Stay up-to-date on the latest news, trends and perspectives in media and philanthropy.

Last month, just two days after the inauguration of our 46th president and first female vice president, the nation marked another milestone — the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding access to safe abortion as a woman’s constitutional right. Read More

Coming to the end of 2020, I think it’s fair to say that many of us are eager to turn the page with hopes of a better year to come. As this newsletter goes out, we are close to the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year. It feels that way metaphorically, as we pass the grim milestone of 300,000 souls lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. And that’s not just a number. Many of us have been touched by the virus personally, among staff and on the Board of Directors of Media Impact Funders, as well as many in our network. Recently, we read the heartbreaking story of loss written by MIF member John Bare, vice president at the Arthur M. Blank Foundation, who shared the touching and painful journal of the death of his beloved wife, Betsy, in September. Along with all of our colleagues, we extend our condolences to John and his family. Read More

In late September, the LA Times editorial board wrote, “For at least its first 80 years, the Los Angeles Times was an institution deeply rooted in white supremacy.” This editorial was the start of an eight-part series interrogating the Times’ history of racist coverage and its failure to represent the communities it purported to serve in staffing, stories and sources. This deep reflection is a good first step for the paper, and a necessary one for the entire industry. But the next step must be action — from the LA Times, from other newsrooms, and from the journalism funders who support them. Read More

Philanthropy is in the business of preventing and alleviating disasters. And plenty of those need addressing right now. A global pandemic has killed more than 120,000 Americans. The accelerating climate crisis resulted in the hottest May in history and an early start to what promises to be a catastrophic hurricane season. Then, this spring, these twin disasters converged with a simmering one: systemic racism. Read More

Sometimes, at Media Impact Funders, we find that we are slightly ahead of our time. Looking back on our programs for the Media Impact Forum in 2018, we are struck by how much of what we heard then resonates clearly in this peculiar moment we find ourselves in. Read More

As we come to the end of a brutal month for our country and for people around the world trying to defeat the spread of COVID-19, we have all had to devise ways to work and learn and entertain ourselves from the confines of our homes. And for many, that has elevated the importance of digital media and community information of all types. We rely on local journalism to help us navigate a dangerous pandemic with health and safety guidelines for our homes and neighborhoods. And we are also exploring the vast expanse of cultural content available. Read More

Filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar (right) won an Oscar for "American Factory," one of the first movies from Higher Ground, the production company founded by former President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. Read More

Throughout America today, headlines reveal political division, racial animus, and horrific episodes of gun violence sparked by xenophobic ideology. In mass media and through direct expression in social media dominated by angry political invective, it seems that America has never been more divided. Read More

From time to time, events at the highest levels of legal and political decision-making in Washington shed light on the importance of nonprofit media and the critical role of philanthropy in the support of journalism. Last week, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Curtis Flowers for the brutal murder of four people inside a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi in 1996. Even before the high court’s decision, the Flowers case has been notorious for the fact that he has been tried six times for the same crime — twice ending in a mistrial with hung juries and three times having been thrown out over one form of prosecutorial misconduct after another. That dubious distinction caught the attention of reporters at American Public Media’s podcast series, In the Dark, who devoted Herculean effort to excavate the facts of the case for its award-winning second season. Among the many exculpatory revelations contained in the gripping series, dogged reporting uncovered the prosecutor’s history of rarely seating black jurors, which contributed to the strong impression that Flowers was prosecuted unfairly. This pattern of racial discrimination was cited in briefs before the Supreme Court, which vacated the conviction based… Read More

Podcasting is on the rise. Over 700,000 podcasts are available in iTunes with an estimated 90 million monthly listeners globally. No single entity controls podcasts, which means they are an accessible, decentralized, and democratized way to create content. Today, on-demand audio has dramatically transformed the way important stories and unheard voices reach us. Read More

With the sharp rise of social media and the rapid collapse of so many daily newspapers in recent years, it would be easy to assume that radio is another traditional media format in decline. As more and more young listeners turn to music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, predictions of broadcast radio’s imminent demise have become widespread. Read More

Media philanthropy is a growing force on the global stage, with foundation support increasing significantly in recent years, more than doubling from $915 million in 2009 to $1.9 billion in 2015, the last year for which complete figures were available. Altogether, media grants amounted to about $9.9 billion in that span, according to a new report from Media Impact Funders—Global Media Philanthropy: What Funders Need to Know About Data, Trends and Pressing Issues Facing the Field. Read More