The latest non-profit news outlet aimed at investigative reporting may well be FairWarning.org.

The brainchild of former Los Angeles Times reporters Myron Levin and Joanna Lin, the outfit plans to investigate issues involving safety, health and corporate conduct.

“The hope is to provide stories of vital public interest that are overlooked or under-reported in most media,” says Levin, 61, who spent 23 years at the Times before taking a buyout in 2008. “We want to do what little we can to help fill the gap in robust, deeply reported stories that is left by the contraction of media.”

Levin, who says the project has some $250,000 in donations for at least its first year, will be in the model of ProPublica or other recently created non-profit news outlets. Major donors include the Ethics and Excellence Journalism Foundation and the Charles Evans Foundation.

With three part-time students from U.C.-Berkeley and U.S.C. and a small office in Sherman Oaks, Calif., the organizers hope to formally launch in about two weeks.

The Web site is already up at www.fairwarning.org.