Through the Media Looking Glass: Journalists’ Perceptions on South Africa’s Funded Environmental Journalism

Funding

One of the ideal media goals is to serve the public interest. However, the media can only perform such a task when it is truly independent. As opposite to support from corporates, studies have shown that there is more openness for financial support from private foundations as one of the potential solutions to the failure of conventional commercial business models ( Benson ) . A study by Scott, Bunce, and Wright ( : 2034) posits that “between 2011 and 2015, foundations awarded grants worth more than $1.3 billion annually to media and journalism around the world. This included $250 million each year to support media development and $220 m to support independent journalistic reporting”. For this study, specifically looking at corporate funding, respondents argue that they are always in a quandary as sponsored reporting raises more money for the company, but it then compromises the public interest. In such cases, reporters indicated that serving the public interest, just like in war, becomes the casuality. One reporter said: