Building an Engaged Community through Collaboration and In-Depth Investigations, All While Maintaining a Sense of Humor

Siena co-founder Miglė Krancevičiūtė participating in a media freedom protest. Photo: Žygimantas Gedvila / Courtesy of Siena Building an Engaged Community through Collaboration and In-Depth Investigations, All While Maintaining a Sense of Humor “The thing we feared the most in the very beginning, given our relaxed vibe, was becoming too serious and turning into a bureaucratic office,” says Miglė Krancevičiūtė, co-founder of the Lithuanian investigative outlet Siena. As we speak, she is leaning against a custom-printed pillow with a tongue-in-cheek quote — “financial cushion!” — from one of their recent investigations. Fans of their work, and follow-the-money anti-corruption investigations in general, can buy the cushion in their online shop for €25 (about $28). Founded in 2019, the nonprofit newsroom has taken part in hard-hitting investigations led by international networks, including projects like Dubai Unlocked, the FinCEN files, and the Pandora Papers, and in 2022, the outlet became one of GIJN’s members. But its core mission is to bring that networked journalism experience home to Lithuania. To the west of the country, across the Baltic Sea, lies Sweden, where the team at Siena draws journalistic inspiration. On the other side of a forested border is Belarus, whose internationally sanctioned dictator is a target of numerous Siena investigations. What started from projects with local media later evolved into pooling resources with the country’s major investigative teams. “There will always be enough stories for all,” Krancevičiūtė says. “Things are not improving that much, and we aren’t cleaning up as fast as the others poop.” An Outlet Committed to Investigative Reporting Siena was co-founded by Šarūnas Černiauskas and Krancevičiūtė to become a truly collaborative and fully independent journalism venture. As of 2026, they include a core team of three and work with freelancers as needed, as well as with international partners like the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to official filings, their revenues have been rising consistently, from circa €88,000 in 2022 to over €265,000 in 2025 (US$100,000 – $305,000). As a nonprofit, Siena can receive Lithuanian taxpayers’ tax allocations, and they also have an active Patreon community and receive philanthropic grants for journalism. During the reporting of this story, news came out that the team’s finances will be further boosted after Černiauskas and a collaborator were awarded €200,000 as part of the Pamatai investigative journalism prize. Siena often collaborates with publishing partners, but they also publish multimedia stories on their website. Publicly available stories are often text-based, with videos embedded, while Patreon subscribers get exclusive content and an early preview of Siena’s work. Over the years, Siena has developed a reputation for investigations scrutinizing the finances of powerful people: politicians’ unexplained wealth, sanctions evasion, and organized crime. Its story about a Lithuanian gang allegedly stealing donated clothes in Sweden to trade in Lithuania went viral partly thanks to a catchy soundtrack by a local band. Siena estimates that its investigations have resulted in 19 pre-trial investigations, and helped the state retrieve close to €1.5 million (US$1.72 million) in unpaid taxes. Following Siena’s revelations of a suspicious purchase of Chinese masks from a newly founded company during the pandemic, an ensuing criminal investigation prompted the Lithuanian Public Procurement Office to introduce a public dashboard of COVID-related purchases. Although they have a small team, Siena shows how deep-dive investigative reporting can both be done on a shoestring, and have real impact. “It’s important that an ever-larger part of the society is starting to value small teams like this and the work that they do. The more people support them, the greater their weight will be,” says Rima Urbonaitė, a political scientist who also hosts a show on a popular Lithuanian digital TV channel, Laisvės TV. Prompting Institutions to Act In 2025, Siena and Laisvės TV published a series of investigations into the financial dealings of the then-Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas. The reporting questioned allegedly advantageous state loans and transactions by businesses involving the politician and his family. The investigation prompted protests, and in response to the findings, one of the partners in Lithuania’s ruling coalition threatened to withdraw, and Paluckas resigned in July 2025. In May this year, parliament upheld a request to remove Paluckas’s parliamentary immunity, with prosecutors alleging illicit enrichment. Paluckas has denied the allegations and said he can justify “every cent” of his income. A pre-trial investigation is ongoing. Answering parliamentary questions about the journalists’ findings a month before his resignation, Paluckas lashed out at the reporters who had led the investigation, defiantly speaking of “investigations