The support services that make journalism possible
In the buzz of Press Forward, let’s make sure legal services and keeping journalists safe remain priorities
It’s easy to get caught up in the buzz of the $500 million-plus Press Forward initiative and its potential to transform local newsrooms across America. I mean, we’ve gotten caught up it in too; it’s been the subject of every one of these newsletters for weeks. But the past month has reminded me that part of what makes the work of newsrooms possible is support for legal services, freedom of the press, free expression and the safety of journalists. Without these protections, journalism cannot thrive.
This was made clear at award dinners I recently attended for the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). At ICFJ’s Tribute to Journalists gala, awards went to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, photographer James Nachtwey, Miami Herald Haiti correspondent Jacqueline Charles, Lebanese investigative journalist Riad Kobaissi, and Burkina Faso journalist Mariam Ouédraogo.
Ouédraogo – who has covered the terrible toll of war and terrorists on women in her country – spoke poignantly of the toll her work has taken. “These experiences impacted me so much that I had to undergo psychotherapy and take time off work,” she said in her remarks on receiving the award.
Meanwhile, the RCFP’s Freedom of the Press Awards last month highlighted the work of so many fighting for the rights of journalists to freely report the news. In one inspiring case, the Washington Post’s Lizzie Johnson collaborated with Las Vegas Review-Journal photographer Rachel Aston and Review-Journal executive editor Glenn Cook to uncover the Ponzi scheme that Review-Journal reporter Jeff German was investigating when he was stabbed to death in 2022 by the subject of his investigation. RCFP notes that the award-winning coverage “honored German’s legacy and demonstrated that attacks on the First Amendment and those who live by its values cannot prevent truth from coming to light.”
Knight has supported ICFJ since 1987, and RCFP since 1978. That’s how important we think these organizations—and the vital work they do—are to journalism’s core.
On the legal front, we’ve seen the amazing work of the ProJourn collaborative—under the administration of RCFP, Microsoft and Davis Wright Tremaine—in helping local news outlets with no-cost legal help with pre-publication review of stories and requests for public records. We also support RCFP’s Local Legal Initiative, legal clinics at Yale and Cornell, the Knight First Amendment Center at Columbia University, and more. And we recently made a grant to Lawyers for Reporters, which helps newsrooms with a variety of legal needs, with a heavy focus on business services such as incorporation, fiscal sponsorship and contract support. We also support The Signals Network, which provides support services for whistleblowers, including legal support.
And for journalists around the world, in war zones and online, there is more danger and more harassment than ever. That’s why the work of organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) are so crucial. CPJ has an Emergency Response Team providing life-saving support for journalists around the world, while IWMF has numerous safety trainings for women and nonbinary journalists who are dealing with hostile real-life environments and frequent online attacks. IWMF is launching a new Newsroom Safety Across America program with workshops for small newsrooms and journalists covering the 2024 elections.
This important work is part of the infrastructure that Knight wants to strengthen, in concert with the support we will be giving to the local news ecosystems in the U.S. as part of Press Forward.
The latest of this fall’s sobering-but-inspiring dinners will come tonight, when the CPJ—another essential organization Knight has supported since 1988—hosts its annual International Press Freedom Awards dinner in New York, which will honor courageous journalists from Togo, Georgia, India and Mexico. It will also honor a former publisher from Miami: my boss, the outgoing president and CEO of Knight Foundation, Alberto Ibargüen, who is receiving the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. And if you were not aware that Alberto was leaving and were wondering who our next president would be …
Welcome to Knight’s new president!
Knight’s new president and CEO Maribel Perez Wadsworth. Photo by Gesi Schilling.
We’re excited to welcome our new president and CEO Maribel Perez Wadsworth, who was the former president of Gannett Media and publisher of USA Today. She has had nearly three decades of experience in journalism, is a Miami native and the first woman to lead the foundation.
“Knight Foundation is a leader at the nexus of the things I care about so deeply—journalistic excellence and defense of the First Amendment, fostering engaged citizenry, and building thriving, inclusive communities—all in service of sustaining a strong democracy,” Wadsworth said. “The opportunity to lead this organization is a tremendous honor and an awesome responsibility.” Alberto Ibargüen, who announced his resignation last March, led the foundation for 18 years, disbursing $2.3 billion, with a $150 million, five-year commitment to Press Forward as his latest achievement. We look forward to welcoming Maribel at the foundation in January.
On a personal note, I’m glad Maribel will be joining Knight after the NFL regular season, as I suspect her Dolphins will beat my Jets twice between now and then, and I’d just as soon take my mocking via text than in person. 🏈
Other news around the horn…
Funding
📍 Press Forward unveils first local chapters. The first round of Press Forward Locals were announced on Nov. 3, and it was quite a geographically diverse list. The six locations—all led by local funders—were Alaska; Chicago; Minnesota; Philadelphia; Springfield, Ill.; and Wichita. Many of these local foundations were already announced as part of Press Forward in September, and the goal is now to incubate more local Press Forward Locals with new funders. The local chapters have committed to bringing in new donors, establishing pooled funds, convening local stakeholders and sharing lessons with other local chapters. To this point, Press Forward has commitments of more than $500 million over five years, with a goal of reaching $1 billion. Press Forward is seeking support from national funders to help reach that goal, and also from local funders interested in supporting local journalism that serves their communities.
