WATCH: The 2020 Journalism Funders Gathering

Last week, we convened our peers for our annual journalism funders gathering to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing journalism—and our nation—today. We hope that our two days of programming and breakout sessions introduced you to new people, new ideas, and a new way forward. We are so grateful to the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and Independence Public Media Foundation for sponsoring our first online journalism funders conference. (And special thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation for their support.) Zoom fatigue is real, and we are that much more grateful for the network’s participation our virtual format. We also know that many of you are juggling work and other family responsibilities, whether it’s your kids’ remote learning or caring for a loved one. Because of that, we’ve recorded all of our plenary discussions so that you can watch them at a time that’s more convenient for you. As we grapple with seemingly growing efforts to spread lies online, persistent issues preventing the advancement of newsroom culture, and what we need to do now to ensure a more equitable media ecosystem in the future, we hope you’ll… Read More

MIF is continuing the conversation around international media funding, a topic that is of growing interest to our members and supporters. Because the topic sparked such vibrant conversations at our recent annual gathering of journalism funders, we devoted our January journalism funders webinar to discussing challenges and opportunities abroad. Read More

Our latest Jounalism Funders Network webinar focused on the themes and highlights of a few big gatherings for the international journalism community: April 3-9—The International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy April 9—Media Impact Funders’ one-day pre-conference funder gathering at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, England; April 12-13—The 20th annual International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) in Austin, Texas Read More

By Lindsay Green-Barber, PhD, Founder & CEO, Impact Architects Since 1999, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin has hosted the International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ), and it is unique among journalism conferences for its international focus and participation. Last month’s ISOJ conference of nearly 500 journalists, researchers, and others from the media industry had a hopeful current running throughout, with panels and conversations about diverse revenue sources for journalism, creative audience engagement, and the importance of this work at a critical moment in living history. Also hopeful was a through line of respect for audiences as intelligent consumers of news and information (despite being overwhelmed with sources and the 10 million URLs posted to the internet each day), and a shifting of focus to the platforms, algorithms, bots, and trolls that are creating an ecosystem in which misinformation and disinformation are running rampant and spreading rapidly. Altogether, the takeaway from ISOJ 2018 can be summed up as: “If you build it, they might come.” And, it’s up to the journalistic organizations to figure out who makes up the “they,” and what “it” is they want and need. Read More