What investigative journalism costs

Mother Jones asked the New York Times to provide a cost breakdown of the major investigative piece in the magazine this past weekend, done in collaboration with ProPublica:

• 2 years of reporting by a staff writer, full-time: 200k
• Editing for that period by 2 ProPublica editors: 30k
• Lawyering hours at ProPublica: 20K
• Editing hours at the Times magazine over past year (from me to copy editors, 5 editors in all involved): 40k
• Times fact-checking: 10k
• Photography fees plus expenses: 40k
• Times lawyering fees: 20k
• Web and Web graphic costs at both the Times and ProPublica: 10k
• Cost of adding 6 pages to the feature well to accommodate story: 24k
  

Total: 394k