The Columbia Journalism Review will improve the quality of election and policy coverage by focusing media criticism at the local level, where the quality of media coverage can be essential for voters to understand issues and make informed choices.

This is a renewal grant to CJR’s United States Project to support experimentation in building local journalism capacity in the areas of collaboration, innovation, impact, and funding in target states.

The purpose of this grant is to convene a group of journalists and people passionate about the news along with one or two featured journalist guests over a meal. The idea, dubbed “Let’s Read the News,” is a form of book club for journalism.

FlackCheck.org will use satire and deconstructions of political ads to assist reporters and the public in identifying and rejecting fear-mongering and fact-mangling in the 2012 elections.

The purpose of this grant is to support The Center for High Impact Philanthropy (“CHIP”) to develop a toolkit for donors that will help philanthropists understand the various aspects of strengthening our democracy and ways they can support efforts around the United States. CHIP will conduct a field scan, develop specific resources on what is working well, and disseminate the toolkit to various donor networks. 

To support the Media, Inequality and Change Center’s (MIC) Compass Fellowship Program in continuing to strengthen the ties between academia and practice on tech and telecom issues.

The Solidarity Journalism Initiative is a research-based effort that helps journalists, educators, and students improve coverage of marginalized communities. Solidarity in journalism means that journalists stand for basic human dignity and against suffering, and is a practice of newsworthiness judgments, sourcing, and framing that centers the lived experiences of people.

The purpose of this grant is to understand how newsrooms can better optimize their engagement metrics, particularly with election‐related coverage.

To provide support for message testing research to combat destructive narratives about trust in elections.

The Engaging News Project has a single aim: to provide research-based techniques for engaging online audiences in commercially-viable and democratically-beneficial ways. The project tests web-based strategies for informing audiences, promoting substantive discourse, and helping citizens to understand diverse views.

To support collaboration between NICD and the Engaging News Project to share knowledge and identify promising strategies that will determine features and tools to promote a more civil dialogue online.

The Solidarity Journalism project, housed at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, conducts research and provides trainings to reporters on Solidarity Journalism, which centers communities that have been historically excluded or harmed by journalism’s portrayal of them.

This grant supports the work and experimentation of the Engaging News Project and in so doing will raise the knowledge across industry of news engagement practices that are COMMERCIALLY-VIABLE and DEMOCRATICALLY-BENEFICIAL.

The Center for Media Engagement will produce peer-reviewed research and practical recommendations that inform journalists and newsrooms on engagement practices, building and restoring trust, and serving diverse audiences.

The Engaging News Project (ENP) will test web-based strategies for informing audiences, promoting substantive discourse, and helping citizens to understand diverse views. They will also analyze business outcomes, such as clicks and time on page, which provides valuable information about what works, and what doesn’t.

To provide general support for ThinkTennessee’s work to build support for democracy reform in Tennessee. ThinkTN will provide unbiased research and analysis, informing key stakeholders about evidence-based ideas that will create civic and economic opportunity in Tennessee.

ThinkTennessee is a nonpartisan, results-oriented think tank that uses research and advocacy to build a state where all Tennesseans are civically engaged and economically secure.

This grant will provide support to ThinkTennessee’s efforts to build awareness around registration modernization in Tennessee.

To support Thought Partnerships, a fiscally sponsored project of NEO Philanthropies, as it seeks to build effective cross sector communities of practice to advance non-violent and just societies through research, sharing and learning.  

The purpose of this grant is to expand the practice of fact-checking by helping PolitiFact expand their network throughout the states.