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Archives for January 2018

Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Fixing Journalism’s Ability to Promote Civic Good Should Be the Focus of Philanthropic Giving”

January 13, 2018 by Josh Wilson Leave a Comment

Low-income people, mulitracial neighborhoods, and others are losing access to the news they need to improve their communities.

By Josh Wilson, Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 2017 (read the PDF)

For more than a decade, with the news industry under deepening financial strain, grant makers have invested millions in technology, innovation and business model experiment, eager to harness the restless vigor and highly profitable Silicon Valley start-up ethos on behalf of our struggling free press.

Yet today, the post-election spike in newspaper subscriptions notwithstanding, critical indicators of journalism’s public-interest mission are in retreat. News deserts, “fake news” and highly profitable partisan media are proliferating, while legacy news media’s twin-horned crisis of trust and sustainability only deepens. Nor are we making much progress in replacing almost 240,000 newspaper jobs that disappeared from 2001 to 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Perhaps it’s time for some existential questions. Is it actually the business of philanthropy to try to save the news industry? Shouldn’t we be focused instead on saving journalism as a public-interest practice — and as charitable work?

  • Read more [PAYWALL]
  • Download a PDF of the article from the November 2017 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy

Filed Under: Research & Reporting Tagged With: information inequity, philanthropy, sustainability

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