💸 NewsMatch goes big to support nonprofit newsrooms. “If you give today, your donation will be doubled by this kind funder.” It’s a pitch that’s worked for years in public media, and has been just as successful for nonprofit newsrooms in NewsMatch. The program was started by Knight Foundation in 2016, and has grown to include a group of 16 core funders for this year’s campaign, which runs in November and December. Last year, NewsMatch helped newsrooms bring in $43 million in local support, about 10 times the amount NewsMatch provided in matching funds. This year, the matching fund is up to $6.3 million, with 353 nonprofit news outlets participating in 46 states. Plus, 1 in 5 newsrooms serve communities of color, and 22 percent are led by BIPOC leaders. “What’s at stake is American democracy,” said Sue Cross, executive director and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News, which manages NewsMatch. “Nonprofit news outlets are providing trusted information to help people build their communities and connect with each other, and hold the powerful to account.”
Research
😩 Americans are less likely to follow news closely. There is little that Americans can agree on in our divisive times, but one thing is that following the news closely is depressing. Pew Research Center confirmed that with a survey showing that just 38 percent of Americans followed the news all or most of the time last year, compared to 51 percent in 2016. And the drops cut across all age groups, with those ages 30 to 49 who say they followed the news dropping from 46 percent in 2016 to 27 percent in 2022 (see chart above). It’s even worse for Republicans, with a decrease of 20 percent vs. a 7 percent decline for Democrats. The research reinforces previous surveys showing news fatigue from Americans in 2022 from CivicScience and in 2020 from Pew. “Americans collectively appear tired of hearing bad news and want content that makes them feel good,” wrote CivicScience’s Courtney Godshall last year.
📹 More people turn to social media creators vs. news sites. We’ve heard a lot of talk about the “creator economy” and how influencers on social media can build a following and a booming business. In fact, the Washington Post just ran a series on the topic, with Goldman Sachs saying 50 million people around the world work as creators in a $250 billion industry. In one story, the Post dug a little deeper into news creators who report directly to audiences on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. They cited Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, which found that more people turn to social media for news than to mainstream sources. One example mentioned is Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, a 25-year-old with a journalism degree from Rutgers, who has amassed millions of followers to his @Muslim accounts on TikTok and Instagram reporting the news, including from the Israel-Hamas War, from an Arab point of view. The Post points out that creators are more diverse than traditional reporters, but their popularity “also serves to undercut the authority of legacy news organizations, draining support from newsrooms that are a primary source of original reporting.”
Strategy
💡 Streetlight Detroit provides more context for crime reporting. Americans have a never-ending fascination with crime, whether it’s true-crime podcasts or reading the latest blotter report from their local news outlet. But rather than cater to Americans’ basest instincts, a collaboration in Detroit decided to dig deeper with the Streetlight Detroit newsletter, providing “critical deep dives at the intersection of safety, justice and policing in the city.” It’s a collaboration of Outlier Media/Detroit Documenters, BridgeDetroit, Chalkbeat Detroit, Detroit Free Press, Detroit Metro Times, Michigan Radio, Planet Detroit, WDET 101.9 FM and WXYZ (Channel 7). “[Safety, policing and crime] will always be issues news organizations in big cities need to pay attention to—but in a healthy, useful way,” said Outlier Managing Editor Erin Perry in a profile of Streetlight in the Local Edition newsletter. “We can talk about those issues in the context of mental and physical health, the environment, neighborhood vitality and more. So, we're choosing to do that."
🗳️ The Tennessean goes deep on city elections—without an endorsement. We think of 2023 as an “off-year election” but that’s not the case for local news outlets covering municipal elections. The Tennessean newspaper put lots of resources into the recent election, with a questionnaire sent to all 106 municipal candidates (with a 92 percent return rate), a series of live debates and even a candidate scorecard for the open race for Nashville’s mayor. David Plazas, director of opinion and engagement for the USA Today Network Tennessee, wrote in Better News that a big reason they had so much participation from candidates was that they didn’t endorse anyone in the municipal races. “The board decided not to endorse candidates in 2023, which resulted in greater credibility and trust from readers and ensured that the mayoral candidates—some Republican and some Democratic (though it’s a nonpartisan race)—participated in debates and interviews,” Plazas wrote. Some of his tips include: start planning early, create clear criteria for who gets on debate stages, and “listen to the public about what matters to them.”
Survey
Survey to Address Journalist Burnout
Feeling fried in your newsroom? Finding sources for reinvigoration? Either way, share your experiences with researchers from SmithGeiger and the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Take the survey here.
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Quote of the Week
“Removing Canadian news content from these [tech] platforms will raise the barrier to entry for start-ups and chill news innovation, development and investment. It will harm small and Indigenous news businesses, and distort the playing field.”
—Erin Millar, CEO of Indiegraf, in an appeal to the Canadian government about the effects of the “Online News Act” to help publishers get compensation from tech giants, who plan to remove news from their platforms.
News @ Knight Credits
Written by Jim Brady, with Mark Glaser
Edited by Jim Brady, Jessica Clark and Kara Pickman