesn't step out of line.

“Two centuries ago it was established, a probing journalism was an essential element to maintain our democracy. You cannot have democracy without a free press.” - Stephen Engelberg