Freedom Of The Press Foundation Sets Up Shop To Help Fund Journalism Disruptors Like Wikileaks

from the good-to-see dept

This is cool to see. An absolutely awesome group of folks have set up a project called the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which is raising money to donate to various online projects that (you guessed it) help create a more free and open press. Part of the idea is that by funneling money through a foundation like this one, projects like Wikileaks can more easily get funded, without risk of being cut off individually (a la Wikileaks being cut off from most funding sources). Of course, it's not just Wikileaks, but sites like Muckrock, which we've used for a while to help with our Freedom of Information Act requests and some other "citizen journalism" sites.

Among the high profile folks behind the site are Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers fame, some EFFers, including founder John Perry Barlow and activists Trevor Timm (who's the executive director of this new project) and Rainey Reitman. Then there are people like journalists Glenn Greenwald, Josh Stearns and Xeni Jardin, and filmmaker Laura Poitras (who is working on a film about Wikileaks and internet freedom, and has been "detained and interrogated about her work at the U.S. border over 40 times.") And also actor John Cusack -- whose name appears a bit out of place, but he's been active in these kinds of issues.

I hope the project works out well. It's something that is clearly needed.

Filed Under: daniel ellsberg, eff, foundation, funding, john cusack, journalism, rainey reitman, trevor timm, xeni jardin
Companies: freedome of the press foundation