The Trust Project

NEW: In the 5 years since our launch, we’ve helped advance a corner of the local news industry that’s growing, thriving and showing promise as a path for sustaining local news. In our 2024 Impact Report, released today, we take a look at our progress. We’ve invested over $55 million in a portfolio of 44 nonprofit local news orgs - a portfolio that’s diverse in size, scope, reach and leadership. Some highlights from the report: - In the last year alone, our portfolio of 44 grantee organizations generated $86 million in revenue — a 36% increase over their 2022 revenue. This increase in revenue is an indicator that, with strategic investment and continued experimentation, nonprofit news has a viable future. - Year over year, the organizations in our portfolio are seeing a 58% median growth. - And this growth is leading to more journalism – last year, our portfolio of grantees employed 568 editorial and newsroom staff – an 18% increase over 2022. This report sheds light on how far we’ve come and sets the stage for what’s ahead, as we continue our pursuit to leverage philanthropy to build sustainable business models that will address the local news crisis at scale. See the full report ⬇️

Thank you Silurians! https://lnkd.in/eaEyKfT9

In August, Meta began blocking news links and restricted media accounts in Canada to avoid paying for content. Weeks later, the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out and FB users have since been limited in accessing high-quality/credible sources on the matter 👇 Since the change, when users share URL links to news sources, or if they receive a post from outside of Canada w/ a link to one of these outlets, they will get an error message: "This content isn't available in Canada." To have a better idea of the impact of the Meta’s actions, ISD collected ~80k posts on the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine conflicts from Canadian and Australian FB groups, in order to compare Canada to an ENG-speaking country of similar size, as well as analyse a conflict prior to the ban. What we found when looking at Canada's dataset on Israel-Hamas is that Meta has blocked 80% of sources ISD analysts coded as high quality, while only 36% of low-quality sites were affected, allowing more of these sites to fill information gaps, while incentivising and boosting partisan analysis. Content from other platforms (e.g. YouTube) reached 73% in the Canada Israel-Hamas dataset, compared to ~40% in other datasets, with some including, for example, news coverage from the Toronto Star via an X/Twitter redirect link. Meanwhile, high-quality news was just 6% of the Canada Israel-Hamas dataset. Additionally, when comparing the Canadian Israel-Gaza dataset to the others, ISD found a notable drop in link sharing & more photo sharing, including bite-sized news blurbs, partisan talking points or screenshots of headlines, putting users at risk of context-lacking information. Research indicates Facebook's echo chambers may not drive polarization. Yet, by discouraging credible news sharing, Meta's ban in Canada promotes low-quality sources, risking polarisation in the Israel-Hamas conflict, and likely beyond. Full Dispatch below. https://lnkd.in/dsEB6pxb

Dear readers, On International #PressFreedomDay, the Hong Kong Free Press team remains committed to reporting, on-the-ground, in one of the world’s most challenging, and rapidly-changing media environments: https://lnkd.in/gpF9urFD Nevertheless, our newsroom is facing a funding situation in 2024 whereby our expansion to nine team members coincided with a decline in regular Patron backers, resulting in two years of record losses. During this time, we’ve widened coverage of key court cases, deepened original reporting, launched a podcast, hired our first photographer, won several awards, and gained The Trust Project hallmark: https://lnkd.in/gQxRz4V6 HKFP now has a year to correct course financially. Having sought to make savings internally, we will soon launch a new range of advertising options to generate new income, alongside new incentives to join us an HKFP monthly donor. We remain the city’s most financially transparent news outlet – sustained by an average of HK$203/month from 895 monthly Patrons – with 80 per cent of spending going towards paying local journalists: https://lnkd.in/g4TsAD4Q To close the funding gap, we need to raise HK$120,000 more per month, or bring on around 1,000 new Patrons. Here are 15 ways to support our newsroom: support.hongkongfp.com If you’ve never contributed to a newspaper before, please help keep HKFP free for those who can’t afford to donate. And you’re not in a position to support us this time, please help spread the word. Share this post today, on Press Freedom Day, to raise awareness of HKFP’s work and ways to safeguard independent media in the city. Thank you once again for your readership and support! Team HKFP.