Will There Be an ‘Arianna’s Army’ of Community Muckrakers?
Arianna Huffington is leading a left-wing charge to encourage an army of nonprofit organizations to fund local news outlets across the country. When liberal foundations start funding this trend, expect that local “in-depth reporting” to carry an aggressive liberal tilt. Bridget Carey of the Miami Herald reported: In an era of cutbacks in journalism and small-town coverage, Arianna Huffington and other digital media pioneers gathered in Miami this week to inspire non-profits to fund projects that engage citizens and improve community news. Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, recently purchased by AOL, spoke to 350 leaders of place-based foundations from across the nation at the fourth annual Media Learning Seminar, put on by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation at InterContinental Miami Hotel. Huffington called for an end to “lazy journalism” and more focus on in-depth reporting about small communities. “We’ve been talking about it,” Huffington said. “Now it’s time to actually do it.” The Knight Foundation, based on the fortune of the brothers behind the Knight-Ridder newspaper-chain (including the Miami Herald), is a major funder of NPR and the liberal Center for Public Integrity. Its leader from 1997 to 2005 was Hodding Carter, a former White House spokesman for Jimmy Carter. Carey reported that this week’s seminar is part of the Knight Community Information Challenge, which plans to spend $24 million over five years to fund projects by community and place-based foundations and fund informational seminars. “By educating non-profits about the state of journalism, the Knight Foundation hopes to inspire foundations to fund civic news projects.” Steven Waldman, a former Newsweek reporter and now a senior advisor to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, also spoke Monday, sharing his distress about the news media industry’s decline and that non-profits are the last hope for saving community news. “I’m not sure who will if the community foundations don’t,” Waldman said. Nobody seemed to consider the idea that liberal bias could be one reason for the news media's decline. [Photo: Miami Herald]
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Will There Be an ‘Arianna’s Army’ of Community Muckrakers?
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on March 3, 2011. Filed under