Global Integrity 19

Public Integrity

Moral Wholeness for a Whole World

Image source: Watchdog RI website

http://watchdogri.org/

Integrity is moral wholeness—living consistently in moral wholeness. Its opposite is corruption, the distortion, perversion, and deterioration of moral goodness, resulting in the exploitation of people. Global integrity is moral wholeness at all levels in our world—from the individual to the institutional to the international. Global integrity is requisite for “building the future we want—being the people we need.” It is not easy, it is not always black and white, and it can be risky. These entries explore the many facets of integrity with a view towards the global efforts to promote sustainable development and wellbeing.

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Center for Public Integrity

https://www.publicintegrity.org/

This entry focuses on "public integrity" which we define as the right and responsibility of citizens to join together in order to monitor, promote, and protect integrity in its communities, institutions, and governments. We share one example of a USA-focussed organization that we have heard about although not connected with personally (e.g., to better understand its emphases/orientations). The quotes below are from the organization's website.

"The Center for Public Integrity was founded in 1989...[and is one of the USA's] oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations and winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. Our mission: To serve democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of public trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism....The Center’s editorial staff consists of journalists, [Freedom of Information Act] experts, copy editors, researchers, fact-checkers and data experts who work on the Center’s investigative projects and stories. The Center distributes its investigations through its award-winning website and to all forms of media; broadcast, print, online, and blogs, around the globe."

"The Center...focuses its investigations on the following areas: money and politics, government waste/fraud/abuse, the environment, healthcare reform, national security and state government transparency.  We have won more than 50 major journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award and numerous honors from the Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Online News Association, Overseas Press Club, Society of Environmental Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists."

Applications
--Have a look at the Center's website. What is one area in particular that interests you?
--How is this type of public service-integrity center present in other countries besides the USA? It would be good to see a list!