Freedom of the Press Foundation launched a fundraiser to help local independent journalists investigate police misconduct and brutality against U.S. citizens. The call for Transparency for Police will “fund local journalists around the United States to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other transparency lawsuits aimed at uncovering police misconduct and video evidence of brutality against unarmed men and women.”
The fund, set up to support chosen grantees will assist with daily living expenses incurred by independent journalists, such as wages; office rent; and equipment used; while they take an otherwise adversarial approach that the majority of mainstream media outlets now shy away from. The first two recipients of the campaign were Brandon Smith and Invisible Institute.
Smith, an independent journalist, won the FOIA request for the release of video evidence in the police shooting of Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer; where major media outlets simply took ‘no’ for an answer. Working other jobs to support himself after leaving an Ohio newspaper, Smith’s investigative pursuits in journalism benefit the American citizen with information otherwise ignored.
Invisible Institute, whom I have reported on in the past, are a journalism and transparency group based in South Chicago. Both Smith and the Institute hold governments accountable where other media outlets fail.
“The number of grantees will be dependent on how much is raised in the next six weeks and how much each case costs. However, we want to fund as many as possible. 100% of the money donated to this fund will go to independent news organizations and journalists – we are not taking a dime,” Freedom Press states.
The next round of grantees are set to be announced in early 2016, with the Freedom of the Press Foundation board, including Edward Snowden, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, and actor John Cusack, accepting nominees for future funding.
This crowd-funding effort will assist journalists in bringing transparency to the police and city halls through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, and other journalistic endeavors. Donations can be attributed to specific cases, or split to all grantees as the donor sees fit.
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