September brought news of more newspaper layoffs, from the publishing giant Gannett down to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, owned by British Columbia-based Black Press.

But browsing around, not all the news is bad.

From CJR.org: “Investigative reporting has found a new home: podcasts”

INVESTIGATIONS HAVE BECOME a staple of the podcast world, due in large part to the fandom surrounding true-crime productions like Serial and Criminal, and to an extent, the gumshoe-inspired Mystery Show. On those shows, the hosts assume the role of detective, bringing listeners along for the ride as they unspool threads of the mysteries at hand. The new crop of investigative podcasts like Frontline Dispatch take a different approach. They aren’t solving mysteries, or even attempting to, but revealing truths—about abuses of power, environmental degradation, and so on.

They’re full of twists and turns like Serial and Mystery Show before them, and entertain as much as they inform. But solvability is not the goal; accountability is. It’s the same logic heralded by a long tradition of print and visual investigative reporters.

Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Review-Journal fields veteran investigative team”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative team was nothing more than a job advertisement 16 months ago.

Now, with last month’s hiring of investigative reporter Anita Hassan from the Houston Chronicle, the six-person team is complete.

Assistant Managing Editor for Investigations Karisa King joined the Review-Journal from the Chicago Tribune a year ago after a national search for a team leader. King said the reporting team she has assembled will hold accountable Southern Nevada’s most powerful institutions by weaving together data analysis, hard-hitting interviews and compelling storytelling.

Baltimore Sun: “Sinclair Broadcast launches national investigative team”

“We are having incredible success with accountability reporting in multiple markets,” Scott Livingston, Sinclair’s vice president of news, said in an announcement. “Viewers want an honest presentation of the news and appreciate the hard work and dedication required to research and uncover the truth regarding the issues that impact their lives.”

Sinclair plans to shift some daily news coverage resources in many markets to investigative journalism and boost the total number of investigative reporters to more than 100.

Niemanlab.org: “This former hedge fund guy is a one-man nonprofit investigating some of America’s shadiest companies”

“I was like, I can’t believe a year and a half after the financial crisis, no one is doing this stuff. I’m not talking about writing these massive, 10,000-word thumbsuckers about some crappy company that did something to a politically vulnerable population. I’m talking about companies that wake up every day and, using the imprimatur of the law, do things that are unconscionable and appalling. I said: I’m gonna take a public filing, I’m gonna use that as a springboard, I’m gonna write about companies that I think are crap, but I’ll write fairly, I’ll dive into them, I’ll give them a long chance to comment.” He did this first on a blog called The Financial Investigator, then, in 2012, launched the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, a nonprofit where he would do this reporting full-time.

So there’s some good stuff going on out there despite the continuing economic woes of the industry.