Article by Debra Birnbaum at Gold Derby
May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day, a day perhaps of greater significance this year when journalists around the globe are under more fire than ever.
With jobs, sources of funding, and editorial independence all being cut and under threat, every bit of support matters, including that of the Golden Globe Foundation, which includes support of journalism and free speech among its charitable priorities. The foundation, which was established in 2023 following the sale of the Golden Globes and the dissolution of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has funded over $60 million over the last 30 years, including 83 grants last year to organizations including Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, International Women’s Media Foundation, Los Angeles Press Club, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, ProPublica, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Journalism students have also received grants and scholarships, like those at Cal State Los Angeles (pictured above).
“The Golden Globe Foundation champions freedom of the press and expression, recognizing them as essential pillars to our democracy,” says Henry Arnaud, president of the Golden Globe Foundation. “We’re committed to supporting the vital role journalists play in safeguarding our communities, disseminating important information, uncovering truths and holding power to account, often at great personal risk.”
The scope of the grants, which are funded partly by the licensing fees from the awards show, is wide, from film restoration to film schools to institutions that help and support the press. “We try to see where the impact is going to go the furthest,” says Miriam Spritzer, a member of the board which disperses the grants. But for her, the cause is personal. “We’re all international journalists; we’re all foreign correspondents to outlets outside of the U.S.” she says. “And I think as journalists, one of the common beliefs [among us] is that freedom of press and the First Amendment are very important. It was a sentiment that a lot of [members] had that we should be helping our colleagues and our industry in a way that was to support freedom of press and to support journalists so that they are able to do what they’re supposed to do.”
Italian journalist Silvio Bizio, who has been on the committee dispensing grants since the HFPA era, has seen first-hand the impact the donations can make. “I have personally known so many students and aspiring journalists whose lives have really been helped tremendously or changed by the amount of scholarships and support that we’ve given them,” she says. Bizio recounts meeting a student from India who was granted a scholarship to the University of Southern California. “She was just overjoyed at the idea of being there,” she recalls. “She said never in a million years in her wildest dreams as she thought that she could have ended up in Los Angeles.”
Another GGF grantee is the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a 25-year-old independent non-profit organization which works with investigative reporters from around the world on breaking global stories. Gerard Ryle, who heads the ICIJ, credits the annual $100,000 grant from the GGF for literally allowing them to keep the lights on — the organization has a building in D.C. that serves as a home base for working reporters. “We don’t just bring journalists the story,” he says, “we build the technology and tools that allow them to work.” He points to the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers as examples of projects they led where millions of pages of documents could be parsed by journalists around the world. A more recent example was a story about dissidents around the world being targeted by China, which was shared with The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Le Monde. “The essential role that I think investigative reporting plays is really telling the world something’s wrong so that the world can help make it right. So our role is really to expose abuses, foster transparency, and contribute to trust building but most importantly of course it’s holding power to account.”
But funding, like that provided by the GGF, is increasingly rare, says Ryle — especially support that comes with no demands of editorial control. “We’re very careful not to take any funding where someone’s telling us what to do,” he says. “We’re suffering because we used to get funding from the U.S. government through the State Department, and we’ve just lost that.”
The need for rigorous journalistic training is more important than ever, says Bizio, pointing to the recent Los Angeles wildfires, where local reporters delivered critical safety news to Los Angelenos. “I was glued to the TV, watching them brave fires right in front of them, and I was thinking, thank goodness that they exist,” she recalls. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t know what’s going on. it’s so important the role of journalists in today’s world. So I hope they can continue to exist and have the access and the means to make it to survive as journalists.”
But the risk has never been more profound than now, in the current political climate. “There has been a natural reaction that a lot of people are concerned about freedom of press and the security of journalists,” says Spritzer. “The job of the journalist is to go and ask the hard questions and kind of be of almost like a watchdog to power. I think that that’s becoming harder and harder throughout the world to actually have a say, to have an impact, to be able to even have the access to ask the hard questions.”
International journalists report fearing the fallout not just from the administration’s anti-press stance but also the anti-immigration stance as well. “There is a difference between being a citizen and someone with a visa,” says Spritzer. “My lawyer explained to me that as a foreigner with a work visa, you have a privilege, not a right. It’s different from when you when you’re an American citizen. And I remember that that was a big insight for me.”
International journalists are sharing advice on social media sites about whether or not to leave the country, what to store on their phones, or whether to even be on social media at all. “Journalists are not getting back into the country,” says one reporter, who asked not to be named. “A couple of people I know, when they went through immigration, were being asked to hand over their phones. And if there was anything negative about [President Donald] Trump, they were detained.” She’s now thinking twice, she says, about covering the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, over fears about being let back into the U.S.
But beyond just the privilege of festival travel, some international journalists interviewed by Gold Derby said they’d think twice about writing about a film critical of the president, like last year’s The Apprentice. “I think it would definitely impact my decision on whether to write about it and how I’d write about it,” said one journalist. “It just wouldn’t be worth me writing the story.”
For Ryle, the main concern is media literacy, which has never been more critical. “We have to teach the upcoming generation the difference between real and not real,” he says. “You’ve got to fund the journalism, but you’ve got to fund the people that are educating the future generation.”
What advice do you give to journalists that are coming into the field now?
Says Spritzer: “Brace yourself.”
Note: Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge and Penske Media Corporation, which owns Gold Derby.
