Formation | 2009 |
---|---|
Type | 501(c)(3) |
27-2614911 | |
Registration no. | C3250040 |
Membership (2024) | ~450 |
Staff | 20-30 |
Website | inn |
The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a non-profit consortium of nonprofit journalism organizations. The organization promotes nonprofit investigative and public service journalism by supporting its members and the nonprofit news industry as a whole. Examples of services offered by INN includes helping news organizations with collaborations, training in best-practices and fundraising, and providing affordable back-office services. [1]
INN was founded as the Investigative News Network in 2009 at a summer conference held at the Pocantico Center in New York with journalists from the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting, among other newer organizations. The result of that conference was the Pocantico Declaration with the intent to share resources and collaborate on projects. [2]
Two papers in 2010 described a trend in news media where watchdog journalism was being done increasingly outside of mainstream newsrooms. [3] [4]
INN was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status by the IRS in March 2012, 19 months after applying. [5]
In November 2014, the board of INN met to conduct a strategic review of the organization. During that meeting the board decided to refine the organization's and to change its name from "Investigative News Network" to the "Institute for Nonprofit News". In March 2015, the board voted to terminate the organization's first CEO, Kevin Davis, and appoint data reporter Denise Malan as the interim CEO while a search was conducted to find a permanent replacement. [6] In September 2015, Sue Cross, formerly a consultant and before that a long-time employee of AP was hired as the new Executive Director and CEO. [7]
INN says its membership is open to independent, nonprofit news organizations that: [8]
As of June 2024, INN listed 'about 450' members, [9] up from 189 in March 2019 [10] and 60 in 2011. [11]
As of February 2024, the median member had 4 staffers and $271,000 in revenue. [12]
As of 2024, the network boasts around 75 INN-member newsrooms across 47 states. [13] In 2021, The Associated Press reported on how INN was helping to form The Rural News Network, a collaboration that started with 60 rural nonprofit news organizations [14] before growing to 70 in 2022. [15]
As a 501(c)3 non-profit education organization, INN provides coordination, training, support services and financial sponsorship to its membership. It has published educational resources and training materials, including a whitepaper, "Audience Development and Distribution Strategies", [16] and regular articles by experts in the fields of business and journalism.
In 2011, INN joined the Thomson Reuters media platform. [17]
In 2011, INN also launched the INNovation fund with the Knight Foundation to support experimentalism in nonprofit journalism. [18]
In 2012, INN developed "Project Largo", a WordPress theme and CMS platform for news websites based on NPR's Project Argo that is used by member organizations in New Orleans, Connecticut, Maine, Iowa, Oklahoma and elsewhere. [19] [20]
In 2013, INN's CEO Kevin Davis consulted on a nonprofit media working group for the Council on Foundations to produce a report titled "The IRS and Nonprofit Media." The report urges the IRS to update its approach to granting charity status to non-profit journalism organizations. [21]
In 2013, INN member I-News merged with Rocky Mountain PBS and Denver-based NPR affiliate KUVO in what is a first of its kind merger between public broadcasters and INN members. Mergers of this type are expected to continue as nonprofit newsrooms look to create efficiencies in serving communities across media and platforms. [22]
Since 2016, INN has partnered with NewsMatch, an initiative supported by several national foundations that match donations from individuals to nonprofit news organizations. [23] [ non-primary source needed ]
In 2021, TheNew York Times highlighted how communities where local newspapers were shuttering followed INN's playbook for how to start a nonprofit news organization, which it found were becoming more prevalent. [24]
Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit news organization focused on issues affecting the San Diego region.
The Online News Association (ONA), founded in 1999, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Washington D.C., United States. It is the world's largest association of digital journalists, with more than 2,000 members.The founding members first convened in December 1999 in Chicago. The group included journalists from WSJ.com, Time.com, MSBN, TheStreet.com, and FT.com, among other outlets.
ProPublica, legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit organization based in New York City dedicated to investigative journalism. ProPublica states that its investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won several Pulitzer Prizes.
The American Independent Institute is a nonprofit organization which funds liberal investigative journalism efforts. According to the organization, its aim is to support journalism which exposes "the nexus of conservative power in Washington." The current institute, started by David Brock in 2014, is a relaunch of the former state-based digital news-gathering network known as the American Independent News Network.
The Colorado Independent was a nonprofit media organization, first reporting news via its online website that was started in July 2006, later revitalized again in September 2013 under new Colorado-based management.
The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.
