Atlanta Unfiltered

Atlanta Unfiltered (that would be me) is one of three winners of $1,000 investigative fellowships from Investigative Reporters and Editors for 2009.

The two other winners were Jonathan Jones and Anna Sussman, founders of backpackjournalist.org, which reports on stories of global interest from Africa, India and Southeast Asia. (Check them out. We are humbled to be mentioned in the same breath.)

IRE’s announcement noted the importance of investigative freelancers these days.

“Many outlets that use in-depth reporting pay far too little for freelancers to complete their research and writing. Even the magazines, newspapers, broadcast outlets and Web sites paying at the top of the scale rarely cover everything,” said Steve Weinberg, former executive director of IRE and chairman of the judging committee. “That is why the money from IRE can be crucial to completion of a worthy project.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This truly is an unexpected honor for which I am very grateful. This also is an opportunity to note that Atlanta Unfiltered would be honored to accept your financial donation to help us keep shining a light on the public’s business. Atlantans clearly place a high value on solid, unbiased, local investigative reporting (Unfiltered received 65,000 page views in the last month alone).

Checks may be made payable to Atlanta Unfiltered and mailed to P.O. Box 730, Decatur, GA 30031. We also have a PayPal account that processes credit cards, debit cards and bank transfers. Donations are NOT tax-deductible; we are for-profit (in the abstract sense — not, unfortunately, in the “we’re-making-a-profit” sense.)

Advertisements are also available at quite reasonable rates. Contact Jeff Cochran at jeff@atlantaunfiltered.com for details. End of Shameless Plug.