Washington - The
philanthropy established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar will contribute $100
million to support investigative journalism, fight misinformation and
counteract hate speech around the world.
One of the first
contributions, $4.5 million, will go to the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Washington-based group behind last year's
Panama Papers investigation, which revealed offshore businesses and shell
corporations, some of which were used for purposes such as tax evasion.
"We think
it's really important to act now to keep dangerous trends from becoming the
norm," Stephen King, who heads the Omidyar Network's civic engagement
initiative, told The Washington Post in the philanthropic group's first public
comments on the three-year funding commitment.
The Silicon
Valley-based philanthropy will make the official announcement Wednesday at the
Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, England.
In an interview,
King referred to "an urgent need" and said the $100 million is
"the largest-ever contribution" of its kind.
Other early
recipients will include the Anti-Defamation League, the Washington organization
devoted to fighting anti-Semitism worldwide. ADL will use the Omidyar money to
build "a state-of-the-art command center" in Silicon Valley to combat
the growing threat posed by hate online.
Another will be
the Latin American Alliance for Civic Technology, which promotes civic
engagement and government accountability in Latin America. It will receive $2.9
million from the network.
Gerard Ryle,
director of the ICIJ, said the money will allow him to hire more reporters,
adding to a staff of 13, and expand his data team with more engineers.
"We've been
operating on a shoestring, so this is a huge help," Ryle said. The
funding, he added, is "hands-off money" that says, in essence,
"Do what you want and we'll back you."
Pierre Omidyar,
who was not available to comment for this article, "has been very involved"
in the plans for the funding commitment, King said, adding, "These are
issues he cares deeply about."
The 49-year-old
Iranian American businessman, born in France, was the chairman of eBay from
1998 to 2015 and has funded media-related organisations and initiatives.
Omidyar became a
billionaire at age 31 with eBay's initial public offering in 1998. He and his
wife, Pamela Kerr Omidyar, established the Omidyar Network in 2004.
In 2013, he
announced the creation of the Intercept, a journalism site focused on
transparency, civil liberties and national security; it was founded by
journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras.
Online news service
Pierre Omidyar
had earlier founded Honolulu Civil Beat, an online news service in Hawaii with
an investigative focus.
He was an
executive producer of "Spotlight," the film about the Boston Globe's
investigation into the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal. He helped finance
the film, which won the Academy Award for best picture in 2016, through his
company First Look Media.
The Chronicle of
Philanthropy, which ranks the country's top 50 philanthropists, put the
Omidyars at No. 8 in February. They were among four of the first nine spots
held by what the publication calls "tech giants," including Bill and
Melinda Gates. Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft.
The newly
announced funding is intended to address "a worrying resurgence of
authoritarian politics that is undermining progress toward a more open and
inclusive society," said Omidyar Network managing partner Matt Bannick.
The network is
also concerned about the declining trust in democratic institutions around the
world, including the news media, he said.
"Increasingly,
facts are being devalued, misinformation spread, accountability ignored and
channels that give citizens a voice withdrawn," he said. "These
trends cannot become the norm."
In a statement,
the network's representatives identified recent events that they say have
worsened the erosion of public trust, among them the debate leading to
Britain's vote to exit the European Union, the impeachment of Brazilian
President Dilma Rousseff, the U.S. presidential election and "ongoing
corruption globally."
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"At a time
when autocrats, demagogues, criminals, dodgy businessmen and other shady
characters are seeking to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of
society, it is more important than ever that journalists can remain the world's
independent eyes and ears," Ryle said.
The funding
builds on the $220 million the Omidyar Network has committed over the past decade,
aimed at encouraging government accountability and transparency, Bannick said.
Recipients have included the Committee to Protect Journalists; Code for Africa,
a civic watchdog group; Chequeado, a Latin American fact-checking site; and
News Deeply, an online news site that covers global issues.
The Omidyar
funding comes as news companies, including The Post, are seeing a surge in
online subscriptions and as nonprofit journalism entities such as ProPublica,
news literacy groups and fact-checking organizations are benefiting from a
spike in donations.
On Monday, a
group including Facebook and Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist,
announced the News Integrity Initiative, a $14 million effort to advance news
literacy and increase trust in journalism. It will be based at City University
of New York's Graduate School of Journalism in Manhattan.
And last month,
the Democracy Fund and First Look Media, both founded by Omidyar, announced
that they would award $12 million to news organizations including the Centre
for Investigative Reporting, the Centre for Public Integrity and ProPublica.
Despite the size
of the $100 million Omidyar Network plan, "it's not going to solve the
problem," King said. "Restoring faith in accuracy and truth,
restoring trust in responsible media - it's obviously a big job."