Non Profit Journalism

Date: 14/06/13

Review of article 'Pew Report: digital nonprofits optimistic' published in CJR

The article 'Pew Report: digital nonprofits optimistic' was published in Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) on 10th June, 2013. It was written by Kira Goldenberg. This article talks about Non Profit Journalism (NPJ) and the optimistic nature of the staffers of a NPJ organization. Pew Research Center, an unbiased organization talks about the issues people are facing. It also talks about the attitudes and the recent changes in trends around the globe which are making some cultural and ideological change in human lives. Before we discuss more about the article on CJR, let's first try to understand the concept of NPJ.

Non Profit Journalism is also called as Not for Profit or Think Tank Journalism. Journalism when shrugs away the attitude of earning money or doing business through news gives the form of NPJ. It concentrates on the issues of the public, thus putting forward the issues in front of the world. The NPJ s are unlike other journalism organizations run through different set of ideologies and philosophies which are not at all related to monetary benefits. The NPJ s carry a value system which has to do something with the dissemination of information for the sake of development. However, as they don't have any earning as such, they have to depend on the private donations.

The article published in CJR talks about Pew as a research organization conducted a research on 172 news organization in the USA. NPJ s like ProPublica and InsideClimateNews has already won Pulitzers for their outstanding contribution in the field of Journalism. Over a period of time most of the NPJ s struggles to sustain due to lack of funds.

Section 501(c) of the United States Internal Revenue Code (IRC) provides exemption from some federal income tax to 28 types of non profit organizations (source: Wikipedia). Most of the times these NPJ try to compared themselves to the Universities or Educational bodies to get tax exemption. Section 501(c)(3) of IRC states that any Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations are exempted from tax. The IRC is being implemented by Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, NPJ s have to struggle to obtain that designation from the IRS.

Although NPJ s future is dark and bleak, they still take confidence from their deeds. According to a poll by Pew as many as 81% of the NPJ s are confident about their finances, and about their sustainability.

In another article called "NONPROFIT JOURNALISM -- A GROWING BUT FRAGILE PART OF THE U.S. NEWS SYSTEM" by Amy Mitchell, Mark Jurkowitz, Jesse Holcomb, Jodi Enda and Monica Anderson it has been seen that there is some signs of economic health in the NPJ sector. The link for the article is mentioned below:

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/nonprofit_journalism

This article concentrates on the figures. The figures which are found through the polls and survey conducted by Pew. It states most of the NPJ organizations are small and surviving with minimal employees and with decent budgets. The figure received from the survey states 93 out of 172 organizations are hopeful and going through some positive economic changes.