When Documented co-founder Max Siegelbaum talks about why the nonprofit’s website includes a page listing dozens of resources for immigrants in New York City – with links to free legal services and help with housing, healthcare and food – he frames the decision as a matter of old-fashioned community service journalism. And he describes it as fully consistent with Documented’s ethics policy of refusing to support any particular political agenda or to advocate for specific legislative proposals.
Siegelbaum pushed back at the suggestion that offering links to resources might be seen as advocacy or activism. Documented’s mission, after all, is “reporting with and for immigrant communities in New York City,” he said. Giving those communities easy access to crucial information, he adds, is akin to The Wall Street Journal offering tax-prep guidance to its readers or to The New York Times posting DIY videos about how to patch a wall.
“We see this as providing information for a group of people who have traditionally been missed by the media,” Siegelbaum said. “These are basic things, legal rights. There’s no sort of judgment cast or change inherent in it. People ask us questions about how to do things and we respond with journalism.”
Documented also produces fleshed-out news stories, in addition to links to outside organizations, detailing immigrants’ rights to resources. In February, for instance, a Documented reporter wrote a piece explaining how undocumented immigrants can mitigate the financial disruption of deportation by filing a power-of-attorney form to allow a designated agent to transfer and withdraw funds, including money for rent and legal fees.
And in March, when Documented ran a story about state and federal laws prohibiting employers from threatening to call immigration authorities, it embedded links to public interest groups that can provide legal assistance to migrants facing illegal threats from their employers.
“What we are doing is mostly just bringing questions to experts, like we would covering any news story, and then just relaying that information,” Siegelbaum said. “There’s no sort of advice or anything like that.”
Siegelbaum said he has not heard any complaints from city, state or federal officials about Documented’s community service journalism. “Generally, they don’t give us very much information,” the Documented editor said, adding that he does not think immigration authorities are less cooperative with his reporters than with other journalists.
“They’re just not the most cooperative sources,” Siegelbaum said.