Our role as an investigative news organization lies elsewhere. In the coming months and years, we will be devoting a significant portion of our staff to chronicling the effects of what promises to be a drastic change in the role of the federal government in all of our lives.

This is nothing new for us. Over the past three presidential administrations, we have closely covered the actions of the federal government, from the Navy’s propensity for building expensive ships that aren’t seaworthy to the failings of regulators to protect the public’s health and safety. 

I’ve been a reporter and editor for more than four decades, long enough to see the pendulum of public sentiment swing from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama to Trump. At moments of seismic shift in our country, I like to look back on the words of Adolph S. Ochs when he took control of The New York Times in 1896. The paper, he wrote, would “give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved.” 

In the 21st century, “without fear or favor” means maintaining a fact-based, data-driven approach to journalism. Our job is to give readers an independent, verifiable account of what’s happening, even if the president is calling us enemies of the people or bloodsuckers. At ProPublica, our mantra is that we bring the receipts to every story we publish.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that is fiercely independent and people-powered. Join over 55,000 members and make a donation of any amount to support fact-based journalism that shines a light on injustice, corruption and breaches of the public trust. 

We are journalists, not leaders of the resistance.

There are some who will argue that ProPublica’s model of doing journalism that spurs reforms will be hobbled when one political party controls both branches of Congress and the White House. 

I do not agree. 

Again and again, we have seen powerfully documented stories stir change in states dominated by one party. One example: Our series on Florida’s shabby treatment of the families of children born with brain injuries prompted Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led Legislature to take immediate action. ProPublica’s story that included a recording of a 6-year-old Salvadoran girl wailing for her mother prompted an immediate end to the first Trump administration’s policy of deterring migrants by separating families. 

As we have done for each presidential administration since 2008, our reporters will begin with basic questions about new government policies: Who is benefiting? Who is suffering? What are the unintended consequences?

We are mindful that we may be entering a new era, one without precedent. Trump’s first administration, which included two impeachments, was defined by his penchant for smashing norms. 

There will be far fewer guardrails in the second Trump presidency. The Supreme Court’s decision declaring presidents presumptively immune from prosecution for official acts and the return of Republican control of the Senate, and perhaps the House, mean there will be few, if any, checks on the power of the president.

Trump famously said that he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day One.” In fact, it will take a while for a picture to emerge of how he plans to use the expansive authority of his office.