The Cronkite School launched a website this week to continue the conversation about nonprofit journalism started at the Role of Philanthropy in Local Accountability Journalism symposium in February, Associate Dean Kristin Gilger said.
The website has video recordings of the panels with transcripts and soon will have a report from Weil Family Professor of Journalism Len Downie Jr., who gave the welcoming address and took part in much of the discussion. The report will assess the state of philanthropy in journalism, talk about the people involved and where it’s going in the future, Gilger said.
The website is designed to help foster the conversation about philanthropy and nonprofit journalism, she said.
“We had this fabulous conference talking about this important issue, and we want to make sure that it doesn’t just stay in the room,” Gilger said. “We had a good crowd, but it’s a couple hundred people versus who can access it on the Web. It’s an important subject for people to engage in.”
The website will be a resource for people who are interested in supporting or getting involved with a nonprofit news organization, allowing them to see what is happening in the field, she said.
During the symposium, pioneers of nonprofit journalism and the people that funded them discussed the importance of nonprofit journalism and explored how it can be sustained in the future through philanthropy, Downie said.
Twenty nonprofit journalists and philanthropists from around the country attended the event.
“It was a really good time (at the symposium) for any of us interested in getting involved in nonprofit journalism, in both positive and negative ways,” Voice of San Diego editor Andrew Donohue said. “It was honest about the challenges we face and the successes that people have had.”
After the Federal Communications Commission hearing in October on the future of news and journalism, universities were asked to take some of the recommendations and expand on them. The Cronkite School decided to expand on nonprofit journalism, Director of Development Liz Bernreuter said.
“We’re taking this particular recommendation from the FCC report and exploring it and giving the report a longer shelf life,” she said.
During the symposium, everybody was very open about what they were doing and their economic models, which allowed people to learn a lot from each other, Downie said.
“It went very well. It was lively and people felt that they learned from each other,” he said.
The website initially will serve as a resource, but Bernreuter said the Cronkite School wants to continue the conversation.
She added that if the school were to have another event discussing philanthropy and journalism, it would want more diversity among the panelists.
“We were struggling with diversity in the panelists. The lack of representation of people of color was (noticeable),” Bernreuter said.
The symposium was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Downie said.
Journalism senior Duyen Tran attended the symposium and was interested to learn about how nonprofit news organizations make money and also maintain integrity.
“Journalism is a public good and should continue being a public good. It’s simple, but sometimes we forget about that,” Tran said.
Contact the reporter at jlzook@asu.edu
