Knight’s legal, press freedom priorities for 2023
Broadening local legal services, enhancing journalist safety and continuing support of the First Amendment
We’ve mentioned in previous issues of the newsletter that Knight is currently examining the best ways to build up infrastructure within the journalism community and produce an ecosystem that is functional, sustainable, diverse, and scalable. That infrastructure should be built on a steady foundation that includes the maintenance and expansion of robust pro bono or low-cost networks of attorneys providing legal services to newsrooms, the vigorous protection of journalist safety and the preservation of the protections of the First Amendment.
For 2023, we’re focusing on building out these three areas. While Knight has supported and currently supports excellent organizations such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Committee to Protect Journalists and various First Amendment clinics at prominent universities, Knight is always looking for new voices and new organizations to support.
We’re interested in ideas that fit within the following categories:
Broadening the network of local legal services for journalists
Journalists want to produce content that matters, and a lack of access to legal support and services can negatively impact that goal. When journalists face pushback from officials when filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or hesitate to publish due to fear of retaliatory defamation claims, their ability to produce quality stories is affected. This year, we’re hoping to learn about innovative ideas on how lawyers can help newsrooms that go beyond FOIA and defamation. We’re particularly interested in what community-based pro bono lawyering can and should look like, new ideas for closing demonstrated legal gaps in newsrooms and insights on how to properly address the legal implications of emerging technologies.
Enhancing journalist safety, domestically and abroad
While Knight’s journalism work is almost entirely centered around local news in the U.S., we make an exception for work that enhances journalist safety. Legal, digital and physical safety threats to journalists abroad can be harbingers for similar press freedom concerns closer to home. As a result, it is vital that they are prioritized alongside domestic safety issues.
In 2023, we’re seeking reactive and proactive ideas to protect journalist safety anywhere in the world, with a particular interest in ways to prevent and mitigate the worst harms before they happen.
Increasing First Amendment support in the newsroom, the courtroom and beyond
One of Knight’s core values is support of the First Amendment, including press freedom and free speech. We are enthusiastic about ideas to best safeguard these rights – whether through trainings to increase legal literacy, supporting those who are directly litigating First Amendment cases or something entirely new.
As with all of these priorities, the specifics are up to you and those in your network. Contact me at aboulafia@kf.org with questions and/or ideas.
Other news around the horn…
Philanthropy
💸 AJP leads charge for philanthropy-supported news. The American Journalism Project (AJP) hasn’t just funded local news outlets around the country—it’s also been helping bring more philanthropic dollars into the field. Digiday reported on the increase in philanthropy in local news and focused on the $130 million that AJP has helped raise in many communities. Plus, AJP focuses that funding on the business side, because, as AJP CEO Sarabeth Berman told Digiday, “we think it’s really important that from day one, you are hiring and building the capacity to bring in other revenue streams.” Just how scorching is AJP’s current roll? It was named one of Fast Company’s 10 most innovative media companies, noting that AJP’s grantees had an average of 67 percent revenue growth in the first year after getting a grant.
🤑 The youth of today actually pay. You might be surprised to learn that a majority of folks in Gen Z or among Millennials donate or pay for news. Of course, you won’t be surprised to learn that the older they are, the more likely they are to pay or donate. That’s according to a new report from the Media Insight Project. Also not surprising is that they are more than twice as likely to pay or donate for email newsletters, video or audio content from creators than for traditional sources such as print or digital newspapers. What’s a traditional outlet to do? “News organizations should evaluate potential reasons for this, such as perceived authenticity of individual voices,” the report suggests. Uh, yeah.
Data
🏛️ Massive database lands at Center for Public Integrity. The Accountability Project (TAP) is a huge platform that allows journalists to search 1.8 billion public records, including government contractors, nonprofits and voter registrations. It started at the Investigative Reporting Workshop in 2019 but is now moving over to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit that focuses on investigative and accountability journalism, thanks to funding from Knight and the Reva and David Logan Foundation. “TAP will advance Public Integrity’s mission by giving our local news partners access to a deep reservoir of government data so they can hold the powerful to account and equip the public with the knowledge to drive change,” said Public Integrity CEO Paul Cheung.
Impact
🗽Amsterdam News hosts online gun violence discussion. New York Amsterdam News, serving the Black community in the Big Apple, received a grant for a three-year series about gun violence in Black and brown neighborhoods called “Beyond the Barrel of the Gun.” Part of the series includes 12 online convenings, and the first one took place February 27 with a number of panel discussions. The last discussion featured The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia, Mensah Dean and Justin Agrelo, who insisted that typical shooting coverage needs to go into deeper context, seeking patterns in local gun violence to report on bigger picture stories. You can watch the whole convening here.
🚜 Nonprofit brings long-form journalism to rural North Carolina. When it launched in 2021, the Border Belt Independent had a challenging mission: to serve four rural, poor counties in North Carolina with in-depth coverage. A recent profile in Better News showed how they met the mission, producing impactful stories on race, crime and corruption, while distributing their stories for free into local newspapers. They’ve expanded their foundation funding, while also more than tripling page views and boosting engagement time online. “Like anywhere, relationships and trust matter, but it’s even more so in rural areas because people know each other and their families,” the editors wrote in Better News. “Accountability is high because you’ll probably see the subjects of your stories in the grocery store or at the ballfield.”
Cohorts
✊🏽 Women leaders rising. The Online News Association (ONA) announced its 2023 cohort of the Women’s Leadership Accelerator, as seen above. That includes 26 women from 10 states and five countries outside the U.S. They will receive individual coaching, an in-person workshop in Chicago and a closing workshop at the ONA conference in Philadelphia. A majority of the cohort identify as women of color, and they come from publishers as varied as Teen Vogue, Open Vallejo and Sky News.
Fellowships
Trainings in June and October 2023
Deadline to apply: March 31
Moment Institute Middle East Fellowships
Spring 2023
Deadline to apply: March 15
Spring 2023
Deadline to apply: March 31
Trainings
Free, on March 16, March 23, March 30 from 2–3:30 pm ET
Lenfest News Philanthropy Network
AFP’s Digital Investigation Techniques
Online, asynchronous, free
Supported by Google News Initiative
Jobs
🍀 MassLive Media is hiring a VP of Content and VP of Sales. Now is a great time to become a Boston Celtics fan—and work at MassLive Media. They are looking to fill two senior roles: vice president of content and vice president of sales. And just to whet your appetite for a move to Massachusetts, the job ads say that “if you aren’t from around Massachusetts, you might like knowing that our state is pretty cool.”
🔍 ProPublica is hiring an Editor for the Northwest region. ProPublica is seeking an experienced editor to lead its new investigative unit in the Northwest. The editor will hire and supervise three reporters who will be based in Washington, Oregon, Alaska or Idaho—as well as edit three Local Reporting Network partners based at newsrooms in the region. Learn more here.
Upcoming Events 📅
Can American Democracy Survive the 2024 Elections?
UCLA Campus and online
March 17, 8:30 am to 5 pm PT
Building and Expanding News / Academic Partnerships
Various locations, produced by the Center for Community News
March 17–August 6
Public Media Virtual Career Fair
Online
March 29, 12–3 pm ET
International Symposium for Online Journalism
Austin
April 14–15
International Journalism Festival
Perugia, Italy
April 19–23
Online
April 26–28
Collaborative Journalism Summit
Washington, DC
June 6–7
Washington, DC
June 8–9
Philadelphia
August 23–26
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News @ Knight Credits
Written by Ariana Aboulafia, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Jim Brady, Jessica Clark and Rebecca Dinar
A Knight + Dot Connector Joint