JustASC

The Forward is publishing my oped piece this week talking about the importance of sustaining Jewish weekly newspapers in challenging times (it was generous of the Forward to publish the article since ostensibly they compete for our readership).

[The] Jewish press is one of the last settings to represent Jewish community in all its diversity. Within our pages, Orthodox must confront Reform, hawks must deal with doves, upstarts can learn from veterans. It’s a conversation that is happening almost nowhere else.

Is helping to sustain this kind of conversation the business of a Jewish philanthropic fund? Look at it this way: Some in journalism are looking to the nonprofit business model to save the profession. Champions of nonprofit newsrooms like ProPublica and local news sites like MinnPost.com say it is a compelling philanthropic interest to sustain the instruments of democracy and community identity. Federations can boast that they got there first.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 4:42 pm and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.