Programs/Content
Reporting series illuminates roles of Virginians who make democracy work
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A series of profiles from the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism and WHRO takes inspiration from community journalism.
Development
Foundation’s gift will boost global network of female journalists
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The Global Press Institute received $1.25 million from the MacArthur Foundation, its largest grant in its 10-year history.
Programs/Content
Temple University axes nonprofit news site AxisPhilly, shifts focus to other ventures
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The Center for Public Interest Journalism at Temple University shuttered nonprofit news website AxisPhilly June 13 after two years of reporting that earned national recognition but failed to meet the school’s expectations for local impact. Yet CPIJ, which is operated by Temple’s School of Media and Communications, is embarking on another digital news venture. It is helping to launch Brother.ly, a Philadelphia-focused news startup headed by Jim Brady, former editor-in-chief of Digital First Media. CPIJ launched AxisPhilly in 2012 with a two-year, $2.4 million grant from the William Penn Foundation. The site’s first director, Neil Budde, left after the first year as CPIJ looked to restructure the site to make it self-sustaining.
Nonprofit journalism
St. Louis pubmedia merger moves ahead
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St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon, a nonprofit news site, have negotiated a merger agreement that will be taken up by the University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators at its next meeting in November.
Programs/Content
Nonprofit newsrooms struggle with long-term funding, Pew study finds
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Finding long-term, sustainable funding remains a top concern of the country’s nonprofit news outlets, according to the results of a new study published Monday by the Pew Research Center.
People
InsideClimate News wins Pulitzer for coverage of 2010 oil spill
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The nonprofit InsideClimate News won this year’s National Reporting Pulitzer Prize for its investigative series The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of. Reporters Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer took on a seven-month investigation about a 2010 oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. The winning package consisted of a three-part narrative and follow-up articles delving deeper into the circumstances of the oil spill. “It was an important story, and we told it well through the eyes of the people who experienced it and who are investigating it,” said David Sassoon, founder and publisher of ICN. Sassoon started ICN six years ago as a blog with just two people.
Quick Takes
Columbia Journalism Review profiles Texas Tribune
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The Texas Tribune, the nonprofit public policy journalism website that recently received a $1.5 million Knight Foundation grant, is the subject of an extensive piece published April 15 in the Columbia Journalism Review.
Development
Delays by IRS put chills on news startups
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Nonprofit news outfits that have sprung up across the country to fill gaps left by commercial media have hit an unexpected barrier in establishing themselves as providers of local news and information: the Internal Revenue Service. As many as a dozen journalism startups, most of them run largely by volunteers and accepting no advertising, have had their requests to be recognized as tax-exempt organizations delayed for many months and, in some cases, years.
Development
Policy delay of nonprofit status spikes Chicago News Cooperative
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Rumors started quickly, trying to explain why the Chicago News Cooperative was closing. The Internal Revenue Service had rejected the co-op’s application for nonprofit status. Then it was said that the MacArthur Foundation had refused to fund the startup out of fear it might take down City Hall friends. The truth was more prosaic. Several events — its tax status, its inability to lasso a deep-pocket donor and the demands of its publishing partner the New York Times — moved the news co-op to suspend operations Feb.