The Institute for Public Service Reporting (also known as The Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis) is a nonprofit news organization based in Memphis, Tennessee. Its website states that it is a professionally staffed newsroom focused on independent investigative reporting and in-depth explanatory journalism while providing hands-on training to university students. Housed in the Edward J. Meeman Journalism Building on the University of Memphis campus, the newsroom is a semi-autonomous branch of the university and is not formally part of the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media. Articles produced by The Institute for Public Service Reporting are free to the public on its website. Content produced by the news organization is also distributed through an exclusive contract with The Daily Memphian, a nonprofit, digital news outlet in Memphis. It also partners with Memphis’ public radio affiliate, WKNO-FM. History In 2018, The University of Memphis opened The Institute of Public Service Reporting on campus to produce robust, independent investigative and enterprise reporting while also providing hands-on training to students. As the first step in the effort, it hired award-winning investigative reporter Marc Perrusquia as Distinguished Journalist in Residence and director with Louis Graham, former The Commercial Appeal editor. Perrusquia had recently left The Commercial Appeal after a 29-year career. The Institute was created around the same time an online-only newspaper called The Daily Memphian emerged, which had a paywall with subscribers paying $7 per month. At that time the two news outlets entered into an agreement where investigative news stories created by the Institute would be published on the The Daily Memphian website through a paid-use agreement. In 2019, award-winning Memphis journalist David Waters joined the staff as assistant director. In 2022, Laura Faith Kebede was brought on as the third full time staff reported, serving as coordinator of “Civil Wrongs,’’ a serialized reporting project that will investigate unsolved and unresolved murders of the civil rights era as well as historical and modern abuses ranging from environmental injustice to voter suppression and police oppression. Notable reporting and projects Starting in June 2020, The Institute for Public Service Reporting began reporting a series of articles in response to the city of Memphis' delay in fulfilling public record requests for excessive-force complaints filed against Memphis Police Department officers over the last five years, which would have cost $6,000 in fees. Rather than pay the free, the Institute's Director, Marc