May 7, 1998 | Read Time: 6 minutes
Charitable organizations have long been ambivalent about the news media.
At times, they have viewed the press as a somewhat hostile force, either uninterested in non-profit activities or looking for scandals and inappropriate behavior. On other occasions, charities have considered the press to be an essential instrument for influencing policy and for selling the country on the importance of the non-profit world.
As non-profit organizations grow in number, size, wealth, and influence — and, correspondingly, as attention to the non-profit world increases — charities will need to focus on clarifying and improving their relationships with the press. In a world where self-regulation and self-reform are abysmally absent, charities must understand the crucial role the media can play in keeping non-profit organizations accountable, ethical, and effective. Consequently, they will have to formulate a more creative approach to dealing with journalists and broadcasters, with whom they have never been very comfortable.
The anxieties and paranoia of non-profit organizations were reflected several years ago in their reaction to an extraordinary seven-part series of articles by The Philadelphia Inquirer on the problems and excesses of thousands of medium- to large-sized charitable groups. The reporters, who had already won Pulitzer Prizes, criticized the non-profit world for a lack of accountability, conflicts of interest, non-functioning boards of directors, questionable practices, and excessively high compensation of executives.
Instead of taking those revelations seriously, many non-profit groups and spokesmen, especially the large umbrella organizations, cried “foul” and tried to kill the messenger. Citing the authors’ examples as a few rotten apples in the barrel, they conveniently forgot that the barrel held many rotten apples.
Under some pressure to do more than “nay-say,” Independent Sector, a coalition of more than 900 non-profit groups, established a committee to study charities’ accountability. After circulating an initial and exceedingly tepid draft report, the committee quietly went out of business. No final report was ever issued. Although Independent Sector recently decided to re-establish a task force on accountability, the organization is devoting much more energy and money to educating and selling the public about the merits of the charitable sector.
The same is true for the foundation world. The Council on Foundations, the largest of philanthropy’s trade associations, has begun a $3-million campaign to educate the American people about the wonderful efforts and accomplishments of the country’s foundations. That appears to be the council’s major mission and program. The council has done little or nothing about raising the standards of accountability, performance, innovation, access, leadership, and governance in its own community.
That role has been left to outside critics and the press, which, increasingly, are starting to focus on the problems as well as the good works of foundations. Yet those criticisms are often met with a thin-skinned defensiveness and petulance by grant makers, who don’t understand the fact that the news media is a double-edged sword.
If the charitable sector wants greater access and closer ties to the media, it will have to risk greater scrutiny of its own poor practices and shortcomings. In other words, to receive positive exposure, it will have to clean up its own act.
For its part, the press has not been adequately responsive to the increasingly important role that non-profit organizations play in our society. Journalists and broadcasters devote little time to the coverage of charitable groups, thereby giving short shrift to the views of the tens of millions of people represented by these organizations, many of whom have no access to the established institutions in our country. When journalists do focus on such groups, they tend to stress the scandals and problems, not the solid day-in-and-day-out accomplishments that provide the bedrock of vital neighborhoods and communities.
The changing nature of journalism is partly responsible for this state of affairs. Not too long ago, newspapers had journalists on their staffs who specialized in issues of particular importance to non-profit organizations. Those writers had Rolodexes filled with names of non-profit staff members whom they could call for information or quotes on specific stories they were covering.
Today, there are few journalists in the mainstream press with expertise on issues of concern to the non-profit world. When given two or three days to get a story, most writers tend to call somebody at the White House, a contact in a federal department, a Congressional aide, and, if there is time, perhaps one well-known non-profit representative.
Often the constituencies that are most affected by a particular regulation, piece of legislation, or policy have no opportunity to air their views in the newspapers or broadcast news. One example last year was the inability of public-housing residents and advocates to get any attention or coverage by newspapers throughout the country during the Congressional debates on housing legislation.
What’s more, the opinion pages of major newspapers are not open — except on rare occasions — to non-profit representatives. The proliferation of syndicated columnists, all fighting for space no matter what the quality of their essays, has all but squeezed out outside observers, except those with political clout or recognition. Op-ed pages that had been open forums for a diversity of opinion are now closed discussion groups for a narrow range of commentators.
The growth of alternative journalism — for example, small radio stations, the new American News Service (which distributes stories to about 75 newspapers) and community newspapers — has begun to produce expanded coverage of non-profit organizations and their activities. And a few mainstream newspapers and television programs are experimenting with what is called “solution-oriented journalism,” news that offers solutions to social or community problems. Yet despite those promising developments, it is not likely that mainstream journalism will change its practices much over the next few years, unless there is substantial outside pressure to do so.
How, then, can charitable organizations get greater press coverage?
First, they will have to overcome their nervousness about dealing with journalists and broadcasters and accept the latter’s role as an instrument of public accountability.
Second, they will need to spend greater staff and board resources to cultivate individual journalists over time and to provide them with a steady flow of information that can be useful to their jobs. Coalitions, in particular, should focus more attention on the news media, not only to advance their agendas but to introduce their members to key writers and broadcasters.
Third, special efforts should be made to relate to the press in smaller cities and towns, where newspapers and local stations are always looking for material.
Fourth, non-profit groups will need to become far more aggressive in seeking meetings with editorial boards of newspapers.
Finally, foundations should begin to provide “media development” grants that supplement funds they already give to non-profit groups. Many organizations that are struggling for survival just do not have the money to devote to press relations and associated activities.
Non-profit groups have slowly come to realize that the success of their programs and efforts to influence policy will depend more and more on the exposure they can get in the press. They will need, either individually or collectively, to apply much greater pressure on journalists for adequate coverage — and on foundations for additional money to build their capacities for effective cultivation of the press.
Both efforts will have to be pursued simultaneously. It is not clear, however, whether charities, foundations, and the news media will be willing to embrace a new partnership. If such a partnership doesn’t emerge, non-profit organizations will continue to find the voices of their constituents muted and their policy efforts severely limited.
Pablo Eisenberg, co-chair of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and former executive director of the Center for Community Change, is a regular contributor to these pages.
