The news Good Housekeeping seal: What makes a nonprofit outlet legit?
With many new news organizations launching as nonprofits and many nonprofits moving into the news business, one has to wonder: Exactly where does journalism end and something else — call it spin, opinion, or advocacy — begin? Or to phrase the question as Chuck Lewis recently did for me: If a nonprofit says it’s doing journalism, what makes it legit?
The line — if you believe there ever was one — is becoming increasingly blurred. As the traditional advertising-and-subscription model of newspapers continues to erode, other institutions — including advocacy, membership and charitable nonprofits — are leaping to fill the void. But it’s not clear that some new entrants are playing by the rules of journalism and nonprofit accountability. Or more accurately, it’s not clear that they want to.
In this uncertain environment, the question of legitimacy looms large, particularly for nonprofits. As beneficiaries of taxpayer support, nonprofits have a special duty to be absolutely transparent. If they want to call their work journalism, the material they publish must be good enough meet any test of professional standards that might reasonably be applied, from both the realms of journalism and of nonprofit management.
Trouble is, no widely accepted set of best practices or due diligence exists for journalism nonprofits. To separate journalism from what Dan Gillmor has dubbed “almost journalism,” many in the business have borrowed from Justice Potter Stewart’s standard: “I know it when I see it.” Or at least they think they do.
When you can’t know it when you see it
This standard has worked most of the time. But it failed notoriously in December, when The Washington Post published a story by The Fiscal Times, a new, online news organization owned by The Fiscal Times Media Group LLC and backed by investment banker and former Commerce secretary Pete Peterson. Peterson is a long-time deficit hawk, and has helped fund the Concord Coalition, a nonprofit that is “dedicated to educating the public about the causes and consequences of federal budget deficitseradicating the federal deficit.”
As recounted by Post ombudsman Andy Alexander, the article drew criticism from progressive critics of Peterson because it quoted the president of the Concord Coalition, but failed to mention that the group receives funding from Peterson’s foundation. The article — reporting that momentum was building for a plan to name a special bipartisan commission to address the nation’s debt — also fell short of the Post’s standards because it cited data from a study supported by the foundation but again failed to note the foundation’s backing, according to Alexander.
Compounding transparency issues, The Fiscal Times gives mixed signals about its corporate status.
In fact, The Fiscal Times is not a nonprofit. It has a “.org” landing page and invites readers to “join now” to create a “Member ID.” It also says on its about page that it “is part of a new era of independently supported non-partisan journalism.” But it is incorporated in Delaware as a limited liability company, or LLC, a for-profit structure most often used by sole proprietorships, partnerships or small businesses.
Jackie Leo, editor in chief of The Fiscal Times, told me in an email that the organization changed strategies shortly after launching. “When we started this project, we thought we would model it after ProPublica or some of the other non-profit news sites,” she wrote. “But our lawyers pointed out that if we post opinion pieces (from our bloggers and columnists) about candidates running for office or bills pending in Congress, and if that opinion can be deemed as influencing the outcome of a vote, the IRS would consider it ‘lobbying’ and we would lose our 501c3 status. With that in mind, we decided to create the LLC.”
Did the Post know all this before it agreed to publish The Fiscal Times’ work? Judging from Alexander’s column, the Post had no formal means of screening its reporting partners. Rather, it appears to have relied almost exclusively on institutional familiarity with the Fiscal Times’ staff, which includes former Post reporter and editor Eric Pianin.
Setting up guidelines
The controversy has subsided. But it has left a lasting impression in journalism circles, particularly in Washington, and nobody wants to repeat the Post’s mistake. As Vivian Schiller, CEO of National Public Radio, told me in an interview, “my alarm bells go off” when she looks at the Fiscal Times’ corporate structure, financial backing and reporting focus.
At NPR, Schiller added, editors employ a set of criteria to evaluate potential partners. Among them: nonprofit status, a well-regarded board of directors and top-notch journalists. But the process remains an informal one.
So what to do?
As I’ve talked over this problem with Lewis, Schiller, David Westphal and others who think about it a lot, I keep coming back to the idea that some standards are in order — a Good Housekeeping seal of approval, if you will, for nonprofit journalism.
