Public Service Journalism Initiative

Project Multatuli is a collective initiative dedicated to carrying out the ideals of public journalism by serving the underreported and holding power accountable.

Our organization produces data-based, deeply researched news stories. Our work involves collaboration with other news organizations, research bodies, and civil society groups that strive for democracy, human rights, social justice, environmental sustainability, and equal rights for all.

Our work is available for syndication by local, national, and international media under a Creative Commons license.

We are writers, editors, filmmakers, photographers, data journalists, and digital campaign strategists, among others, who work based on the principles of independence, fairness, and accuracy.

We welcome funding opportunities from both the public and nonprofit foundations that share our vision of strengthening democracy, revealing systematic wrongdoings and injustice, and holding power accountable.

Why Multatuli?

Project Multatuli’s name comes from the Latin for “I have suffered much.”

The word is perhaps best known as the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, the author of Max Havelaar, which Pramoedya Ananta Toer called “the book that killed colonialism.”

This is why we have chosen it as the name of our venture: a public interest journalism organization that seeks to empower those who have suffered much — the urban and rural poor, victims of sex and gender discrimination, indigenous peoples, and others — and to expose injustices that have, in many cases, changed little from colonial times.