Items11The creator’s order
  1. 1Joseph PulitzerJoseph PulitzerBorn 10 Apr 1847The publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World left two million dollars in his will to found the journalism school at Columbia University, which opened in 1912, and to create the prizes first awarded in 1917. The Pulitzer Prizes are run by a board at Columbia, not by any…0i
  2. 2C. P. ScottC. P. ScottBorn 26 Oct 1846Scott edited and then owned the Manchester Guardian, and wrote in 1921 that comment is free but facts are sacred. After his death and that of his son Edward, his son John transferred the family's shares to the Scott Trust in 1936, partly to avoid inheritance taxes forcing a sale. The trust, now a…0i
  3. 3John S. KnightJohn S. KnightThe newspaper publisher and his brother James founded the Knight Foundation in 1950 with fortunes from the Knight newspaper chain, later Knight Ridder. The foundation is entirely separate from any newspaper and has become one of the largest funders of American journalism, from university programmes…0i
  4. 4Nelson PoynterNelson PoynterPoynter, owner of the St. Petersburg Times, arranged before his death in 1978 for his controlling stock to pass to a school he had founded, now the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The non-profit institute owns the paper, now the Tampa Bay Times, so no outside investor can buy it, and its…0
  5. 5Herbert SandlerHerbert SandlerBorn 16 Nov 1931Herbert Sandler and his wife Marion, who built the savings bank Golden West Financial, funded ProPublica's launch in 2007 with a commitment of around ten million dollars a year. They put it under an independent board and an experienced editor, Paul Steiger, and it has since won multiple Pulitzer…0
  6. 6Gerry LenfestGerry LenfestBorn 29 May 1930Lenfest, who made his fortune in cable television, bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News in 2014 and two years later gave the company away, to a new non-profit Institute for Journalism in New Media under the Philadelphia Foundation, with a 20 million dollar endowment. The papers remain a…0i
  7. 7Pierre OmidyarPierre OmidyarBorn 21 Jun 1967The eBay founder pledged 250 million dollars in 2013 to create First Look Media, which launched The Intercept with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras to report on the Snowden files. Actual spending fell well short of the pledge, and The Intercept was later spun off as an independent non-profit after…0i
  8. 8Craig NewmarkCraig NewmarkBorn 6 Dec 1952The Craigslist founder, whose free classifieds helped drain newspapers of advertising revenue, has become one of journalism's largest individual donors. He gave 20 million dollars to CUNY's graduate journalism school in 2018, which now bears his name, seed money for the non-profit tech newsroom The…0i
  9. 9Laurene Powell JobsLaurene Powell JobsBorn 6 Nov 1963Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective, structured as a limited liability company rather than a foundation, bought a majority of The Atlantic in 2017 and has invested in its subscription business and reporting, and it funds non-profit local newsrooms. The LLC structure means less public disclosure than a…0i
  10. 10Jeff BezosJeff BezosBorn 12 Jan 1964A contrast case. Bezos bought The Washington Post personally in 2013 for 250 million dollars and invested heavily in its technology and staff, and the paper won major awards under his ownership. But there is no trust or charter between owner and newsroom, and in 2024 and 2025 his decisions to block…0i