Company lists · Data refreshed September 2026
Top 25 Investigative journalism firms based in the United States
RevenueBase identified 98 investigative journalism firms headquartered in the United States as of September 2026 and tracks 1,634 professional contacts across them, including 701 with verified work emails. New York is the largest hub.
This list covers investigative journalism firms headquartered in the United States, matched on what each company actually does as described in its own words. Ranked by team size, largest first. Every row shows the company's own description, its RevenueBase Smart Search rating, and when it was last checked. Data refreshed September 20, 2026.
Published by RevenueBase, a B2B data infrastructure company. This list was built with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search RevenueBase customers use to build their own targeted lists and unlock verified emails and direct dials at the companies on them. How these lists are built and judged.
The 25 largest investigative journalism firms based in the United States
Ranked by team size| # | Company | Contacts | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 250 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 2 | 176 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “The Pulitzer Center champions the power of stories to make complex issues relevant and inspire action.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 3 | 99 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Mother Jones is a nonprofit, reader-supported newsroom founded in 1976 that reaches millions of people each month across our website, social media, videos, newsletter, and print…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 4 | 76 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Jigsaw Productions is helmed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, considered one of the most prolific and thought-provoking documentary filmmakers of our generation.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 5 | 72 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists tells stories that show how the world really works, triggering positive change.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 6 | 69 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “CSI is a full-service investigative firm that delivers key facts to give our clients an actionable advantage in a wide range of situations.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 7 | 66 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Inside Washington Publishers has more than thirty years experience delivering exclusive, investigative business reporting from Washington, DC in the areas of: environmental/energy…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 8 | 66 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Investigative Group International (IGI) is the premier investigative firm conducting independent, high-touch investigations worldwide.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 9 | 65 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “What we do WhoWhatWhy embodies a form of investigative reporting that is rigorous, relentless and scientific, we call it forensic journalism.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 10 | 64 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Founded in 1978, Smith & Carson is a trusted and highly experienced investigative research firm that partners with the world's leading organizations to handle complex…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 11 | 62 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “FRONTLINE is investigative journalism that questions, explains and changes our world.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 12 | 60 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “More Perfect Union, an Emmy award-winning advocacy journalism nonprofit, is built on a simple credo: “Building power for the working class.” Here’s what that means: We speak…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 13 | 41 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Established in 1987, RJN Investigations, Inc.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 14 | 39 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 15 | 33 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Intricately structured, meticulously reported stories from the best journalists in the world.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 16 | 30 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “About The Intercept: The Intercept was launched in 2014 to provide an outlet for fearless, adversarial journalism.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 17 | 23 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Hetherington Group is a leader in investigative due diligence, corporate intelligence, and cyber investigations.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 18 | 23 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Center for Public Integrity is an investigative newsroom that gives voice to the public and sparks change by going behind closed doors to reveal abuses of power in Washington.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 19 | 22 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “We are a journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 20 | 21 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 on the notion that a handful of plucky young writers and editors, armed with an honest desire to make government work and a willingness…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 21 | 18 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “The Investigative Reporting Workshop, based at the School of Communication at American University, was founded in 2008 by longtime investigative journalist Chuck Lewis.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 22 | 15 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “As a nonprofit, collaborative newsroom, InvestigateWest’s mission is to produce high-impact investigative journalism that holds power accountable, exposes injustice and empowers…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 23 | 13 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “CalStar Unlimited (CA PI# 187978) is an investigative firm serving businesses, as well as the insurance companies and attorneys who work on their behalf, throughout California…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 24 | 12 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 25 | 10 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting is the state’s only independent, nonpartisan and collaborative nonprofit newsroom dedicated to statewide, data-driven investigative…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 20, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
RevenueBase Smart Search
RevenueBase Smart Search assesses information from a company’s LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website, and other publicly available sources. It uses that information to rate how closely the company relates to this list’s category: investigative journalism firms. Every row carries its rating and the description the rating was read from, so each one can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Strong evidence
- The company's own public description of its business names investigative journalism firms.
- Partial evidence
- Its own public description names part of investigative journalism firms, so it works in or next to the category without describing itself that way.
