Trusting News receives funding from New Pluralists

Note: The year New Pluralists launched has been corrected.

The Trusting News team is thrilled to announce we’ve received financial support from New Pluralists, a cross-disciplinary, cross-ideological field collaborative.

The $150,000 grant will support our initiative called “A Road To Pluralism,” aimed at helping journalists strengthen trust across diverse values, experiences and political views to bridge divides, foster productive conversations and fuel open-mindedness.

More about our Pluralism work

Journalism is supposed to serve democracy, build empathy and connect people to each other. Too often, it focuses on extremes and flattens out complex views. In addition, too many news consumers believe journalists have taken sides, don’t represent their communities and aren’t really interested in fairness or diversity of perspectives. The relationship between journalists and the people they aim to serve is broken on both sides, but it’s fundamentally up to journalists to repair it. And we firmly believe that local newsrooms have an important role to play.

With “A Road to Pluralism,” we’re:

• partnering with newsrooms and researchers to learn more about how people’s experiences and values shape their relationship to the news
• helping journalists take stock of their role in a polarized society and more thoughtfully consider their damaged relationship with the public
• using the insights we gain to inform the strategies we recommend to the industry

Support from New Pluralists will specifically help fund the collaborative learning we’re doing with newsrooms and the training we provide as part of the initiative. We kicked off our newsroom collaborations in fall 2021 with five initial projects, and we’ll soon build on what we learned with the next phase of the work. We’re also collaborating with Eve Pearlman of Spaceship Media to design trainings focused on how journalists see the world, what they have in common with their communities and how to be more aware of what perspectives they might be missing.

Get involved!

Apply to join our Pluralism Network, and you’ll be the first to know about opportunities to participate in our shared learning. You’ll also join our Slack community where you can share insights and challenges with other newsrooms.

We’re focused on journalists in local U.S. newsrooms right now. If you’re a freelancer, a researcher, an international journalist or are in a journalism support role, feel free to express interest so you’re on our list when we broaden our focus.

More about New Pluralists

From the New Pluralists team:
“New Pluralists launched in 2021 to support the growing field of practitioners, storytellers, researchers, and innovators working to foster a culture of pluralism in America. Acton Family Giving, Stand Together, Einhorn Collaborative, Fetzer Institute, Klarman Family Foundation, Lubetzky Family Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, and William & Flora Hewlett Foundation founded the project along with support from Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Schultz Family Foundation, and Walmart Foundation. We work in deep partnership with a diverse community of Field Builders, grantees, and other partners who are tackling these challenges from different fields and perspectives. In order to realize the vision of a politically vibrant, multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we must work together across our differences to renew the promise of America by ushering in a new pluralism.”

Trusting News is designed to demystify the issue of trust in journalism. We research how people decide what news is credible, then turn that knowledge into actionable strategies for journalists. We’re co-hosted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our Trust Tips newsletter. Read more about our work at TrustingNews.org.