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20 Projects Receive Funding to Combat Misinformation and Build a More Trustworthy Public Square

Josh Stearns

June 22, 2017

The Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Rita Allen Foundation announced today that twenty projects seeking to improve the flow of accurate information will split $1 million to explore and develop early-stage ideas, programs, and prototypes.

In moments of uncertainty and volatility it can be tempting to gravitate towards a single solution to the pressing problem of misinformation and low public trust facing our media, technology, and democracy. However, when it comes to rebuilding the public square and ensuring what is shared is accurate information there are no silver bullets. As such, the projects receiving funding today represent a wide array of ideas and approaches from cognitive psychology and community engagement to computer science and news literacy.

Many of the winners leverage new technology, such as artificial intelligence, to identify and push back on efforts pollute our information ecosystem, while others turned to techniques rooted in education and organizing. Taken together these twenty projects represent a diverse cohort of individuals and institutions who will spend the next nine months grappling with the many questions that surround the role of truth and trust in our media, politics and society.

Out of the twenty total organizations receiving Prototype Fund grants, Democracy Fund supported four specific projects which will each receive $50,000.

Viz Lab (Project leads: Caroline Sinders | San Francisco | @carolinesinders, Susie Cagle | Oakland | @susie_c, Francis Tseng | Brooklyn | @frnsys): Developing a dashboard to track and visualize images and ‘memes,’ as common sources of fake news, to enable journalists and researchers to more easily understand the origins of the image, its promoters, and where it might have been altered and then redistributed.

The Documenters Project by City Bureau (Project lead: Darryl Holliday | Chicago | @d_holli, @city_bureau): Strengthening local media coverage and building trust in journalism by creating an online network of citizen “documenters” who receive training in the use of journalistic ethics and tools, attend public civic events, and produce short summaries that are posted online as a public resource. City Bureau will create and test a field manual to help others replicate the model.

Hoaxy Bot-o-Meter by Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research (Project lead: Filippo Menczer | Bloomington, Indiana | @Botometer, @truthyatindiana): Developing a tool to uncover attempts to use Internet bots to boost the spread of misinformation and shape public opinion. The tool aims to reveal how this information is generated and broadcasted, how it becomes viral, its overall reach, and how it competes with accurate information for placement on user feeds.

Media Literacy @ Your Library by American Library Association in collaboration with the Center for News Literacy (Project lead: Samantha Oakley | Chicago | @ALALibrary, @NewsLiteracy): Developing an adult media literacy program in five public libraries, including a series of online learning sessions, resources, and an in-person workshop to train library workers to help patrons become more informed media consumers.

The other projects include numerous other Democracy Fund grantees and partners working on fact-checking, debunking viral disinformation, and mining digital archives for context. The sixteen other winners are:

Breaking filter bubbles in science journalism by the University of California, Santa Cruz

(Project lead: Erika Check Hayden | Santa Cruz, California @Erika_Check | @UCSC_SciCom): Producing visually-engaging science journalism around topics such as climate change and genetics, to determine whether content delivered by a trusted messenger in a culturally-relevant context has greater reach. The articles will be tested through the digital platform EscapeYourBubble.com, which distributes curated content to users across ideological divides.

Calling Bullshit in the Age of Fake News by the University of Washington (Project lead: Jevin West | Seattle @jevinwest, @UW_iSchool): Developing a curriculum and set of tools to teach students and the public to better assess quantitative information and combat misinformation—with a particular emphasis on data, visualizations, and statistics.

ChartCheck by Periscopic (Project lead: Megan Mermis | Portland, Oregon | @periscopic): Addressing the spread of misinformation through charts, graphs, and data visualizations by fact-checking these resources and publishing results. The team will also build tools to address the spread of these charts on social media and the Internet.

Crosscheck by Vanderbilt University in collaboration with First Draft (Project lead: Lisa Fazio and Claire Wardle | Nashville, Tennessee | @lkfazio, @cward1e, @firstdraftnews, @crosscheck): Using design features to make correct news more memorable, so that people can recall it more easily when faced with false information, using a platform initially developed in France to address misinformation around the French election.

