Investigative & Reporting Partnerships

Consumer Reports digs into the facts, working with a number of other journalism and investigative reporting groups to cover some of the most important news for consumers, often resulting in companies or governments taking action to remedy a problem.

Typically, when we partner on editorial initiatives, the respective institutions operate independently. Any policy positions that Consumer Reports may take in the marketplace (such as on car insurance rates or student debt) do not reflect the views of the other organization(s). CR’s relationship with any reporting and research partners will always be disclosed prominently as part of CR’s coverage.

For example, Consumer Reports partnered with the nonprofit news organization ProPublica to produce a special report on car insurance pricing in minority communities. Together, our teams pored over reams of insurance premium data across several major cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, to analyze whether the premiums being charged to drivers are justified by the risk in their ZIP codes. The article was written and reported by ProPublica with Consumer Reports’ collaboration, and both groups contributed to the videos: “Some Drivers Pay Higher Premiums in Minority ZIPs“; “What a Calif. ZIP Says About Car Insurance Pricing“.

Another example is our partnership with Reveal, from The Center for Investigative Reporting—also a nonprofit organization—to produce a special report on our nation’s growing student debt crisis. Both Consumer Reports and Reveal contributed unique pieces of content to this project, including articles reported and written by each organization, videos, infographics, survey findings, and student profiles.