Model and Strategy
Free Press works to create a media system focused on local needs that reduces political polarization and growing partisan extremism in the United States. To address failures in commercial media political coverage and the algorithmic spread of disinformation, Free Press drives solutions through a combination of legal, research and policy expertise; organizing and advocacy power; digital communications and media outreach capacity; cultural and narrative strategies; and network-building and field coordination.
As the 2024 election year proceeds, including the crucial months of transition following the elections, Free Press will launch strategic interventions that aim to both mitigate near-term risks to our democracy, as well as promote the growth of local civic news and information essential to safeguarding a just and safe multiracial democracy long term. Priorities include:
Media and Tech Accountability; Advancing Democracy and Digital Civil Rights
Free Press works to curb online hate and disinformation through public education and corporate-pressure campaigns, and pushes for online privacy and civil rights protections that would help disrupt targeted disinformation campaigns via research and policy advocacy.
In 2024, Free Press is organizing and coordinating civil society leaders and public interest groups to call on social media platforms to make timely election-specific interventions, such as reinstating election-integrity policies, enforcing content moderation rules at scale, requiring disclosure of AI-generated political content; and prohibiting the use of deepfakes in political ads.
Informed by national polling and other research, Free Press is also launching a public education campaign and educates corporate and political decision-makers on constructing policies and messaging to disrupt disinformation. The organization is anchoring policy efforts for the Disinfo Defense League coalition to persuade federal policymakers to prevent election-related fraud and to codify reforms that minimize the user data that companies collect and use to target messaging and advertisements.
Future of Journalism: Sustainable News and Civic Information for Local Communities
Free Press works for the creation of local and state policies that will foster a well-funded noncommercial media sector that practices local accountability journalism. In 2024-2025, the organization will continue to lead federal and state efforts — with a current focus on California and the Midwest — to create policies to address the crisis in local journalism and consider better options, such as tax credits to support working journalists, and incentives to spur local ownership of media outlets.
Other 2024-2025 priorities are to strengthen the emerging civic-media field by organizing its national network, the Media Power Collaborative; and seeding, supporting, and elevating new civic media models that foster community-rooted local news.
Impact
Founded in 2003 – and with a base of 1.4 million member-activists nationwide – Free Press has built a strong track record of strengthening press freedom, supporting independent and local journalism, advocating for Net Neutrality and universal, affordable broadband access, and demanding media and platform accountability for harmful practices and narratives that threaten public safety, civil rights, privacy and our democracy. Among their recent accomplishments:
Platform Accountability: the Stop Toxic Twitter campaign
Free Press organized the Stop Toxic Twitter campaign to show Elon Musk and other tech CEOs that they will be held accountable for amplifying bigotry and lies. Musk has instituted mass layoffs, gutted content-moderation rules, and reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts known for spreading hate and lies. In response, the Stop Toxic Twitter campaign successfully pushed more than half of the platform’s top-1,000 advertisers to stop spending on the platform — a crucial win given that advertising once accounted for 90 percent of Twitter’s revenues. The longer-term impacts of the campaign are still being felt at the company: The New York Times reported in June 2023 that U.S. advertising revenue at Twitter (now “X”) was down 59 percent from the year before. Musk blamed the “nonprofits who influence the advertisers.”
Creating the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium
To create this publicly funded grantmaking nonprofit that sustains local news in New Jersey, Free Press dreamed up and organized a multi-year, grassroots campaign involving thousands of residents, journalists, advocates and legislative champions in the Garden State. Its work led to passage of one of the most significant pieces of media policy our country has seen in the past decade. Since 2021, the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium has awarded more than $7 million to innovative news-and-information projects, and the state’s allocation has grown from $500,000 to $4 million annually.
The consortium has already served as a model for other states, and Free Press has aided and advised people working to fund local news in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin. In California last year, Free Press collaborated with local allies to fight for better local news and helped bring to life a new $25-million state-funded fellowship program at the University of California, Berkeley, designed to strengthen local reporting in underserved areas across the state.
Leadership
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Jessica J. González
Co-CEO
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Craig Aaron
Co-CEO
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Nora Benavidez
Sr. Counsel and Democracy and Digital Civil Rights Director
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Mike Rispoli
Senior Journalism Policy Director