This task may be easier said than done.
To begin, there are some deceivingly simple threshold questions. For one, should the nonprofit sector take it upon itself to set standards for its journalism and business practices? If yes, then who should be on the drafting committee?
If not, then are journalism nonprofits willing to live with the current mishmash of definitions of journalism put forth by entities as diverse as the Senate Press Gallery, the Pulitzer Committee, and perhaps the IRS? And how about other stakeholders such as the Post, NPR and others that have come to rely on investigative and explanatory reporting from nonprofits? Following The Fiscal Times episode, will they overreact and overlook work by ambitious, high-quality news organizations?
It seems to me that the answers should come from the nonprofit sector of journalism, if for no other reason, than to minimize damage potential damage from bad actors that might yet emerge from within its ranks.
Starting points
No list of criteria or standards can guarantee quality or take the place of professional responsibilty. But it is a place to start — much like the new IRS Form 990, which was re-designed based on input from the nonprofit sector. So here are some suggested criteria that might help.
Nonprofit Governance:
— 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 status
— All-volunteer publisher board
— 990s clearly posted online
— Major donors named
— Case for philanthropy linked to editorial indpendence
— Clear accountability measures
— Clean accounting opinion
Journalistic Professionalism:
— Functionally independent newsroom
— Journalism advisory board or ombudsman
— Adherence to SPJ Code of Ethics
— Supportive institutional culture
— Submitted entry for professional prize (SPJ, IRE, etc.)
— Holder of federal or state press credential
Comments? I plan to spend the next few months researching this question in greater depth, and I welcome thoughtful input.
Also, for those planning to attend the We Media conference next month in Miami, this is one of the issues we plan to address during our panel on nonprofits in journalism, so please come ready to discuss.
Love it – ‘cept for one.
How bout 12 not 13?
Never have trusted press credentialing.
Maybe that’s jus me.
Thanks for the effort to come to grips with what “journalism” is. The article seems aimed at large-scale reporting groups rather than the one or two journalist shops that are starting to pop up. For small operations, the last two items are either frivolous (entering journalism contests?) or just wrong (government press credentials). They are barriers to entry into the world of responsible journalism not standards.
Hi Jim: I was mostly with you until the end. Then I departed completely from your judgment.
First, I don’t think “professionalism” is a feature of legitimacy at all. We could say it’s one way of attempting to secure legitimacy, but the equation: professional news person = legitimate provider of news does not work at all. Nor does the reverse: you’re legit if you’re recognizably a professional.
Other than Jayson Blair, is there anyone associated with the New York Times who undermined its legitimacy more than Judith Miller? I can’t think of anyone. And yet after the revelations of what she did in the Plame case came out, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) gave her a First Amendment award. Her lack of legitimacy spread to the society. Are you aware what percentage of SPJ members are in fact public relations people? If you find out, you might be more circumspect.
Submitting for prizes guarantees nothing. They do not belong on your list at all. Nor do credentials. Check out the way the professionals in charge of granting press credentials behave when it comes to getting new providers into the Senate press gallery in DC. If you look into it, you’ll discover thin to zero legitimacy, but a lot of behavior that is typical of professionals. Is the Washington Independent a legitimate news provider? I bet if you looked at it you’d say yes. Find out if they can get credentials.
I think you need to separate two things that your list mixes up– consensus practices and legitimacy. It’s possible for consensus practices to lack legitimacy and yet remain consensus practices. An example from pro journalism would be: you don’t investigate who my confidential sources are and I won’t investigate yours… deal? Another might be pack journalism. I would argue that not linking to sources you are drawing from and mentioning lacks legitimacy but it’s a consensus practice. By the way, you won’t find anything about that in the SPJ code.
Attempting to ground sourcing practices in principles of legitimacy, The New York Times has introduced a rule for itself: you can’t attack or lob criticism at another person and remain an anonymous source in the news columns of the New York Times. The rule is very commonly violated by the Times own people because the practice is stronger than the principle of legitimacy the rule appeals to. The public editor has written about it.