Facts Matter by PolitiFact (Project lead: Aaron Sharockman | St. Petersburg, Florida | @asharock, @PolitiFact): Helping to improve trust in fact-checking, particularly among people who identify as conservative, through experiments including in-person events; a mobile-game that tracks misconceptions about specific facts; diverse commentators who would assess fact-checking reports; and a study of the language used in these reports to determine their effect on perceptions of trustworthiness.

Glorious ContextuBot by Bad Idea Factory (Project lead: Daniel Schultz | Philadelphia | @biffud, @slifty): Helping people become better consumers of online audio and video content through a tool that provides the original source of individual clips and identifies who else has discussed it on the news.

Immigration Lab by Univision News (Project lead: Ronny Rojas | Miami | @ronnyrojas, @UniNoticias): Engaging undocumented immigrants on issues that affect their lives by creating a reliable news resource to help them access and gather information. The project team will do on-the-ground research in communities with a high percentage of undocumented immigrants and learn about their media literacy skills, news consumption habits and needs, and trusted information sources.

KQED Learn by KQED (Project lead: Randall Depew | San Francisco | @randydepew, @KQEDEdSpace): Encouraging young people to ask critical questions that deepen learning and improve media literacy through KQED Learn, a free online platform for students and teachers that reveals ways to ask good questions, investigate answers and share conclusions.

News Inequality Project by Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram (Project leads: Hamdan Azhar, Cathy Deng, Christian MilNeil, and Leslie Shapiro | Portland, Maine | @HamdanAzhar, @cthydng, @c_milneil, @lmshap, @pressherald): Developing a web-based analytics dashboard to help media organizations and community organizers understand how – and how often – different communities are covered in news outlets over time.

News Quality Score Project (Project lead: Frederic Filloux | Palo Alto, California | @filloux): Creating a tool to surface quality journalism from the web, at scale and in real-time, through algorithms and machine learning. The tool will evaluate and score content on criteria ranging from the notoriety of authors and publishers to an analysis of various components of the story structure.

NewsTracker.org by PBS NewsHour and Miles O’Brien Productions (Project lead: Cameron Hickey | Washington, D.C. | @cameronhickey, @newshour) : Developing a tool that combines online news content with engagement data from social media and other sources to help journalists and others better understand the scale, scope, and shape of the misinformation problem. The tool will enable content analysis by gathering data about what is being written, by whom, where it is distributed, and the size of the audience consuming it.

Putting Civic Online Reasoning in Civics Class by Stanford History Education Group/Stanford University (Project lead: Sam Wineburg | Stanford, California | @SHEF_Stanford, @samwineburg): Creating professional development resources for teachers to become better consumers of digital content, in addition to classroom-ready materials that they can use to help students find and assess information online.

Social Media Interventions by Boston University (Project lead: Jacob Groshek | Boston | @jgroshek, @EMSatBU): Experimenting with the effectiveness of real-time online interventions, such as direct messages to users who post or share false information, with people who are sharing known misinformation online.

Veracity.ai (Project lead: Danny Rogers | Baltimore, Maryland): Helping to curb the financial incentives of creating misleading content with automatically-updated lists of “fake news” websites and easy-to-deploy tools that allow ad buyers to block, in bulk, the domains where misinformation is propagated.

Who Said What by Joostware (Project lead: Delip Rao | San Francisco | @deliprao, @joostware): Helping people more easily fact-check audio and video news clips with a search tool that annotates millions of these clips and allows users to explore both what is said and the identity of the speaker.

Technical Schema for Credibility by Meedan in collaboration with Hacks and Hackers (Project lead: Xiao Mina | San Francisco | @anxiaostudio, @meedan, @hackshackers): Creating a clear, standardized framework to define the credibility of a piece of content, how conclusions about its credibility were reached, and how to communicate that credibility effectively.

