For decades, some of the best journalism in America has been produced by nonprofit news organizations. Consider, for example, National Public Radio, National Geographic, the Associated Press, Consumer Reports, the American Spectator, Mother Jones and the Center for Public Integrity.
But now, thanks to a strange intersection of tax law and media policy, nonprofit news has hit a roadblock.
We’ve reported before on the Internal Revenue Service holding up and delaying approval of tax-exempt status applications for nonprofit journalism startups. Well, the agency is back in the spotlight this month in a pair of articles in the Columbia Journalism Review, one penned by Steve Waldman, the lead author of the Federal Communications Commission’s massive Information Needs of Communities report.
The spike since 2008 in new nonprofit journalism organizations, which has been heralded as one of the bright spots in the future of media in America, raised red flags for the IRS, which has long taken an unfavorable view of journalism as a charitable activity. Now the IRS is bundling all nonprofit journalism applications and considering them as a whole.
There have been troubling signs throughout this review. The IRS has suggested that journalism organizations applying for nonprofit status stop taking any advertising or even take “journalism” out of their names. “The IRS has preemptively suggested that we modify our procedures, change our policies and modify our articles of incorporation to remove the word ‘journalism’ because [journalism] is not a charitable cause,” says Kevin Davis of the Investigative News Network. Waldman points out that adopting this approach would raise fiscal challenges and First Amendment questions.
Over at the Nonprofit Quarterly, Rick Cohen outlines three immediate impacts this debate could have on the nonprofit journalism sector. The IRS delay could hurt the development of nonprofit journalism as donors are reluctant to contribute to an organization without 501(c)(3) status. The IRS could prescribe a set of changes to make journalism organizations better fit the agency’s narrow definition of “charitable” or “educational.” Finally, all of this debate could undermine longstanding journalism nonprofits whose tax status is called into question by critics or even donors.
Both Cohen and Waldman agree that the best resolution to this debate would be to have Congress amend the tax code to formally recognize journalism as worthy of charitable status. There are currently 26 categories of organizations recognized for nonprofit status, including cemetery companies, state-chartered credit unions and black-lung disease benefit trusts. Until Congress adds a category for journalism, this issue is up to the agency’s own interpretation.
In 2009, Free Press’s report, Saving the News, called for revisions to the tax code to better support a range of new journalism organizations. That same year, Sen. Ben Cardin introduced legislation that would have been a step in the right direction. The Newspaper Revitalization Act was an imperfect bill, but it made clear that we needed to revise our tax code to ensure that journalism was recognized as a vital public service. The IRS’s actions underscore that it is time to rethink the Cardin legislation — not as a bailout for newspapers, but as a building block for all forms of nonprofit journalism.
As Free Press has long said, “If we want better media, we need better media policies. If we want better policies, we must engage more people in policy debates and demand better media.” The policy solution is clear, and the need to act couldn’t be greater. This isn’t about trying to save journalism’s past. It’s about trying to spark journalism’s future.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
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