A new era in the local news landscape is emerging. On Monday, the Salt Lake Tribune announced a historic IRS ruling, allowing their 149-year-old newspaper to convert into a local news nonprofit. Just last week, the Akron Devil Strip broke new ground by transitioning into the nation’s first local community news cooperative. And NewsMatch, the matching gifts […]
Article · November 7, 2019 by Jennifer Preston
We believe that journalism is essential to building informed and engaged communities, and that a healthy democracy requires a robust and independent press. For the last decade, as the digital disruption of the traditional business model for journalism has led to deep cuts in newsrooms across the county, nonprofit news organizations have filled critical gaps […]
Article · June 21, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
The internet is a wild place, and the way we receive and process news is complicated. As our reliance on digital platforms grows, we are swimming in misinformation and kept separate by social media algorithms that push us to talk to people with whom we already agree. Four out of 5 of us don’t trust […]
Article · March 13, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
As Sunshine Week kicks off today, reminding us that we the people have the right to access public information, a new report sponsored by Knight Foundation warns that obtaining government records has become more difficult in the last four years at both the state and national level. In “Forecasting Freedom of Information,” the work of […]
Article · March 12, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
Shortly after arriving at Knight Foundation in the fall of 2014, I visited daily news organizations in cities across the country to better understand how we might better support local journalism and the information needs of communities, the heart of our work in the Journalism program. Most newsrooms had not yet shifted their focus to […]
Article · February 17, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
To quickly respond to the growing concern over so-called fake news, Knight Foundation is launching an open call for ideas to counter misinformation and help quality journalism become a more trusted and visible resource at a time when trust in the news media has hit a low. At the heart of our work is the […]
Article · February 13, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
In another sign the public will support quality journalism, nonprofit news organizations raised more than $1.2 million in just a few weeks with Knight Foundation’s News Match program. Now, Knight will double the donations made to the 57 participating nonprofit news outlets. That will put at least $2.4 million more into strengthening local coverage, beat […]
Article · January 23, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
As the first social media editor at The New York Times in 2009, I had access to top-tier talent at Facebook to help experiment with this new platform to find and build audience for Times coverage all over the world. It worked. Other large news organizations and famous journalists that could scale national and international […]
Article · January 11, 2017 by Jennifer Preston
Newspaper publishers John S. and James L. Knight believed that informed and engaged communities are essential to a healthy democracy. Knight Foundation has lived that belief for decades as a leading supporter of journalism. As the industry has evolved, so has our approach, and we’ve expanded our support over the last 10 years to include […]
Article · December 19, 2016 by Jennifer Preston
Above: Virtual Reality Journalism discussion at SXSW in Austin. Credit Jesse J. Loesch. PBS Frontline Executive Producer Raney Aronson Rath (holding mic) discusses VR Journalism at SXSW. Also, left to right, Randal Kleiser; Mitch Gelman, USA TODAY NETWORK (in gray); Molly Swenson, RYOT (with hat); Jamie Pallot, Emblematic Group (in jeans). Credit Jesse J. Loesch What is the […]
Article · March 17, 2016 by Jennifer Preston
Above: Philadelphia by Morgan Burke on Flickr. When H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest donated The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com to a nonprofit media institute under the umbrella of The Philadelphia Foundation, it raised the question: Is this a model for the future of news organizations, or an esoteric outlier? The answer is “yes.” Both. As Clay […]
Article · January 14, 2016 by Jennifer Preston