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Announcing News Match 2017: $2 Million Fund Will Match Donations to Nonprofit Newsrooms

Tom Glaisyer

June 21, 2017

This piece was co-authored by Tom Glaisyer and Jennifer Preston at Knight Foundation

We believe that journalism is essential to building informed and engaged communities, and that a healthy democracy requires a robust and independent press. For the last decade, as the digital disruption of the traditional business model for journalism has led to deep cuts in newsrooms across the county, nonprofit news organizations have filled critical gaps by providing vital news and information to communities, delivering investigative and beat reporting with pioneering models.

The future and mission of nonprofit journalism has never been more important as trust in the news media is at an all time low and people are searching for reliable news in their social and mobile streams. Today, the Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation welcome other funders and supporters to join a new matching gifts fund to support nonprofit news. Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation are pledging $2 million in 2017 to kick off a campaign to support nonprofit journalism, with an additional $750,000 committed to help nonprofit organizations build the capability and capacity they need to put them on the path of sustainability.

The new fund builds on the success of last fall’s Knight News Match, which helped 57 nonprofit news organizations across the country raise more than $1.2 million in matching donations from small donors. This year’s effort significantly expands the number of newsrooms eligible to participate and increases opportunities for both place-based and national foundations to support the matching gifts program.

The objective of this fund is to support nonprofit newsrooms delivering local, beat and investigative reporting. To be eligible to participate, nonprofit newsrooms must be full members of the Institute for Nonprofit News in September 2017. The program will begin in the fall so that the matching gifts program can be used as a way to reach new donors and appeal to recent donors during the critical end-of-year fundraising season.

To support the matching gifts program and help put nonprofit news on the path to sustainability, Democracy Fund and Knight have committed $750,000 dollars to support the most effective strategies, tools and best practices for long-term sustainability. These investments will allow the Institute for Nonprofit News, Local Independent Online News, and the News Revenue Hub to help local newsrooms expand their donor base, develop successful membership programs, and make the case for supporting journalism in their communities.

We believe this is a profoundly important moment for journalism in America. Our communities and our country need journalism that reflects and responds to the diverse needs of all Americans. In the face of the hollowing out of the traditional industry, nonprofit news sites offer a chance to restore local coverage and deliver expert beat reporting, but they require the support of their communities. Whether you can give five dollars or five hundred to the participating nonprofit news organization of your choice, News Match will double it.

More details about the fund will be announced in the fall. In the meantime, Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation will continue to invite additional partners to join the fund, especially community and place-based foundations who recognize that news and information is an indispensable community asset, and want to leverage the fund to further amplify support.

For questions about the News Match fund contact:

Josh Stearns at Democracy Fund, jstearns@democracyfund.org

Jennifer Preston at Knight Foundation, preston@knightfoundation.org

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Statement

Democracy Fund Statement on Shootings Today in Virginia and California

Democracy Fund

June 14, 2017

Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman issued the following statement in response to the shooting incidents today in Alexandria, VA, and San Francisco, CA:

“With Americans across the country, Democracy Fund is appalled at today’s two shooting incidents, first at a Republican Congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, VA, and then in San Francisco, CA. While the nation is still learning about both horrific events, we are praying for the speedy recovery of all victims, including Congressman Steve Scalise, current and former congressional staff, and the U.S. Capitol Police officers. These honorable Americans, public servants, and their friends and families on both sides of the country are foremost in our thoughts.

“For two years, Democracy Fund has sponsored the Congressional Baseball Game because we believe the American people are best served when the parties and our elected officials are able to negotiate and compromise. Just as in baseball, our politics should be competitive, but at the end of the day we are all Americans and we are all on the same team. There is no room for violence in our democracy. We stand with Americans from across the political spectrum in condemning these senseless acts.”

