Posted on November 13, 2005

Ford Foundation Awards $700,000 to Center for Public Integrity

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity has announced a two-year, $700,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to expand its investigation of the telecommunications industry globally.

The grant will allow the center to expand its Well Connected program, which includes Media Tracker, a comprehensive, searchable database of U.S. media ownership, and a series of stories exploring the relationship between the broadcast industry and its primary regulator, the Federal Communications Commission. Through the grant, the program will also broaden its research to global media and telecommunications ownership, using the center's network of journalists to compile a list of the one hundred most powerful communications firms in the world and explore how their ownership, holdings, and regulation affect information pipelines around the world.

"This grant award illustrates the Ford Foundation's extraordinary commitment to transparency in business and government," said Roberta Baskin, the center's executive director. "All at the center are appreciative of the Ford Foundation's longstanding support for our core mission to raise the level of public discussion around these important issues."