Changes in the News Media Make a Big Difference to Philanthropy, Expert Say

Big changes in the news-media landscape, including the waning influence of traditional journalistic outlets and the growth of alternative information sources such as blogs, will affect the way philanthropic organizations get news about the issues they care about, according to experts who discussed the issue here at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations. But some were more optimistic than others about what that means.

"Newspapers are getting dumbed down, getting more shallow, less substantive; newsrooms are getting cut back, newsholes in the newspapers are getting smaller," said Max King, president of the Heinz Endowments, in Pittsburgh, and former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. "The old economic model of news gathering is broken."

Speaking at a session of the meeting, Mr. King said he worries that will deprive foundations of substantive reporting about ways to improve society and of journalistic checks on their effectiveness.

Jay T. Harris, director of the Center for the Study of Journalism and Democracy at the University of Southern California, also expressed concern about the growing tendency of mainstream broadcast and newspaper companies to give more priority to the needs of shareholders and less to their "public trust responsibilities."

Because journalism plays a vital role in setting community agendas and keeping citizens informed, it should perhaps be removed from "a pure business model," he said.

But Arianna Huffington, an author and founder of the Huffington Post, a political blog, said there's not that much to regret. Traditional news coverage, she said, suffers from "attention deficit disorder," focusing intensely on a story for awhile, then abandoning it. She said new technology "offers the possibility of introducing giving and volunteering into our lives in a consistent way." Blogs can provide long-term, "obsessive" coverage of a disaster or social issue, while donors can follow the progress of an issue, or a person who needs help, online.

Ms. Huffington challenged the notion that a "golden era" of journalism was coming to an end, complaining that the mainstream news media had suffered an "incredible dark mark" by failing to challenge the Bush administration's case for starting the war in Iraq. Blogs are beginning to offer substantive journalism, she said — noting that her blog, for example, plans to hire a full reporting team to cover the 2008 presidential campaign.

She said her blog also plans to introduce a new feature at the end of May called Living, which will cover "everything except politics" and have as one of its missions to engage young people in philanthropy.

Ian Rowe, vice president of strategic partnerships and public affairs for MTV, the youth-oriented cable television network, discussed the ways his company has used new technologies to get young people involved in social causes — for example, sponsoring a contest to design a video game to educate people about the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. He said MTV has worked with foundations on some of its projects — including the Kaiser Family Foundation on a project to collect first-person stories from HIV/AIDS victims and their family members for a documentary and Web site.

But he urged more foundations to be open to partnerships with for-profit companies. He said that a $100,000 grant to MTV, for instance, can help spread information to hundreds of millions of households around the world.

"Sometimes giving money to a for-profit media business can be a highly efficient way to maximize your impact around an issue," Mr. Rowe said.