As planned, Democracy Fund will attend the Congressional Baseball Game and highlight grantees that work with Congress to ensure that our legislative branch is able to fulfill its obligations to the American people. Democracy Fund’s Governance Program has invested in organizations including the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Congressional Management Foundation, the Millennial Action Project, the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress, the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program, and the Project on Government Oversight, among others.

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Press Release

Voter Study Group Releases New Longitudinal Poll and Reports on the American Electorate

Democracy Fund

June 13, 2017

Groundbreaking Longitudinal Poll of the American Electorate Released by New Group of Conservative, Progressive, and Independent Scholars

New research and analysis by politically-diverse collaboration of public opinion experts will deliver insights on the evolving views of American voters

Washington, D.C. – June 13, 2017

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a new research collaboration comprised of nearly two dozen analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum, today released its first trove of new data and analysis exploring voter perceptions before and after the 2016 election. During the intense political division of the 2016 presidential campaign, the Voter Study Group began collaborating across ideological lines to examine the underlying values and opinions that influence voter decision-making. The expert group commissioned the VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey) of 8,000 adults who had participated in similar surveys in mid-2016, 2011, and 2012. This unique longitudinal data set provides the basis for four new reports analyzing many of the most hotly-debated subjects of the presidential election, including economic stress, trade, race, immigration, and the evolution of the parties.

“Voters who experienced increased or continued economic stress were inclined to have become more negative about immigration and terrorism, demonstrating how economic pressures coincided with cultural concerns to produce an outcome that surprised most of us,” said Henry Olsen, senior fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center and project director for the Voter Study Group. “However, not all Trump voters shared these sentiments, many of whom were simply partisan Republicans backing a candidate who echoed their longstanding concerns.”

“Our research follows the same set of voters from one election to the next, and looks at voters’ beliefs and affinities, to better understand what’s behind voter behavior and analyze what political polling typically misses,” said John Sides, associate professor at George Washington University and research director for Voter Study Group. “These data are helping us study what the rise of new movements and political figures mean for the future of our democracy.”

Key findings from the initial reports include:

Most Voters Supported Their Traditional Party in 2016: Eighty-three percent of 2016 voters backed the candidate of the same party whose candidate they had supported in 2012.
Views on Trade Not Highly Correlated with Party Switching: A voter’s views on free trade did not significantly impact their willingness to deviate from their prior partisan voting habits.
Views on Immigration, Muslims, and Black People Were Key Drivers of White Voters’ Decision to Switch: Before the 2016 campaign, there was an increasing alignment between race and partisanship. Feelings toward immigration, black people, and Muslims became more strongly related to voter decision-making in 2016 compared to 2012. Those who opposed a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants and believed that undocumented immigrants detract from American society were more likely to switch their support from President Obama to Trump.
Long-term Economic Stress Also Contributed to Trump’s Rise: Voters who experienced negative attitudes about the economy in 2012 were more likely to express key negative cultural attitudes in 2016 even taking into account their earlier answers to the same questions.
Trump General Election Voters Divided into Five Large Groups: The data shows that Trump voters generally share some common values but have different views on many key issues such as immigration, taxes, race, American identity, and size of the government. One analysis categorized Trump voters into five different groups: Staunch Conservatives (31 percent), Free Marketeers (25 percent), American Preservationists (20 percent), Anti-Elites (19 percent), and Disengaged (5 percent).
Trump Voters Disagree Significantly on Economic Issues: Voters who switched from Obama to Trump are much more likely to hold liberal views regarding economic inequality and government intervention than Trump voters who supported Mitt Romney in 2012. Donald Trump’s strongest supporters also tended to express more support for Social Security and Medicare than did any other cohort of Republican voters.
Democratic Partisans Agree on Most Issues: Nearly 45 percent of all voters could be classified as holding traditional liberal views on economics, social issues, and issues respecting national identity. Clinton received 83 percent of these votes, and nearly 78 percent of her total support came from these voters.

The four initial reports, along with an executive summary, provide in-depth analysis of key data from the VOTER Survey and are available are available online. (Author affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.)

Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyond: Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties by Lee Drutman, New America
Race, Religion, and Immigration in 2016: How the Debate over American Identity Shaped the Election and What It Means for a Trump Presidency by John Sides, George Washington University (Voter Study Group Research Director)
The Story of Trump’s Appeal: A Portrait of Trump Voters by Robert Griffin and Ruy Teixeira, Center for American Progress
The Five Types of Trump Voters: Who They Are and What They Believe by Emily Ekins, Ph.D., Cato Institute

“The unprecedented tenor and direction of the 2016 election and the ensuing political debate are not the result of one campaign or even one candidate, but instead of deeper trends in how American voters view their democracy and their political system,” said Joe Goldman, Democracy Fund president. “The wide-range of political perspectives represented in the Voter Study Group reflects an urgent need—one that goes beyond party—to better listen and respond to the needs of Americans across the country.”

The VOTER Survey and reports were made possible by a grant from Democracy Fund to the Ethics and Public Policy Center to conduct new research about the changing trends among the American electorate.

Toplines and crosstabs from the VOTER Survey can be accessed online. Throughout this year, the Voter Study Group will release the full data set as well as additional reports on this and future surveys online.

_________________________________________________

VOTER Survey Methodology Summary

In partnership with the survey firm YouGov, the VOTER Survey interviewed 8,000 Americans in December 2016 who had been previously interviewed both in 2011-2012 and in July 2016. A complete survey methodology is available online.

About the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC)

Founded in 1976 by Dr. Ernest W. Lefever, the Ethics and Public Policy Center is Washington, D.C.’s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy. From the Cold War to the war on terrorism, from disputes over the role of religion in public life to battles over the nature of the family, EPPC and its scholars have consistently sought to defend and promote our nation’s founding principles—respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited government.

About the Democracy Fund

The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Since 2011, Democracy Fund has invested more than $60 million in support of modern elections, effective governance, and a vibrant public square.

_________________________________________________

Contact

Lauren Strayer
media@voterstudygroup.org
(202) 420-7928

Harold Reid
media@voterstudygroup.org
(404) 995-4500

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Blog

Welcoming Tammy Patrick to Democracy Fund’s Elections Program

Democracy Fund

May 12, 2017

This week the Democracy Fund is excited to welcome Tammy Patrick as a new Senior Advisor for the Elections program. A widely-respected leader in the election administration space, Tammy brings with her a strong background in using data, best practices, and practical approaches to make voting easier. In this new role, Tammy will help lead the Democracy Fund’s efforts to foster a voter-centric elections system and work to provide election officials across the country with the tools and knowledge they need to best serve their voters.

Tammy joins us from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she worked to promote the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA). BPC has had major successes working in states across the country to advance the PCEA’s recommendations, as identified in our recent progress report, available here. Tammy is also a former Commissioner of the PCEA, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013. As a Commissioner, Tammy was an active contributor to the work that lead to a series of unanimous, bipartisan recommendations on how to improve elections in the United States.

Tammy spent 11 years working to infuse data and innovation in local election practices as a federal compliance officer for the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona, where she served over 1.9 million registered voters in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Her long list of accomplishments also includes the U.S. Postal Service’s Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee, where she works on important issues related to the role the United States Postal Service place in our elections.

In addition to her work with the Democracy Fund, Tammy serves on the steering committee for National Voter Registration Day as well as the board of advisors for the Center for Technology in Civic Life and the MIT Election Data Science Lab. She also teaches Data Analysis for Election Administration for the Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota, which provides a certificate in public administration for election officials.

“We are thrilled to welcome Tammy to our team,” said Adam Ambrogi, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Elections Program. “With her unrivaled expertise on the challenges and nuances of elections administration in the United States and a proven ability to develop relationships with election officials, policy experts, academics, advocates from across the political spectrum, Tammy will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund seek new ways to support election officials and improve the voting experience for all voters.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/who-we-are. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.

