Strengthening Democracy Means Funding Independent Media

While it’s surely gratifying that a surprising number of non-profit media outfits, such as Pro Publica, the Texas Tribune and the Center for Independent Media, have not only cropped up but actually done yeoman-like work of late, admirably filling part of the gaping hole resulting from the endless rounds of cutbacks, buyouts and layoffs in the commercial media world, it’s also apparent that the amount of resources devoted to the public interest nevertheless pales when compared to what for-profit players are still pouring into more commercial endeavors.

As the annual State of News Media study by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism shows, only an estimated $141 million (not including public broadcasting) of philanthropic support has gone into non-profit journalism efforts in the last four years. That amount is less than 0.05% of the $307 billion given to charity in 2008.

A new survey and report released by Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM), an association of grantmakers that serves as a resource for foundations that fund media and share an interest in the key role they play in shaping civil society, underscores that fact.

Entitled Funding Media, Strengthening Democracy: Grantmaking for the 21st Century, the study supplies the facts and figures behind what most of us in the supposedly “independent media” world already knew from first-hand, albeit anecdotal, experience: “Despite the pervasiveness of media, the amount of philanthropic dollars in support of public interest media remains minuscule,” and further, “commercial interests continue to dominate media.” One case in point: Within a 12-month period, more commercial money was invested in a single Hollywood blockbuster than was invested in all public service media by three of the largest philanthropic donors combined: the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. As one anonymous person described as “one of the most generous funders in the media funding world” admitted, “I know [our media funding total] seems like a substantial sum. But the magnitude of the challenge—the ‘creative destruction’ of the media ecosystem brought about by the digital age—is much greater than anything one foundation can cope with.”

The report, researched and written by Peter B. Kaufman and Mary Albon of the firm Intelligent Television, calls on the philanthropic community to embrace new practices of transparency and information sharing via technology, in order to determine how existing funds are being used and how they can best be leveraged to increase philanthropic impact within the media field. It forthrightly — and rightly -- states, “Philanthropy, with its mission to improve the human condition, has yet to meet the challenge of keeping pace with the growth and influence of media,” and recognizes the reality that, “The creative destruction of the media ecosystem brought about by the digital age poses fundamentally new challenges to the core missions of media grantmakers, as well as offering new opportunities and promise.”

Over a one-year period, Kaufman and Albon collected grantmaking data from foundations large and small, government funders, other researchers and journalists – using an online survey, individual interviews with key foundation executives and program officers and roundtable discussions. Their findings underscore that:

• Despite the current flurry of foundation support for non-profit journalism, commercial media investment still outstrips philanthropy by a factor of as much as 400 to 1;

• Much of media grantmaking is invisible (even to the grantmaker!);