Imagine a global, investigative news outfit that gets it right about Israel and the entire Middle East. Imagine a multimedia and multilingual news operation that actually knows how to dig for the facts in the region — and refuses to pull its punches.

Mideast Dig is an independent, nonprofit news organization with a mission to stop the downward spiral in journalism standards on the Israeli-Palestinian and other Middle East conflicts, and a variety of related topics. Among them are Iran; the financing of global terrorism; Islamic extremism; organized crime; Middle East banks involved in money laundering; and the boycott-Israel movement.

We will accomplish that mission by producing groundbreaking, hard-hitting investigative reporting on significant topics and events in the Middle East that do not receive adequate coverage — or that are entirely ignored by our big-media colleagues. We will also vigorously critique articles and broadcast segments that fail to meet long-established professional standards, especially when those failures are swept under the rug by news editors. As the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis so aptly put it a century ago: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Is it not high time for more sunlight in the Middle East’s media wasteland? In the best traditions of investigative reporting, “The Dig” will drill deeply beneath the surface in the Middle East for underlying realities. True investigative reporting is not just reporting about facts, but reporting the truth about the facts.

The need is dire, especially given the increasing importance to the world of the entire Middle East. However, when it comes to media coverage of the region, it’s hardly a secret that the truth is often consigned to making cameo appearances. Many large, respected news organizations produce inaccurate or superficial stories for an assortment of unacceptable reasons — outright bias; laziness; fear; peer pressure; incompetence; inexperience; ignorance of the region’s history; an absence of investigative reporters in the field; the commission of the omission of vital information; sometimes all of the above.

From New York to London, even rudimentary fact-checking is habitually ignored by editors and producers — often just on the headlines, let alone within the bodies of news stories. On the ground, in cities such as Jerusalem and Cairo, expat reporters who haven’t bothered to learn the local languages (which would enable them to communicate directly with key sources) tend to engage in ‘pack journalism’ — relying on the same translators, ‘fixers,’ stringers, and agenda-pushing NGOs. Meanwhile, media ombudspeople and professional watchdog groups, such as the Columbia Journalism Review, are (at best) asleep. It has become, in essence, a race to the bottom.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel comprises nearly 500 reporters — a reflection of an obsessive focus on one conflict at the expense of so many around the world that are barely covered. We are committed to probing why this is so, and why the output of the vast majority of this foreign press corps leaves so much to be desired. We are equally committed to pushing for a climate where independent and rigorous investigative reporting can be practiced freely in parts of the Middle East where such reporting is extremely dangerous to engage in — from Iran, Jordan and Turkey, to Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. The list goes on.

We believe that for any real and sustainable reform to happen in an industry — be it law, finance, media or any field — it can only come about from within that profession.

We are incorporated as a nonprofit news organization, and have received tax-exempt status under Rule 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. We are governed by a corporate board, and benefit from a strong and diverse advisory board. Biographies of the entire team can be found here at our Masthead. Both boards are in formation, with the corporate board currently consisting of longtime investigative journalist Richard Behar, Editor of Mideast Dig; and Maer Roshan, the acclaimed magazine editor and media entrepreneur. Our Board of Advisors includes the famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams; venerable radio host Jim Campbell; veteran editor and media ethics authority Gene Foreman, plus other preeminent reporters, writers and Mideast experts. Renowned journalists James Kirchick and Ben-Dror Yemini have joined as Contributing Editors.

Here’s but one example of the kind of work you will see in Mideast Dig: A New York Observer cover story, co-written by Behar, which exposed a deeply-flawed investigation by Associated Press of the Gazan civilians killed during the last Israel-Hamas war. The AP is one of the world’s largest and oldest news organizations, and boasts on its website that it’s among the “most trusted sources of independent news-gathering.” However, as exposed in the Observer story, the AP grossly failed its own editorial standards in this so-called probe of theirs — with eight posed photographs, intentional mischaracterizations, buried corrections, one-sided sourcing and cherry-picked quotes. All of this contributed to AP’s false conclusion about “most” Gaza deaths being civilians.

It wasn’t the first time AP failed its own written principles, as well as the deep-rooted standards of the profession. Unfortunately, such reporting is all-too-common in the Middle East by numerous major media outlets — from the New York Times to CNN, from Time magazine to the BBC, from the Washington Post to National Public Radio.

It’s time for seasoned media professionals to do something about it. And we are ready to lead the way.