as a business” and compared paywalled, audience-supported media like Siena and Laisvės TV to OnlyFans, a content monetization platform popular among sex workers. Urbonaitė says the story that ultimately sank the prime minister revealed the pain points in the relationship between the media and politicians: “For them [the media] is more like a source of problems, and we have reached the stage of a zero-sum game, where it’s either us or them.” Although hostility to journalists in the country is not new, Urbonaitė says that with each successive government, politicians are more prone to ignore investigative journalism findings unless law enforcement acts, or, in her words, until handcuffs appear. “The case of Paluckas showed that even when additional newsrooms stepped in [to investigate], this did not force politicians to react. The only breaking point was raids by law enforcement in the PM’s brother’s home and workplace.” The Pamatai prize mentioned above — which brought that welcome financial award — was granted to Siena because of this investigation. The judges emphasized how the series of articles had “examined the accountability of the highest state officials and had a significant impact on Lithuanian political life with the facts it presented.” “Impact happens often — not after each story, but, I would say, in 50% of the cases,” says Siena co-founder and manager Šarūnas Černiauskas. “Of course, there is a correlation with the strength and resilience of the state apparatus. If the state apparatus functions normally, if institutions react to our investigations, impact occurs. But if we were to suddenly become like Hungary under [the recently replaced PM Viktor] Orbán, there will be no impact whatever you do.” His colleague Krancevičiūtė concurs: “Yes, we want impact, but it is never produced by our hands. There has to be a symbiosis between the media, law enforcement, and sometimes local people, the local community, too.” Protests, Community, and Merch Lithuania ranks highly on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, sitting in 15th position as of 2026, with analysts noting “no systematic attempts to censor quality journalism” and that “journalists work in a relatively favorable environment.” But experts have noted that since the COVID-19 pandemic “verbal attacks against the media have become commonplace.” Recent plans to overhaul the governance of the country’s public broadcaster, LRT, also led to a series of protests. The calls for change came after populist politicians claimed that the broadcaster needed reform because of alleged anti-government bias. This alarmed media freedom groups, who warned of the risks of a bill that would make it easier to remove the outlet’s director. Tens of thousands of people have been gathering in Hands Off Free Speech protests ever since, including as recently as late April. Ruling politicians have taken a step back from the initial bill, but have not given up on changing the public broadcaster’s independent governance. Protecting the public broadcaster united journalists, and Siena’s team was at the heart of the movement, standing with the crowds and inviting people to join the protest. Černiauskas says that the best part was seeing people show up in protests wearing Siena’s ‘merch’ — custom-printed T-shirts containing puns from their investigation. “As we know, when people laugh, they are more engaged with the content. We are not afraid to joke in our investigations,” he says. Siena’s founders are adamant that the change inspired by their investigations is what draws paying subscribers to the website. Taking part in the International Press Institute’s (IPI) program, Siena launched a premium newsletter. The team reported that it successfully raised the number of paying subscribers to 250 in six months, each paying €5.99 (US$7) per month. “Our supporters invest in change,” says Černiauskas. “We make change, and people understand that this is how they get a return on their investment. We have tried various things, like bonus content or podcasts for those who sponsor us most — they weren’t interested. Because change is the main currency.” Siena adds freelancers to its team based on need as they carefully consider expansion. Krancevičiūtė says that having more people on staff would allow Siena to better cover regions outside the capital, Vilnius. For now, the team has to pace itself. There are always too many stories and too little time. Asked about recovery and self-care, Krancevičiūtė speaks about gym breaks and slower days, reprimanding Černiauskas for getting too carried away by work. “And I really like dad jokes — that’s how I relax,” Černiauskas says. “If you don’t laugh in this job, one of two things will happen: you’ll either turn mad or self-important. I’m not sure what’s scarier.” Daiva Repečkaitė is an investigative journalist at Amphora Media. Her work has been published by the Financial Times, The Guardian, Politico and by OCCRP. She has collaborated with Siena in the past, on a freelance basis. She was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, and has worked in multiple countries.