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Luminous Animal

(27,310 posts)
Mon Dec 17, 2012, 04:05 PM Dec 2012

Ellsberg, et.al. launch Freedom Of The Press Foundation

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/
https://twitter.com/FreedomofPress

Board member Glenn Greenwald writes about it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/wikileaks-new-press-freedom-group

The primary impetus for the formation of this group was to block the US government from ever again being able to attack and suffocate an independent journalistic enterprise the way it did with WikiLeaks. Government pressure and the eager compliance of large financial corporations (such as Visa, Master Card, Bank of America, etc.) has - by design - made it extremely difficult for anyone to donate to WikiLeaks, while many people are simply afraid to directly support the group (for reasons I explained here).

We intend to raise funds ourselves and then distribute it to the beneficiaries we name. The first group of beneficiaries includes WikiLeaks. We can circumvent those extra-legal, totally inappropriate blocks that have been imposed on the group. We can enable people to support WikiLeaks without donating directly to it by donating to this new organization that will then support a group of deserving independent journalism outlets, one of which is WikiLeaks. In sum, we will render impotent the government's efforts to use its coercive pressure over corporations to suffocate not only WikiLeaks but any other group it may similarly target in the future.

The second purpose is to ensure that truly independent journalistic outlets - devoted to holding the US government and other powerful factions accountable with transparency and real adversarial journalism - are supported to the fullest extent possible. Along those lines, we have selected three other organizations along with WikiLeaks as our initial beneficiaries:

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Ellsberg, et.al. launch Freedom Of The Press Foundation (Original Post) Luminous Animal Dec 2012 OP
Thanks for posting - A great way to help WikiLeaks OutNow Dec 2012 #1
Yep. EFF is supplying legal advice. It's a great group of people both on the board Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #2
They've raised $35,000 in the last 24 hours... Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #3
If you are unable to donate, there are other ways to help... Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #4
Kick. Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #5
Reporting from around the world Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #6
K & R Justin_Beach Dec 2012 #7
Freedom of the Press is vital for democracy. Octafish Dec 2012 #8
I'm pretty excited about this. I hope it succeeds. Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #9
HuffPost Live has an interview up with Daniel Ellsberg, John Barlow (EFF), and Josh Sterns Luminous Animal Dec 2012 #10

OutNow

(863 posts)
1. Thanks for posting - A great way to help WikiLeaks
Mon Dec 17, 2012, 04:23 PM
Dec 2012

Looks like many of the folks also belong to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well. EFF is a very good organization too.

Luminous Animal

(27,310 posts)
2. Yep. EFF is supplying legal advice. It's a great group of people both on the board
Mon Dec 17, 2012, 04:42 PM
Dec 2012

and running the show. Josh Stearns, who is part of the team, lays it all out here:
http://stearns.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/building-a-stronger-foundation-for-press-freedom-and-accountability-journalism-in-a-digital-age/

The Freedom of the Press Foundation forgoes competitive grant-making and instead focuses on collaborative fundraising. The Foundation groups nonprofits into bundles and seeks funding for them together. It’s an opportunity to bring more unity to the nonprofit media sector and introduce new people to each outlet.

Problem: Decentralized News Consumption Diminishes Donations


A few years ago Pew’s Project on Excellence in Journalism coined the term “news grazer” to describe how we get our news today: from many sources, across many platforms, throughout the day. If you listen to NPR every morning, you know you should donate to your local station. But if you are consuming news from 30 different newsrooms over the course of a week, where should you contribute?

The transaction costs of tracking down donation pages for every journalist or organizations is way too high, so most people end up with choosing one or more often not donating at all. The Freedom of the Press Foundation lowers the transaction costs by giving people one place where they can support a range of journalism organizations with one donation. And, donors get to decide how much of their money each group gets. This is not just crowd-sourced, but also crowd-driven.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
8. Freedom of the Press is vital for democracy.
Tue Dec 18, 2012, 10:55 AM
Dec 2012

Why in the world this doesn't have 500 Rec.s shows how few know.

Luminous Animal

(27,310 posts)
9. I'm pretty excited about this. I hope it succeeds.
Tue Dec 18, 2012, 06:24 PM
Dec 2012

They've raised over $76,000 in less than 2 days which is a good start.

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