The Los Angeles Times says it will use a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation to expand its coverage of immigration and the California prison system. A foundation spokesman said that, as media organizations face challenges funding reporting through advertising and traditional revenue streams, “we and many other funders are experimenting with new approaches to preserve and advance high-quality journalism.” He said the two-year grant comes with no strings attached and could be extended.
The Times plans to use the two-year grant to hire five journalists who will focus on the Vietnamese, Korean and other immigrant communities, prisons, the border region and Brazil. As the Internet has triggered massive shifts in audience and advertising, many media have looked to partnerships and new sources of funding. Investigations that appear in many American newspapers are now researched, written and edited by nonprofits like ProPublica and California Watch. (Ford, the nation’s second-largest foundation, supports The Crime Report through its funding of the Center for Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College.)