- Indirect evidence
- The description shown does not name investigative journalism firms. The match rests on the rest of the company's public profile rather than the one sentence quoted here, so this is the rating to check first.
RevenueBase Smart Search is how these lists are built: RevenueBase's data engine and AI assemble the companies that match a category defined in a user's own words, so a list can be about what companies actually do rather than about whichever industry code they were filed under.
Showing 25 of 98 investigative journalism firms based in the United States
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Investigative journalism firms based in the United States at a glance
As of Sep 20, 2026Companies by employee count
Email recency for this list is measured worldwide rather than for United States, so it is reported there. Company counts and contact totals on this page are exact for United States, over 98 companies.
How this list was built
Company categories are rarely black and white. RevenueBase reads each company's own description of its business to decide whether it belongs among investigative journalism firms, so some rows will be adjacent to the category rather than pure plays. The description and RevenueBase Smart Search rating on every row are there so you can check each match yourself.
- Source
- The RevenueBase company graph: 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts resolved from primary sources, queried with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search available to every RevenueBase user.
- What qualifies
- Companies headquartered in the United States whose own description of what they do matches “investigative journalism firms”. Matching reads each company's description, not its industry code or its name.
- RevenueBase Smart Search
- RevenueBase Smart Search is how this list is assembled and how each row is rated. RevenueBase's data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to a category defined in a user's own words. Each row is rated strong evidence (its own description names investigative journalism firms), partial evidence (it names part of the category) or indirect evidence (the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile). The description supporting each rating is quoted on the row.
- What we exclude
- Companies whose own description does not clearly place them among investigative journalism firms, and records with no verified work email. Companies headquartered outside United States are excluded even when they keep an office there.
- Match quality
- In blind human judging of this matching method, 86% of matched companies were on target. Expect roughly 1 in 7 rows to be adjacent to the category rather than a pure play. Every row shows the company's own description and its RevenueBase Smart Search rating so you can judge each match yourself. Read the full methodology: how the lists are built, how the judging worked, and what the figure means.
- Ranking
- Team size, largest first: companies are ordered by the number of professionals RevenueBase tracks at each one. Employee ranges shown are reported bands, for context.
- Verification
- Every listed company carries at least one verified work email, 701 across the full list. Contacts re-verify on a rolling cadence, and each contact's own verification date is shown inside RevenueBase.
- Refresh
- This page's figures were pulled from the company graph on September 20, 2026. Lists refresh periodically as the graph is re-checked.
- Corrections
- Wrong category, wrong headquarters, or a company that has closed? Use “Report an issue” on any row. Reports go to the RevenueBase Data Team and feed back into the company graph.
Frequently asked
What is RevenueBase Smart Search?
RevenueBase Smart Search is how RevenueBase decides which companies belong on this list and how strongly each one fits. Its data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to the category the list is about. Each row is rated strong evidence when the company's own description names investigative journalism firms, partial evidence when it names part of the category, and indirect evidence when the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile.
How many investigative journalism firms are there based in the United States?
RevenueBase identified 98 investigative journalism firms headquartered in the United States as of September 2026, matched on each company's own description of what it does rather than its industry code.
What is the largest company on this list?
Propublica, headquartered in New York, tops this list with the largest team on record.
Which city has the most investigative journalism firms?
New York leads with 11 headquartered companies, followed by Washington (11) and Chicago (4).
How do I get contact information for these companies?
A free RevenueBase account lets you run this exact search and work the top results, verified emails and direct dials included. Upgrading unlocks all 701 verified decision-maker contacts tracked across these 98 companies.
How current is this list?
The list refreshes periodically as the company graph is re-checked. This page's figures were pulled on September 20, 2026.
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About this data
RevenueBase is a B2B data infrastructure company. Its company graph covers 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts, with emails verified on a rolling cadence rather than scraped once and left to decay. These company lists are generated directly from that graph with RevenueBase Smart Search, the same natural-language company search every RevenueBase user has: describe a market in plain words, get the companies that match, and add verified emails and direct dials for the people at them. It is the same data that powers RevenueBase's B2B data products, and a free account includes 500 credits to start. How these lists are built and judged.
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