Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the organization of craigslist founder Craig Newmark, has donated $200,000 to the American Press Institute to expand its efforts of promoting ethical reporting and helping journalists produce trustworthy work.
With these funds, API seeks to help put into practice the growing body of ideas on how journalists can better provide accurate and truthful reporting amid today’s backdrop of distrust and media manipulation. Building on its existing program on fact-checking and accountability journalism, the nonprofit will convene thought leaders to help assimilate and assess new strategies for spreading truth and reaching skeptical audiences. It will explore the unintended consequences of certain journalistic practices and support further research on concepts that have garnered recent attention — such as “strategic silence,” “truth sandwiches,” telling stories with complexity, and broadening approaches to fact-checking.
This is Newmark’s fourth grant to API and the second related to ethics and trust, the first of which helped API convene media and foundation leaders to produce a guide on the philanthropic funding of news.
“We are grateful for Craig Newmark’s support of our work to mobilize highly needed conversations about what journalists should consider in today’s environment of distrust and willful distortion of facts — by both foreign and domestic actors,” said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of API. “This gift will also allow us to better help reporters understand the tools that are at their disposal to continue to produce honest, responsible journalism.”
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies
“A trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy, and it requires a demanding, evolving ethical code,” said Newmark. “API is helping to adapt that code for this Digital Age so that Americans get accurate information on the wide range of issues that affect our society.”
API has an established record of convening thought leaders, producing research and catalyzing work around ethics and truth-telling. It co-produces the newsletter of the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network: The Week In Fact-Checking. Rosenstiel, API executive director, is the co-author of The Elements of Journalism (2001) and The New Ethics of Journalism (2013), co-founder of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, and founder of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The nonprofit has collaborated with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research to produce research on news audiences. It is also part of the Knight Temple Lenfest News Initiative to help news publishers accelerate their digital transformation.
More information on this new effort will be shared in early 2019. To follow API’s work, sign up for its Need to Know newsletter, which curates insights from across the industry and features new API resources.
About the American Press Institute
The American Press Institute advances an innovative and sustainable news industry by helping publishers understand and engage audiences, grow revenue, improve public-service journalism, and succeed at organizational change. It is a national 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization affiliated with the News Media Alliance. It also receives foundation funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Democracy Fund.
About Craig Newmark Philanthropies
Craig Newmark Philanthropies was created by craigslist founder Craig Newmark to support and connect people and drive broad civic engagement. The organization works to advance people and grassroots organizations that are getting stuff done in areas that include trustworthy journalism, voter protection, gender diversity in technology, and veterans and military families. For more information, please visit: CraigNewmarkPhilanthropies.org.
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When community members are no longer voters, their needs become diffuse once again and there is no clear, focusing mandate. So many newsrooms slip back into the usual: politics coverage driven by politicians and press releases. How do we avoid that backslide?
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