Journalism is the practice of gathering, verifying, and reporting information through various media, with the goal of informing and educating the public.
Journalism encompasses various forms, including news reporting, investigative journalism, feature writing, and opinion pieces.
Journalism plays a crucial role in a democratic society by providing citizens with the information they need to be informed and participate in public discourse.
AI Overview
The mainstream press is failing to do its job. Following the bouncing red ball of daily distractions does a disservice to the public. The press needs to ask better questions. Reporters with live access to public figures need to ask questions designed to elicit useful and relevant information.
The First Amendment is first for a reason. The consequences of not being aggressive in pursuit of the facts are grim. They may be irreversible.
There are alternatives to the mainstream media:
The 19th
We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.
Abortion, Every Day Jessica Valenti
Abortion, Every Day is a comprehensive daily newsletter dedicated to abortion rights, and the feminist community that supports it, from anti-choice legislation and court battles to analysis of conservative strategy and stories of women denied care. AED also publishes columns, explainers, investigations, interviews, TikTok roundups and more.
ACLU
The ACLU is the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 10 million people who dc dc are committed to creating a future where human rights are enjoyed by everyone.
We are funded by members. We are independent of any political ideology, economic interest or religion. We stand with victims of human rights violations whoever they are, wherever they are.
Through our detailed research and determined campaigning, we help fight abuses of human rights worldwide. We bring torturers to justice. Change oppressive laws. And free people jailed just for voicing their opinion.
AP News
Founded in 1846, the Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting.
apnews.com
Axios [see manifesto https://www.axios.com/about%5D
Brennan Center for Justice
The Brennan Center for Justice is a nonpartisan law and policy institute.
https://www.brennancenter.org/
B’Tselem
B’Tselem is an independent, non-partisan organization. Since 1989, we have been documenting, researching and publishing statistics, testimonies, video footage, position papers and reports on human rights violations committed by Israel in the Occupied Territories.
The Contrarian
https://substack.com/@contrarian?r=1ounsg&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
Democracy Docket
Democracy Docket is the leading digital news platform dedicated to information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections.
https://www.democracydocket.com/
Democracy Forward
Democracy Forward is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy and public education, and regulatory engagement.
The Downballot
Covering every election, from kickoff to call.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thedownballot
Equal Justice Initiative
The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
HEALTH
Vaccine Education Center
Of all the health information on federal websites, medical experts have been increasingly concerned about the availability of accurate vaccine information. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has been a longtime critic of vaccines and has spread misinformation about their safety for years.
These anxieties worsened after an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Mr. Kennedy published a page that mimicked the design of a C.D.C. site about vaccine safety but promoted the debunked theory that vaccines caused autism.
https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
A growing body of research has found that social media is rife with inaccurate information on infertility, Pap smears, birth control and other women’s health issues.
To help sort fact from fiction, A.C.O.G. has created a websitethat offers vetted information on routine gynecological care, like cervical cancer screenings, as well as on topics that have been caught in political cross hairs, such as abortion care.
The site pulls information from medical societies, government agencies, nonprofits and A.C.O.G.’s own guidelines. Subject matter experts review each page.
The organization checks the content every two years and updates it as needed.
The Cleveland Clinic’s Health Library
To counter medical misinformation, the Cleveland Clinic created a searchable library that provides vetted health information about viral TikTok trends, answers general questions about medications and procedures, and offers expert takes on alternative remedies or supplements.
For example, the page about cod liver oil — a supplement some families have used in an attempt to treat and prevent measles during a recent outbreak in Texas — includes information about whether federal regulators have evaluated it. (They haven’t.) It also explains what medications the oil might interact with, and which side effects warrant immediate medical care.
Each entry is written by a team of journalists and subject-matter experts from the Cleveland Clinic, who draw from peer-reviewed journals, scientific textbooks and organizations like the American Medical Association.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health
HealthyChildren.org
For trustworthy information about children’s health, several experts recommended healthychildren.org, a website operated and funded by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The website provides information on a wide range of topics that affect children from infancy to young adulthood. It also offers useful interactive tools, like a “symptom checker” that lets parents input a child’s symptoms and then offers guidance on treatment.
Physicians who specialize in each topic write the articles, which are periodically reviewed. The organization also says that doctors also review any external websites linked on healthychildren.org for accuracy. All of the information is also available in Spanish.
The website has some corporate sponsors (disclosed here), but the A.A.P. has emphasized that these companies do not have any influence over the editorial content.
The Tracking Report
For information about fast-moving public health threats, like infectious diseases, you can subscribe to the Tracking Report, a free newsletter run by a group of experts at the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.
The newsletter uses data from medical journals, international health organizations and U.S. agencies to compile weekly updates about outbreaks in the United States and abroad. In recent weeks, the newsletter has covered topics like bird flu and the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas.
The team has recently started collecting infectious disease data from state and local health departments, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown epidemiologist who runs the newsletter.
Experts also recommended the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases as a resource for information on symptoms and treatment of conditions such as Covid-19 and the flu.
Much of the nonprofit’s content comes from the C.D.C., but Dr. Monica Farley, president-elect for the organization, said internal experts review all of the information before posting to ensure the site is “an evidence-based, reliable source of information.”
