Responding to the financial crisis in the journalism industry – and the consequent threat to news literacy – the McCormick Foundation has decided to shift its grantmaking priorities to preference news literacy, investigative journalism and defense of the First Amendment rights.
The foundation’s first action in this effort is to approve more than $5 million in grants to programs that support those three aims, the foundation has just announced.
News literacy – an emerging movement that focuses on the encouraging the development of critical thinking skills so that citizens can evaluate the reliability and credibility of the news they receive – is of particularly high concern, said the foundation.
"The news media world as we know it has been blown to bits, and consumers are showered with thousands of news and information sources," said foundation president and CEO David Hiller. "In this vast new world, a growing sector of the U.S. population does not distinguish or appreciate the differences among journalists, information spinners and citizen voices. It is important for us all to be savvy consumers of news and more informed decision makers."
The foundation also noted that many investigative journalism departments have been especially hard-hit in the journalism crisis, and these grants will attempt to restore some of their funding.
The initiatives include a $100,000 grant to the Stony Brook Foundation’s Center for News Literacy, which will create a news literacy curriculum and distribution system for colleges and high schools; a $75,000 grant to the Poynter Institute to support its News Literacy Project, expanding the Chicago-based journalism curriculum into five new middle schools; and a $120,000 grant to Street Level Youth Media’s Sounding Point radio program.
Since its establishment in 1995, the McCormick Foundation – whose goal is to strengthen the country’s free, democratic society by investing in children, communities and country – has become one of the nation’s largest charities, with $1.2 billion in assets. 