McCormick Foundation Invests $3.8 Million into Journalism Content, Audience and Rights Initiatives

McCormick's Journalism Program is pleased to announce approval of a series of grants supporting news and information throughout the U.S. at the Foundation's September, 2009, board meeting. The 26 grants, totaling $3,835,000 over two years, fall into the Journalism Program's new grantmaking categories of Content, Audience and Rights.

"This package of journalism initiatives signals a new strategic direction for the McCormick Foundation's Journalism Program," said Clark Bell, program director. "We now frame the Foundation's support to news media around three critical areas: Content, Audience and Rights. The audience category addresses the public's information needs and how news organizations can better interact with their audiences. At the core of the new strategy is the emerging area of News Literacy - enhancing the ability of young people to analyze information and decipher what is and isn't reliable."

The grants include:

Content

*    Center for Investigative Reporting ($75,000 over 1 year for reporting on carbon trading)
*    Center for Media and Security ($200,000 over 2 years for military-media outreach briefings)
*    Center for Public Integrity ($75,000 over 1 year for consortium on investigative reporting)
*    Community Renewal Society ($75,000 over 1 year for the Chicago Reporter)
*    TCC Group ($400,000 over 2 years for the Challenge Fund for Journalism)

Audience

*    American University ($200,000 over 2 years for J-LAB's New Media Women Entrepreneurs)
*    Asian American Journalists Association ($200,000 over 2 years for an audience-building project)
*    Associated Press Managing Editors Foundation ($75,000 over 1 year for NewsTrain workshops for college faculty)
*    Free Spirit Media ($200,000 over 2 years for broadcast journalism for Chicago youth)
*    LA Youth ($140,000 over 2 years for youth journalism)
*    Minnesota Public Radio ($75,000 over 1 year for social network journalism program)
*    National Association of Hispanic Journalists ($100,000 over 1 year for audience-building project)
*    National Museum of Mexican Art ($150,000 over 2 years for RadioArte youth radio program)
*    Pacific News Service ($100,000 over 1 year for New America Media's work with journalism schools and media partnerships)
*    Northwestern University's Media Management Center ($275,000 over 1 year for general support and Fellows initiative)
*    Poynter Institute ($150,000 over 2 years for the News Literacy Project's work in Chicago Public Schools)
*    Radio & Television News Directors Foundation ($150,000 over 2 years for Camp STN and news literacy work with youth)
*    Roosevelt University ($210,000 over 18 months for a Chicago-area youth media technology fund)
*    StonyBrook Foundation ($100,000 over 1 year for high school and college news literacy curriculum)
*    Street Level Youth Media ($120,000 over 2 years for the Sounding Point program training)
*    USC's Knight Digital Media Center ($100,000 over 1 year for a transforming news organizations now project)
*    Young Chicago Authors ($85,000 over 1 year for general support and a citywide youth media festival)

Rights
*    Committee to Protect Journalists ($150,000 over 2 years for press freedom work in U.S., Cuba and Mexico)
*    Illinois First Amendment Center ($100,000 over 1 year for Youth First Amendment Program)
*    Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press ($200,000 over 2 years for McCormick Legal Fellowship)
*    Student Press Law Center ($130,000 over 2 years for McCormick Publications Fellowship)