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world. We are roughly 550 plus people of 70-plus nationalities who are country experts, lawyers, journalists, and others who work to protect the most at risk, from vulnerable minorities and civilians in wartime, to refugees and children in need. We direct our advocacy towards governments, armed groups and businesses, pushing them to change or enforce their laws, policies and practices. To ensure our independence, we refuse government funding and carefully review all donations to ensure that they are consistent with our policies, mission, and values. We partner with organizations large and small across the globe to protect embattled activists and to help hold abusers to account and bring justice to victims.
httpshttps://www.axios.com/about://www.hrw.org/
Indivisible
We’re a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.
https://indivisible.org/take-action-now
Inequality Media
The top 1% of America holds 40% of the wealth.
It’s time the public understands how this happened and what we can do about it.
https://www.inequalitymedia.org/
The Intercept
At The Intercept, we investigate powerful individuals and institutions to expose corruption and injustice. We see journalism as an instrument of civic action. We’re here to change the world, not just describe it.
The Intercept aspires to drive meaningful change by empowering the public with information to demand a better world from institutions and leaders. We believe rigorous and courageous journalism plays a vital role in protecting human rights, safeguarding freedoms, checking the influence of money and power, and moving society toward a just future.
Jewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia
The Knight First Amendment Institute defends the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, policy advocacy, and public education. Our aim is to promote a system of free expression that is open and inclusive, that broadens and elevates public discourse, and that fosters creativity, accountability, and effective self-government.
Our Work
Our litigation, research, and public education programs focus on new manifestations of longstanding threats to freedom of speech and the press, and the many novel challenges arising from evolving technologies. The privatization of the public square, the expansion of the surveillance state, the steady creep of government secrecy, the demonization of the media by the nation’s most senior officials, the aggregation of massive amounts of personal data in the hands of private corporations, machine-amplified distortions of public discourse—these are just some of the challenges to the free expression system on which our democracy depends, and the kind of challenges we are working to understand and address. We seek, in all our work, to be a vibrant community, a generator of new ideas, and a leading defender of free expression rights in the courts.
Our Priorities
Safeguarding the vitality and integrity of public discourse online. Conversations that once took place in parks, sidewalks, and public squares now take place largely online, and often on privately owned social media platforms. As a society, we are just beginning to grapple with the question of how the First Amendment and free speech principles should apply in these digital spaces. Our work seeks to illuminate the forces that are shaping public discourse online, and to ensure the inclusivity and integrity of digital spaces that are increasingly important to our democracy.
Protecting the privacy vital to free thought and expression. Our laws restricting surveillance and data collection are struggling to keep pace with new technology that can track and reveal our expressive lives in ever more detail, and with new business models that rely on the aggregation and exploitation of this information. Our work is meant to illuminate the scope and impact of surveillance by government and private corporations, promote stronger legal protections for privacy, and enrich public understanding of the interplay between privacy and the freedoms of inquiry, speech, and association.
Ensuring access to information necessary for self-government. The First Amendment embraces the public’s right to access the information needed to hold the powerful accountable and participate fully in the process of self-government. Our aim in defending and promoting transparency is not simply to compel the disclosure of information that the public is entitled to know, but to broaden public access to information through changes in government policy and the law.
The Lever
The Lever is a nonpartisan, reader-supported investigative news outlet that holds accountable the people and corporations manipulating the levers of power. The organization was founded in 2020 by David Sirota, an award-winning journalist and Oscar-nominated writer who served as the presidential campaign speechwriter for Bernie Sanders.
Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project is a leading pro-democracy organization in the United States — dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy. Our fight against Trumpism is only beginning. We must combat these forces everywhere and at all times — our democracy depends on it.
National Public Radio
Breaking News, Analysis, Music, Arts & Podcasts Top stories in the U.S. and world news, politics, health, science, business, music, arts and culture. Nonprofit journalism with a mission. This is NPR.
ProPublica
As a nonprofit newsroom, we have no ultrawealthy owners, no corporate interests and no government contracts to protect. We get our funding through donations (more than 70,000 individuals have made a donation in the past 12 months!). No one, including our board or our donors, gets to see our stories until we publish.
ProPublica’s independence means we can investigate the most powerful forces in the country — whether in government, business or the courts — without fear or favor.
Journalism like this is possible because so many readers join together to fund fearless, independent reporting.
Public Broadcasting System
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States, distributing shows such as Frontline, Nova, PBS News Hour, Masterpiece, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Barney & Friends and American Experience.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. founded the SPLC in 1971 to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all. Since then, we’ve won numerous landmark legal victories on behalf of the exploited, the powerless and the forgotten.
Our lawsuits have toppled institutional racism and stamped out remnants of Jim Crow segregation; destroyed some of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups; and protected the civil rights of children, women, the disabled, immigrants and migrant workers, the LGBTQ community, prisoners, and many others who faced discrimination, abuse or exploitation.
Our Intelligence Project is internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups and other domestic extremists.
Learning for Justice provides free resources to caregivers and educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use the materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children and youth are respected, valued and welcome participants.
Wired
Wired is a bi-monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. It is published in both print and online editions by Condé Nast. The magazine has been in publication since its launch in January 1993.
Zeteo
How many times have you complained about the ‘mainstream media’? About corporate control or censorship? About softball interview questions or lazy ‘both sides’ coverage?
Welcome to Zeteo, where independent and unfiltered journalism is making its comeback. Founded by award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and all-round troublemaker Mehdi Hasan, Zeteo – which comes from the ancient Greek word for ‘seeking out’ and ‘striving’ – is a new media organization that seeks answers for the questions that really matter, while always striving for the truth.
LOCAL
Dairyland Patriot (Wisconsin)
https://www.dairylandpatriot.com/
Tennessee Holler
Connect the Dots 101 