Richard Tofel, president of the New York based non-profit investigative organisation ProPublica will be addressing an audience at the University of Westminster tonight, 27 January at 18:30 [details here]. His question: How do you measure the impact of journalism in 2014?
According to organisers OneWorld:
This is a rare chance to see Tofel discuss how ProPublica, an independent non-profit newsroom funded by philanthropic funds, operates and how he measures the impact of ProPublica’s journalism. The event will include input from media and impact experts, followed by audience Q&A.
Richard Tofel’s talk will be based on his white paper: ‘Non-Profit Journalism: Issues Around Impact’ [PDF], which he also mentions in an interview with the Guardian:
In Tofel’s new world of philanthropic journalism – ProPublica receives about $12m a year from 3,000 donors – the demand for more sophisticated methods is becoming increasingly loud, in tune with a trend sweeping the whole philanthropic sector.
The event ties in closely with one of the themes of our media plurality project: we have been have involved in discussions about the potential for charitable and non-profit journalism.
New platforms offer the potential for increasing plurality, but realistically require structural and financial support to be both viable and effective. We are looking at ways in which charity law might usefully be amended to offer some financial assistance to local and national initiatives. The Community Radio model, with financial assistance available according to strictly defined criteria relating to “social gain”, might provide a further useful model.