Watchdog reporting is expensive and challenging, even in good times. A deep recession and historic changes in the news business make it especially difficult, so much that it's at risk of becoming an endangered species.

Its absence is especially noticeable from regional newspapers that once put teams of journalists on major public interest stories and projects with statewide impact.

I found a small but telling sign in a hallway at the Investigative Reporters and Editors meeting in Baltimore, Md., a couple of weeks ago. The group usually reserves space for speakers, IRE award winners and others to share copies of their best investigative and enterprise work. This year I found samples from just two newsrooms, The Seattle Times and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

These developments are painful, given the dire need for this kind of reporting to inform consumers, citizens and society in general. This is perhaps why a recent bloom of non-profit and academic reporting centers is so encouraging.

The non-profit news organization is not a new animal. The Center for Investigative Reporting started more than 30 years ago. Charles Lewis began the Center for Public Integrity in his home in 1989. But more regional non-profits and universities are entering the field, clearly hoping to help fill a breach left by fewer journalists and investigative teams working for more traditional media outlets.

Foundations and grant-makers, despite their own economic troubles, are enthusiastically supporting them, writes David Westphal, former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers, who is now at the Annenberg School for Communication.

In just the past few weeks, the movement seems to have gathered critical mass.

IRE organized an afternoon of workshops during last month's meeting to talk about how to organize and sustain independent journalism centers. A highlight was Lewis recounting the "wild high-wire act" of building the Center for Public Integrity, which has since become a well-established shop that focuses most of its reporting attention on Washington's powerful institutions.

During the same IRE conference, The Associated Press announced plans to distribute stories of four of such groups – The Center for Public Integrity, Center for Investigative Reporting, Investigative Reporting Workshop and ProPublica.

This week 38 non-profit publishers and academics met in Westchester County, N.Y., to talk about working together on reporting projects as well as the mundane matters associated with running any non-profit business. They are calling their group the Investigative News Network.

This all may seem hundreds of miles removed from the arrests, budgets, taxes, festivals and school board decisions that occupy most community journalists' time. But the work of these non-profits and academic centers need not be, and should not be, so distant:

• Local enterprise. Much of their reporting lends itself to local stories. The Center for Public Integrity monitors how forthcoming state legislatures are with details of members’ finances, a story quickly made relevant to local readers. The Investigative Reporting Workshop posts an easy-to-use tool monitoring the financial condition of local banks throughout the country. The Center for Investigative Reporting posts a page of journalism guides and tools aimed at citizen and professional journalists.
• Partnerships. Many centers seek relationships with established news outlets. They may want to work together on stories. Or they may need a source to publish and publicize their work. Reporting centers devoted to regions or states are more likely than groups with a national focus to initiate such connections with community newsrooms. The partnerships can be mutually beneficial.

The reporting from these non-profit centers is no panacea, of course. It will never replace the work of regional and big-city newspapers - or community newsrooms, for that matter.

That brings up a recurring theme of any gathering of investigative journalists, which was repeated yet again when the IRE convened last month. The best watchdog and enterprise reporting doesn't always come from big teams assembled to tackle major projects. Just as often it springs from the routine work of local reporters who chase leads, dig for information and ask questions.

They are the ones keeping watchdog reporting alive.