Washington – The Fund for Investigative Journalism is pleased to announce The Herb Block Foundation has awarded $10,000 to support the Fund’s grant-making program for independent investigative reporters.
The grant underwrites a program that pays the reporting expenses of reporters who have the ideas, sources, and know-how to produce groundbreaking investigative journalism, but lack the resources to complete their projects.
The grant to the Fund was awarded as part of The Herb Block Foundation’s “Defending Basic Freedoms” program, which supports nonprofits that safeguard freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, work to eliminate prejudice, and make government agencies more accountable to the public.
The Foundation was established with funds bequeathed by The Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herb Block, who died in 2001. The cartoonist, known as Herblock, used his talents to bring injustices to light, won three Pulitzer Prizes, and shared in a fourth.
“It is a special honor to receive this support, given in the spirit of a man who dedicated his life to exposing the abuse of power,” said Brant Houston, president of the Fund’s board of directors.
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is an independent, nonprofit organization that has supported hundreds of public service reporting projects since 1969, when it provided funding for Seymour Hersh to investigate the massacre of civilians by American soldiers in My Lai, Vietnam. His stories won the Pulitzer Prize.
In four rounds of grant-making during the past year, the Fund’s Board of Directors has awarded $237,000 for 62 investigative reporting projects.
In addition to support from The Herb Block Foundation, the Fund for Investigative Journalism receives foundation support from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Gannett Foundation, the Green Park Foundation, The Nara Fund, the Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation, from private family foundations, and from individuals. The John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the Journalism Department in the College of Media at the University of Illinois also supports the Fund.
Donations to the Fund can be made online, www.fij.org, or by mail to the Fund for Investigative Journalism, 529 14th Street NW – 13th floor, Washington DC 20045.