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Blog

Systems Thinking: A View from the Trenches

Srik Gopal

May 3, 2017

This piece was co-authored by Donata Secondo and Robin Kane and was originally published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)

In recent years, systems thinking—a discipline that helps us understand interdependent structures of dynamic systems—has emerged as a powerful force for change in the philanthropic world. Borne out of the realization that significant and sustainable social change requires more than discrete interventions, systems thinking has become de rigueur for any foundation looking to create impact at scale. A 2016 publication on systems grantmaking by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, as well as recent pieces by FSG, Bridgespan, and New Profit have captured this spirit, and sought to provide guidance and direction for foundations navigating this new world.

But what does systems thinking and change look like in the trenches?

The Democracy Fund, which spun off from Omidyar Network as an independent entity in 2014, provides one example. The Democracy Fund’s mission is to help ensure that the US political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Given the complexity of this goal, we knew from the beginning that to produce the greatest impact, we needed to create strong, systems-oriented strategies that aligned with the work of others.

READ MORE via SSIR

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Report

Communities Of Practice

Angelica Das Edited By Jessica Clark

April 26, 2017

At a time when news and journalism are experiencing significant disruption, Democracy Fund is seeking to better understand and equip news outlets and reporters for public engagement. Individual newsrooms are ill-equipped to deal with large-scale transformations in platforms, news economics, and audience habits. Culture shifts are difficult to achieve and often happen from the bottom up or the outside in. We recognize that new solutions are needed across organizations that can be compared, replicated, scaled, and evaluated.

Communities of Practice (CoPs) provide a structure in which this activity can happen adjacent to or outside of legacy settings. This paper examines the theory and evolution of CoPs and explores in greater detail the nascent CoPs developing around engaged journalism. The appendix provides a checklist for building and grouping CoPs.

Democracy Fund is committed to supporting a vibrant media and the public square. By examining how CoPs have developed in the field of engaged journalism to date, we can better understand how a community of practice provides useful structures for learning, growth, and innovation. We can also learn how the ideas can be applied to other communities in journalism, including leaders at local news hubs, media business innovators, and other cohorts where new practices are emerging.

We welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more from you about how communities of practice are being adopted in your newsrooms and communities.

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Blog

Engaged Journalism: Putting Communities at the Center of Journalism

Teresa Gorman

April 26, 2017

This post was co-authored by Paul Waters

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square program is dedicated to supporting vibrant and thriving media through increasing engaged journalism practices in news outlets across the country. Two of the most common questions we hear about engaged journalism are: what is engaged journalism? And how (once you’ve figured out what it is) do you help the practice spread? To begin answering those questions, we commissioned two papers from Dot Connector Studio. Today, we are releasing those papers publicly for journalists, news organizations, funders, and any others that may find them useful.

The first is “Pathways to Engagement: Understanding How Newsrooms are Working with Communities.” In this paper, we have documented a broad spectrum of efforts that help position communities at the center of journalism by creating a taxonomy of engagement practices. Different approaches are outlined, along with useful examples from the field. We refer to the full spectrum of ideas presented here as “Engaged Journalism.” We undertook this effort primarily to clarify our own thinking, not to enforce a uniformity on others. We hope our taxonomy will be of use to the field, but we also see the value in continuing to push and pull on the meanings behind the words we use.

The second paper is “Communities of Practice: Lessons for the Journalism Field.” Organizations in the field need new solutions and ways to spread, compare, replicate, scale, and evaluate engaged journalism. Communities of practice (CoP) are one way to accomplish that for engaged journalism, and also for other groups. This paper examines the theory and evolution of CoPs and explores in greater detail some CoPs that are developing with those working in engaged journalism. The appendix provides a checklist for building and expanding CoPs for any type of group.

