All three had grown dissatisfied with what was being done in the name of investigative journalism by established news organizations.[15] They chose the name public integrity as a way of underlying the "ultimate purpose of investigative journalism" which is "to hold those in power accountable and to inform the public about significant distortions of the truth."[12][16] In their tenth anniversary Annual Report Piller described their first meetings in their "Boardroom—the cheap seats at the Baltimore Orioles game.