Advisory Board Member

Brant Houston is a professor and Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting at the College of Media at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he oversees an award-winning community newsroom, CU-CitizenAccess.org. Houston previously served for more than a decade as the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a 5,000-member organization. He is a co-founder and past chair of the Institute for Nonprofit News which began with 27 member organizations in 2009 and has grown to more than 450 members. He also has been active for the last 15 years in supporting many INN member organizations as they start up, providing organizational, fundraising and editorial advice.

Before joining IRE, he was an investigative reporter at U.S. daily newspapers for 17 years. Houston has authored five editions of “Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide” and co-authored the fourth, fifth and sixth editions of “The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook.” His most recent book is “Changing Models for Journalism: Reinventing the Newsroom.” He has taught investigative and data journalism reporting in 30 countries, and provides editorial services to journalists in the U.S. and internationally. He is co-founder of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, an association of 250 nonprofit newsrooms in 95 countries.