Computational journalism can be defined as the application of computation to the activities of journalism such as information gathering, organization, sensemaking, communication and dissemination of news information, while upholding values of journalism such as accuracy and verifiability. The field draws on technical aspects of computer science including artificial intelligence, content analysis, visualization, personalization and recommender systems as well as aspects of social computing and information science.
The Conversation is a network of nonprofit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Copyright terms for images are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies".
The Global Editors Network (GEN) was an international association of over 6,000 editors-in-chief and media executives with the mission of fostering digital innovation in newsrooms all over the world. GEN had three main programmes: Editors Lab, the Data Journalism Awards, Startups for News, as well as an upcoming hub for the international data journalism community. The organisation’s flagship event, the GEN Summit, gathered over 830 participants from 70 countries. The GEN newsletter was read weekly by more than 13,800 subscribers. It is a non-profit, non-governmental association.
DocumentCloud is an open-source software as a service platform that allows users to upload, analyze, annotate, collaborate on and publish primary source documents. Since its launch in 2009, it has been used primarily by journalists to find information in the documents they gather in the course of their reporting and, in the interests of transparency, publish the documents. As of May 2023, DocumentCloud users had uploaded more than 5 million documents. Many of them are accessible via a public search portal.
Nonprofit journalism or philanthrojournalism is the practice of journalism funded largely by donations and foundations. The growth in this sector has been helped by funders seeing a need for public interest journalism like investigative reporting amidst the decline in revenue for for-profit journalism. Transparency and diversified funding streams have been put forward as best-practices for these types of organizations. Journalism done at a nonprofit organization should be evaluated just as critically as journalism from for-profit or other outlets.
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about inequities within the U.S. criminal justice system. The Marshall Project has been described as an advocacy group by some, and works to impact the system through journalism.
Coda Media is a nonprofit news organization that produces journalism about the roots of major global crises. It was founded in 2016 by Natalia Antelava, a former BBC correspondent, and Ilan Greenberg, a magazine and newspaper writer who served as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Mississippi Today is the state's flagship nonprofit newsroom based in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. It was founded in 2016 by former Netscape president and CEO Jim Barksdale and his wife, Donna, alongside former NBC chairman Andrew Lack. It is focused on watchdog journalism related to Mississippi's state and local government, health, economy, environment, public schools and universities, and the justice system.
The Markup is an American nonprofit news publication focused on the impact of technology on society. Founded in 2018 with the goal of advancing data-driven journalism, the publication launched in February 2020. Nabiha Syed is the current chief executive officer and Sisi Wei is the editor-in-chief.
Julia Angwin is an American investigative journalist, author, and entrepreneur. She co-founded and was editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of technology on society. She was a staff reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2013, during which time she was on a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. She worked as a senior reporter at ProPublica from 2014 to April 2018, during which time she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Susan Smith Richardson is an American journalist, news editor and media executive. She is the former managing editor at The Guardian US. Prior to that, she was the chief executive officer of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Until 2019, she was editorial director of newsrooms for the Solutions Journalism Network and was previously the editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter. In 2002, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. From 2011 to 2013, she was editor of the Texas Observer magazine and from 2004 to 2007, she was an editor for the Chicago Tribune. She has served on the board of directors for the MOLLY National Journalism Prize, named after journalist Molly Ivins.
States Newsroom is a left-leaning non-profit news organization with outlets or partner outlets in all 50 U.S. states. It began as a sponsored project of the Hopewell Fund, a left-leaning nonprofit that does not disclose its donors. In 2019, it spun off to become its own non-profit. States Newsroom grew out of NC Policy Watch, a progressive think tank in North Carolina founded in 2004 by Chris Fitzsimon, who is now States Newsroom's director and publisher.
The Hopewell Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization managed by Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consulting company that advises left-leaning donors and nonprofits about where to give money and serves as the hub of a politically liberal "dark money" network in the United States. The Hopewell Fund serves as the fiscal sponsor for various left-leaning political projects. The Hopewell Fund spent over $127 million in 2020, and is one of the five largest nonprofits associated with the Democratic Party.
CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization covering California state politics and policies, launched in 2015. Founders cited the decline in coverage of state politics in the decade leading-up to CalMatters' founding as a major motivation. As of 2017, it was becoming one of the largest nonprofit newsrooms in the country raising 90 percent of its funding from individuals with only some foundation support. It has also credited its partnership with the LA Times and Capitol Public Radio, among others, as helping to grow the organization quickly.