The Current’s Margaret Coker on reviving an investigative news desert

Margaret Coker has covered stories from 32 countries on four continents, working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets. In 2020, she returned home to Savannah, Georgia, to found The Current, a nonprofit news source dedicated to filling the vacuum of high-quality investigative news on the coast.

In this episode, we chat about her international reporting, founding a news start-up and why nonprofit news is increasingly important.

Check out Margaret’s book, “The Spymaster of Baghdad,” here. You can read some of her reporting in The Current about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery and racism in the Glynn County police force.

“High quality facts, high quality information, high quality local news should be a public good and not a for-profit commodity. That is at the essence why nonprofit news matters.”

Guest: Margaret Coker, editor-in-chief of The Current.

Host: Jacqueline GaNun.