Cheers.
Why would any reader of a blog like this one assume that the news articles coming directly from a NGO like Human Rights Watch are journalism? For the larger world of non-profits, isn’t there an epistemological argument that the very nature of “non” narrows the lens of inquiry? For my part,I have never met any director of any non-profit who did not have an agenda. The few real journalists I have met are skeptics of the first order. Or they are Socratic teachers like Jay Rosen.
I think you did a nice effort to get a start on standards for the US. Not surprisingly considering your constituency.
Now, I’m trying to set up a news section for a global portal on salaries, now active in 46 countries and based in Europe. It might be obvious that many of your suggestions do not work outside the US, while it would be useful to formulate perhaps also a set of criteria with a less US-based slant, since many more or struggling with similar issues outside the US.
Hi, Jay —
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. But hey, help a fellow. What would you say are some easily discernable, objective criteria to gauge legitimacy? How would you get past the Potter Stewart test?
Thanks,
Jim
I know many people love that Potter Stewart quote but I don’t see much of a difference between, “I know it when I see it,” and “Actually, I haven’t a clue.”
What would you say are some easily discernable, objective criteria to gauge legitimacy?
I’d start with the will to veracity, also known as truthtelling. Truthtelling even when it hurts or causes problems for your friends. Real journalists tell us what happened because it actually happened that way, and not some other way. All forms of legitimacy derive from this one.
Then I’d move on to a manifest concern for accuracy, as in getting it right and correcting it when wrong.
Third pillar: transparency, also called disclosure, so we know where you’re coming from and what your stake is in the matter under review, if any.
Intellectual honesty: like when you paraphrase what Senator Brown says it actually does capture what Senator Brown says. This is sometimes called “fairness,” but I think my term is more descriptive.
Currency, in the sense that you are trying to report what happened recently, to keep up with events and what is known now. Journalism is about the present, not what was true six months or six years ago. Legitimacy in journalism has something to do with a determination to keep us up to date with a shifting world.
Inquiry: not the perfect word but the closest fit I can find. I refer to the drive to find out, to inquire and reveal more than what lies on the surface. We all know of situations in which the person in question didn’t lie but also didn’t try… to find out. That’s what I mean by inquiry: trying to find out. Journalism, to be journalism, must do that.
Utility, sometimes called by another name: public service. Journalists can get into legitimacy problems when they are trying to find out, but finding out serves no public purpose. Their legitimacy is clearest when the public interest is served by what they are striving to reveal to us.
Veracity, accuracy, transparency, intellectual honesty, currency, inquiry, utility. That’s where I would start in attempting to define legitimacy in journalism. Providers of news, information and commentary who devote themselves to those seven things are solid citizens of Legit-a-land.
I have to add one more, but you will probably hate me for it because it will strike you as jargon, and all journalists claim to hate jargon (but “lede” is okay, right?) Anyway, my eighth pillar of legitimacy is polyphonicity. I know: awful term! It means “more than one sound.”
Journalism to be fully legitimate needs to present a plurality of voices, not just one. I don’t mean to invoke the gods of balance. They are false gods. I mean to suggest that journalism isn’t a monologue. More than one person speaks in it. More than one angle is taken on the object.
Now I am sure you noticed that among my eight key terms for determining legitimacy in journalism one does not find such things as: objectivity, professionalism, “code of ethics,” balance, getting paid, being incorporated as a commercial business, working full time at newsgathering, eschewing opinion, bearing a press pass, or getting certified by the (journalistic) powers that be.
These are shortcuts, and taking shortcuts is not legitimate!
Jay- Very well said.
Stephen Ward, Andy Hall, Brant Houston and I (representing the St. Louis Beacon) were among those involved recently in a day-long discussion on some of these same issues at the University of Wisconsin. That was a prelude to further discussion this spring on ethics in new media.
“What Makes A Nonprofit Outfit Legit?”
Short answer: Purchased political cover.
I suggest you cross the Yard and have a discussion with the essentially untaxed $25 billion Harvard Endowment.
Public goods indeed.