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A Surprising Amount of Philanthropic Funding Goes to For-Profit Newsrooms

September 28, 2023

A new study examining the impact of philanthropic funding of journalism in the U.S. revealed increased funding of for-profit newsrooms, with 138 for-profit newsrooms receiving donations during the past five years. Some of those donations went to newsrooms owned by large, well-funded corporations. Dick Tofel, in his Second Rough Draft newsletter, writes about the study, which was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, in conjunction with Media Impact Finders and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Other findings included: 

• 19% of the for-profit newsrooms receiving grants have budgets over $50 million, and 8% have more than 100 newsroom employees.
• Almost two-thirds of the newsrooms receiving grants are growing or holding steady in staff numbers, and slightly more than half have avoided any layoffs.
• Google and Facebook/Meta gave a combined $14.5 million in large gifts to newsrooms over the past five years.(Facebook/Meta terminated journalism funding in 2022.) 

The study also raises concerns about transparency. It found that almost three-quarters of for-profit newsrooms receiving philanthropic funding don't disclose the source of that funding -- and 19 for-profit newsrooms admitted that they have changed their editorial priorities in response to funding.

Read more of Dick Tofel's "Second Rough Draft" story about the study here.

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