We hope that these lessons and examples—drawn from leaders and practitioners—will challenge and inspire both journalists and those who fund them. These papers are designed to share with your colleagues, newsroom leaders, and even community members. We hope that the paper on Communities of Practice will prove useful not only for those seeking to organize CoPs around engaged and local journalism, but for other funders and organizers in the space aiming to coalesce around other crucial responses to disruption in news.

We welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more from you about how engaged journalism and communities of practice are being adopted in your newsrooms and communities. Please send feedback to localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

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Report

Pathways To Engagement

Angelica Das, Edited By Jessica Clark

April 25, 2017

Journalists are working with their communities in a range of new ways that are reshaping how newsrooms report, publish, and pay the bills. This emerging trend has roots in past journalism industry movements but has taken on unique contours in the digital age. As Democracy Fund seeks to support new tools and practices that can expand community engagement in journalism, we wanted to understand the landscape of the field in more detail. We commissioned this paper to help us create a taxonomy of engagement practices.

In this paper, we have documented a broad spectrum of efforts that help position communities at the center of journalism. Different approaches are outlined, along with useful examples from the field. We don’t seek to prioritize or rank these different models, but rather understand that each meets different newsroom goals and community needs. Together, we refer to the full spectrum of ideas presented here as “Engaged Journalism.”

Engagement is an emergent practice in journalism although it has been explored and debated for years in other fields, which have invested greatly in documenting, training, and supporting innovation and best practices. But as newsrooms grapple with these ideas anew, it is to be expected that the language they use will be a bit of a contested terrain. It is in language where we hash out the core ideas that shape how we operate in the world.

We undertook this study of engagement to clarify our own thinking, not to enforce a uniformity on others. We hope our taxonomy will be of use to the field, but we also see the value in continuing to push and pull on the meanings behind the words we use. We also welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more stories about how engagement is understood in your newsroom and community.

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Blog

Welcoming New Teammates to the Democracy Fund

Democracy Fund

April 11, 2017

The Democracy Fund team is a group of remarkably passionate and dedicated people from all walks of life and across the political spectrum. As we face new challenges and embrace new opportunities, we are proud to welcome three outstanding additions to our team. Spanning a wide range of experience and interests, we are confident that these individuals will bring the skills and diverse perspectives that are critical to our work to help strengthen democracy.

On the program side, please join us in welcoming Laura A. Maristany, the Democracy Fund’s new Associate Director for Constructive Politics in the Governance Program. A seasoned advocate with extensive Capitol Hill and legislative experience, Laura previously served as chief federal advocate and Director of the Washington, D.C. office for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Laura also served as Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). At both organizations, Laura played a key role in developing and implementing their respective legislative agendas and developing relations with Congress, the Administration, federal agencies, and other national organizations. At the Democracy Fund, Laura will lead the Governance Program’s efforts to strengthen the congressional political system by fostering more constructive political engagement and a healthy two-party system.

“We so grateful to have Laura join our team,” said Betsy Wright Hawkings, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Governance Program. “With her strong organizational skills, experience developing relationships with leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle and across the federal government, and proven ability to partner with other national organizations, Laura will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund promote the ability of elected officials to cooperate and find common ground.”

Our Operations team has been growing as well. Bringing an extensive background in financial management, auditing, compliance, and operations management for nonprofit organizations, we are delighted to welcome our new Controller, Robin Thompson, to the team. Robin will plan and oversee the Democracy Fund’s financial resources, including implementing and managing new, more efficient systems for our complex and growing organization.

We are also happy to welcome Lorna Kerr, our new Human Resources Associate. Focusing specifically on diversity and inclusion, performance management, learning and development, and a host of other human resource functions, Lorna will help us cultivate a values-driven culture at the Democracy Fund that brings out the best in our rapidly growing, diverse staff.

“Robin and Lorna both bring deep experience in their respective fields and a passion for motivating people and implementing best practices,” said Tony Bowen, Director of Grants Management and Operations. “We are very excited to have them join our growing organization and help us professionalize our internal operations so we can better serve our partners and support our teams as we work to make democracy better.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/about-us. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.