I’m sure it’s just my small-minded nature that makes me gag when I read this:
A memo from The Washington Post leadership to staff says the grant of a half-million dollars will allow four new hires. In May, the Ford Foundation granted the Los Angeles Times $1 million to “focus on the Vietnamese, Korean and other immigrant communities, the California prison system, the border region and Brazil.” It was part of an initiative, the Foundation said, to experiment with “new approaches to preserve and advance high-quality journalism.”
Let me reel off a few real “new approaches”: Giving money to ProPublica. Grants to bi-lingual local bloggers in immigrant neighborhoods. Grants to start Internet-only publications like MinnPost. That’s three and I’m barely awake. The lack of imagination and innovation exhibited here by the Ford Foundation is staggering.
cathyx
They must have looked at who still reads the paper and saw that the immigrant communities, prisoners, and a certain part of Brazil have an older population who don’t get their news from the internet. Win.
Tom Levenson
Agreed. Mind boggling.
The Knight Foundation does much better. (Also, to brag — one of my former students just got a grant from the Ottaway Foundation to support her truly excellent local (and environmentally focused, in part) web news operation in the Catskills. Remember the name Lissa Harris — and the Watershed Post. She and they are doing very good work.
(How can you not love a site that has as its lead story as I write this “Invasive Rock Snot Found in Schoharie Creek.”
Invasive Rock Snot — has to be the name of my next band…)
dr. bloor
Compelling a newspaper to cover immigrant communities, the monster that is the California prison system and foreign countries is a fucking travesty.
Really, is this what jacks up your blood pressure? Nothing better?
arguingwithsignposts
@Tom Levenson: The Knight Foundation does incrementally better. They still send a majority of funds to the “Kool Kids” in the already-have-the-money-don’t-really-need-it circle. The NYT, for instance, has lined up at the Knight trough a couple of times.
And you’ll never hear about it, because everyone who would complain is hoping to get some of that sweet, sweet foundation cash themselves.
The Ancient Randonneur
Shorter Ford Foundation: You can have any media you want as long as it’s vanilla mainstream.
pseudonymous in nc
@dr. bloor:
Two points: first, as Tom says, the Knight Foundation’s work on community journalism is much better, and works as a catalyst with long-term benefits. Secondly, this sets a precedent for papers to lay off reporters from beats that aren’t generating pageview-friendly stories and tell those who complain to ask a foundation to pay their wages.
The Ancient Randonneur
@dr. bloor:
Can I sit in with you when I’m in the area? I know a couple of chords and I can play real loud.
Suffern Ace
“If you want creative solutions to the problems facing Journalism, I’d go to a foundation” – (Bob Dylan, 1974)
Elizabelle
@Suffern Ace:
Hilarious.
Tribute to Jonah Lehrer?
Jay in Oregon
@Tom Levenson:
They also have that sweet black Trans Am traveling the country.
Wait, wrong Knight Foundation…
Phil Perspective
@Jay in Oregon: That’s the best comment all day!! ;-)
Athenae
Or they could fund student media more strongly, since it’s Kids Today who will be creating this Future of News we all like to jaw on so much about.
A.
Phil Perspective
@The Ancient Randonneur: Maybe it changed but the Ford Foundation used to be thought of as the epitome of staid, establishment thinking. Basically, the Aspen Ideas Festival pre-2000.
Elizabelle
Check out the trollfest in the Poynter story comments.
The usual sewer dwellers from WaPost threads are over there, trashing liberal media. One dude is swearing to complain to Ford dealerships; can’t decide if it’s parody.
It’s sad the WaPost would need foundation money to fund four reporters — for one year — to follow money in politics.
Sadder to wonder if they’ll use the money to spend more time listening to Darell Issa.
El Cid
Yeah, but look at all the awesome, trend-setting original reporting by NPR since Joan Kroc left them $200 million, I mean, when they’re not just repeating the New York Times stories their programmers read at 1 am that day.
Villago Delenda Est
This is just establishment dudes scratching the backs of other establishment dudes.
