Editor and Publisher Reports

After senior management positions at Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, Dick Tofel helped start and eventually led the well-known, nonprofit investigative journalistic entity ProPublica for 15 years. Today he consultants the industry as the principal of Gallatin Advisory. However, Tofel recently "lit up the Twittersphere" when he posted on his blog, "Second Rough Draft," an unabashed and unvarnished assessment and warning about how philanthropic funds are awarded to journalistic enterprises. He stated how there may be flaws within the process that some organizations and associations employ today — questioning that "Given limited resources, shouldn't more money go to news orgs directly, even if that means making hard choices?” In the November 3, 2022 post entitled "A Few Words of Warning About Funding Intermediaries and Philanthropy’s Leaky Bucket,” Tofel states that he is concerned that organizations like LION (Local Independent Online News) Publishers, the Knight Foundationand others “may be getting a