I work (for eight more days!) in nonprofit public relations/communications, so trust me, I know how hard it is to get a newspaper or TV station or radio show or news website to pick up a story about your organization. Really, really hard.
The media has constraints of its own, so it's hard to blame them. But some people are taking matters into their own hands--and opening their own wallets--to ensure that the issues that are important to them get coverage.
We're not talking little nonprofits here; we're talking foundations dedicated to specific topics: health, education, the environment. This article from the American Journalism Review gives some great examples, such as the Kaiser Family Foundation (one of the oldies) which gives a good chunk of change toward quality health reporting and other programs sprouting up to provide reporting on specific topics.
Conflict of interest? Maybe. But these foundations are trying for good, "objective" reporting on the issues that brings them to the forefront of people's minds. Best case scenario, as the article says:
Done right, the journalism-funder relationship benefits both parties as well as
the public they aim to serve. It supplies important news resources, and it
satisfies a grantmaker's mission — maybe even bringing a touch of prestige.
0 comments:
Post a Comment