ABSTRACT
The predominant ethical concerns in nonprofit journalism relate to the agendas and influence of funders. Two factors motivate these concerns. First, nonprofit news organizations are heavily dependent on philanthropic funding. Second, foundations fund other causes and use their media donations to generate coverage of issues in those areas. This may propel journalism toward advocacy. If accepted the assertions of foundations that they supported accountability reporting organizations in order to strengthen democracy and were hands-off on stories, there would be few ethical issues. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the biggest independent foundations in the United States, has been a generous funder of accountability news organizations for many years. Data supplied by the foundation show that MacArthur donated $36.6 million to US nonprofit investigative organizations between 2003 and 2015. In addition, it gave National Public Radio $15.5 million and $1.7 million to international news organization.
