Muckraking Magazine Offers a Recession Test for Nonprofit Journalism

With the notion of nonprofit, endowed newspapers a topic of much attention, The New York Times looks at the recession’s impact on left-leaning investigative magazine Mother Jones, which has been supported largely by grants and donations since its founding in 1976.

The magazine lost 23 percent of its ad revenue last year, and “some big donors pulled back,” Clara Jeffery, a co-editor said, but so far it has avoided deep staff and spending cuts.

“We’ve been hearing from more and more people, ‘How does that work? What’s it like being a nonprofit,’” Monika Bauerlein, her fellow co-editor, told the newspaper.

The Chronicle published two new opinion pieces on journalism and philanthropy in its current issue. One is by Vince Stehle, of the Surdna Foundation, while the other is by Chuck Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, and Bruce Sievers, a longtime grant maker.

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