Shafer criticizes Herbert Sandler

One of our readings for class sparked my interest because it was talking about ProPublica, which I wrote my first paper on. ProPublica is a non-for-profit investigative journalism news source. The organization is heavily funded by Herbert, who is chairman, and Marion Sandler.

I was very shocked by Jack Shafer's comments in his article, "What Do Herbert and Marion Sandler Want? Investigating the Funders of ProPublica, the new investigative journalism outfit." Shafer said ProPublica credits themselves with being different from the mainstream and creating investigative journalism that does not exist today. Shafer says that it is much larger scale effort than we have seen before but feels there are other sources out there.

He also criticizes Sandler for the times when he has and has not donated to journalism. Shafer quotes Chicago Tribune's James Warren saying "he declined to help journalists as much as he probably should have," referring to past incidents. Also, at the end Shafer says Sandler should donate money for 10 years to ProPublica and then resign as chairman so he does not have influence in something that "might turn out to be a good thing."

I agree that having such a large donation from one source can create a problem for ProPublica. However, Shafer's ideas for improvement are unrealistic. A person who give millions of dollars should not be told to have no input in what happens to his money. It is a double edge sword. The organization should be able to do what they want but at the same time Sandler should not be epxected to do anything such as step down as chairman. ProPublica should have a wider range of smaller donators so they can have more control over the organization. Shafer solely criticzing Sandler for problems in journalism history and in ProPublica's current position is not fair to Sandler.

I am not denfending Sandler saying that he can give as much money as he wants and then tell the people at ProPublica what to do. There are just two sides to every story and it is important to be aware of that.