No boats will be rocked in this process.
The deal was probably made in the card room at the country club.
barath
Meanwhile, bloggers are doing a remarkable job of reporting.
Take this diary over at dkos this morning that details Romney’s 2002 olympics reality:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/31/1114110/-Romney-did-NOT-save-2002-Olympics-Lost-his-cool-Likely-breached-his-contract-Profiteered
Amir Khalid
The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post are businesses and not charities. Yet they’re accepting Ford Foundation grants to do what’s supposed to be their normal work. Have the LA Times and the Post no shame? Has the Ford Foundation no common sense?
BGinCHI
“The Washington Post continues to be the most cutting edge news source in the country, and its stewardship of the LA Times has been nothing short of brilliant.”
–Jonah Lehrer (writing from the computer in his parents’ basement)
General Stuck
Obama response to wingnuts denying their role in the coming defense cuts from the debt limit deal, trying to lay it on Obama.
Is it okay for a grown man to giggle out loud? I don’t care.
Another Halocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Seems they’re transitioning to an NPR model.
Newspapers are becoming the opera in America.
I guess by that metaphor blogs will be the movies? I’m okay with that.
LTL-FTC
Except one has to apply for Ford Foundation funding, right? So if the reviewers are given a stack of applications from which they have to select the awards, they can only work with those they have, as opposed to picking some grantees out of the air. I don’t know of any granting agency that works like that — Nobel prize committees, sure, but otherwise you don’t get if you don’t ask.
Carl Nyberg
Corporate foundations take care of corporate media outlets that protect a social system controlled and driven by corporations.
If it was only clear what the threat connecting this phenomenon was….
Villago Delenda Est
@General Stuck:
Note that he’s standing with the troops, not with the defense contractors who will gladly sacrifice the troops for their own profit any day of the week.
Suffern ACE
@LTL-FTC: macarthur foundation works like that with its genius grants.
jeffreyw
@Another Halocene Human: Blogs are cable TV, newspapers are the infomercials.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar breakfast pr0n.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
Do they also sell transfer cases?
Hillary Rettig
Mistermix: your point x100
I mean that literally; they’d get so much more bang for the buck investing where you’re suggesting (propublica and local blogs).
if you could even count it, because I suspect
the really sad thing is that the could have done something creative with your suggestions PLUS the LA Times. Propublica did a series on New Orleans hospitals during Katrina that the NYT subsequently published (and I think it won a Pulitzer). Assuming one cares about the traditional newsprint at all (which I know longer do, much), it’s a win/win.
Hillary Rettig
and, please, everyone, DON’T FORGET DEMOCRACY NOW
it is the best broadcast media out there, and what PBS should be.
everyone please watch them on cable or streaming, and everyone please donate!
Brachiator
Can’t Kickstarter and similar stuff fund boutique local bloggers? I’m not impressed with the grants, but I’m not that impressed with most of the alternatives.
And the idea that foundations are going to rescue or preserve journalism is sad.
@Amir Khalid:
They have neither shame nor profits.
pseudonymous in nc
@LTL-FTC:
That’s true, and it’s a problem, because grant-application-writing is an skill, and there are foundations who are much happier signing off on half a million to a big institution than, say, $50,000 to a community journalism operation that’s run on a part-time and volunteer basis.
I think it’s a bit cynical to see it entirely as a circlejerk: it’s more a case of path dependency and small-c conservatism.
mdblanche
The Ford Foundation is subsidizing the legacy media now? Meh. Hapsburgs gonna Hapsburg. If you don’t like it, just wait a few years and a lack of hybrid vigor will eliminate the problem for you.
LTL-FTC
@pseudonymous in nc:
I think that’s exactly right. I suppose one can take comfort in the idea that (1) it is possible, though admittedly difficult, to create new paths, particularly when, in this case, journalistic institutions are in a moment of transition and (2) the LA Times, for what it’s worth, does have a decent track record of reporting on border politics, the issue at hand (see: Enrique’s journey).