Unlike commercial businesses, nonprofit organizations tend to operate at the edge of the public eye. There are no commercials or product announcements, and few publicists. Many nonprofits work on shoestring budgets to provide some sort of community.service and do not expect to make money. In exchange, California nonprofits do not have to pay federal or state income taxes. But sometimes creative means of makings ends meet can go awry. Whether a nonprofit’s mission and guidelines have fallen by the wayside or a financially successful organization proves too strong a temptation for some high-ranking employee, there are times when reporters will want to look behind the do-gooder façade of a nonprofit and examine its operations and finances. Continue reading REPORTER’S FILE: Using Tax Returns to Investigate Nonprofit Organizations, by Mónica L. López
Category Archives: Media File Articles
Articles From the MA Publication MediaFile
THE MORE TIMES CHANGE . . . THE BAY AREA ALTERNATIVE PRESS ’68 – ’98, by Marcy Rein
As I walk into the Long Haul for the Slingshot newspaper meeting, the smell of boiling beans hits me first, then the moldy odor of old paper.
Or perhaps it’s a whiff of history: Thirty years ago, this Berkeley storefront housed The Black Panther newspaper.
Panther cadres sold as many as 100,000 copies of the paper around the country every week; Slingshot runs 8,000 to 10,000 copies and augments its quarterly mailings by sending bundles home with travelers who agree to distribute them. The Black Panthers operated as a revolutionary organization; Slingshot is one of dozens of independent papers published in the Bay Area, with no ties to any organization or party line. But the two papers share more than a location: Both started from the same impulse. Continue reading THE MORE TIMES CHANGE . . . THE BAY AREA ALTERNATIVE PRESS ’68 – ’98, by Marcy Rein
DEMOCRATIZING THE MASS MEDIA: AN ASSESSMENT AND PROPOSAL. by Randy Baker
Robert McChesney’s contention that democratizing the mass media must become a central–perhaps the central–concern of progressives is hard to dispute. However, the ways in which progressives are currently approaching the issue seem unlikely to substantially change the status quo. Continue reading DEMOCRATIZING THE MASS MEDIA: AN ASSESSMENT AND PROPOSAL. by Randy Baker
TIPS FROM A PRO ON INVESTIGATING DEATH ROW CASES, by A. Clay Thompson
California has the most populous death row in America with some 517 inmates. Texas leads the nation in executions with 92 since 1976. Nationwide approximately 3,500 condemned men and women are currently waiting to die. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, this country executed 74 inmates in 1997, the most recent year for which data is available. Since the states began killing again in 1977, more than 460 men and women have been put to death. In the past few years Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess and his students have helped liberate three wrongfully convicted condemned men through two class projects in investigative reporting (their work wasn’t published but was covered by the press and used by the defense lawyers). Inspired by those successes, MediaFile asked a prominent local defense investigator for tips on digging into death-row cases. Because of concerns about compromising his investigations, he asked to remain anonymous for this interview. Investigator X has been battling capital punishment for two decades on numerous fronts. The longtime Oakland resident has penned essays detailing the arbitrary and racist nature of the death penalty for The New York Times, San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. He has spearheaded activist campaigns against state killing and the prison-industrial complex. He has witnessed one of California’s six contemporary executions. And for the past nine years, Investigator X has traveled the nation and the globe digging up exculpatory evidence for the defense of condemned prisoners. Continue reading TIPS FROM A PRO ON INVESTIGATING DEATH ROW CASES, by A. Clay Thompson
MANY VOICES, ONE WORLD. by Dee Dee Halleck.
The recent activism against globalization has encouraged people the world over to reassess the role of transnational corporations and their governmental counterparts in the widening of the gap between rich and poor and the headlong rush toward global warming and ecological devastation. Media corporations are key targets in the ongoing struggle. The actions in San Francisco last September against the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) were a hopeful prelude to a global movement for authentic public media. Continue reading MANY VOICES, ONE WORLD. by Dee Dee Halleck.
NATIONAL PROGRESSIVE MEDIA: WHO’S LEFT? by Andrea Buffa.
When it comes to the question of why most progressive national media outlets reach such a small percentage of their potential audience, progressive activists are conflicted. On the one hand, we’re exhilarated when we reach large numbers–whether it’s the Independent Media Center website getting 1.5 million hits during the protests against the World Trade Organization, or the Chronicle running a rare cover story on an issue we care about. On the other hand, we insist that progressive media must hold firm to their progressive missions regardless of how large an audience they draw. Continue reading NATIONAL PROGRESSIVE MEDIA: WHO’S LEFT? by Andrea Buffa.
PLATFORM FOR MEDIA REFORM. by Robert McChesney and John Nichols.
In the book It’s the Media Stupid, Robert McChesney and John Nichols argue for a broad-based media reform movement that can make media democracy a central political issue in the United States. Here is their platform.
Expand funding for traditional public-service broadcasting with an eye toward making it fully non-commercial and democratically accountable. In particular, substantial new funding should be provided for the development of news and public affairs programming that would fill the gap created by the collapse of serious news gathering by the networks and their local affiliates. Continue reading PLATFORM FOR MEDIA REFORM. by Robert McChesney and John Nichols.
Palestinian Media Bulldozed – by Cherine Badawi and Marc Sapir
“Yesterday had to be one of the worst days,” begins the email from Dalia, a 21-year-old Palestinian-American journalist, to her friends. “Israelis have gone into all media stations and either taken them over or searched them.”
Dalia works in Ramallah for Al-Jazeera–the popular Qatar-based satellite news channel and one of the few international news media that could continue news coverage in Ramallah during the Israeli-imposed 24-hour curfew that lasted almost a month (March 29-April 24). Continue reading Palestinian Media Bulldozed – by Cherine Badawi and Marc Sapir