Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation

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Fourth Estate®
Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation
FE logo horizontal 2color.svg
Fourth Estate
AbbreviationFourth Estate® or 4E
Formation2011 (2011)
FounderW. Jeffrey Brown
TypeCooperative public-benefit corporation[1]
Legal statusCooperative
Public-benefit corporation
FocusFreedom of the press
Media Ownership
Media ethics
Journalism
News Deserts
Local News
Headquarters600 14th Street NW, 5th Floor Washington DC, 20005
Location
  • United States
Area served
Global
MethodAdvocacy
lobbying
publications
outreach
education
entrepreneurship
Membership
Public Benefit Cooperative
Executive Director
W. Jeffrey Brown[2][3]
Budget
undisclosed
Staff
20-50
Websitewww.fourthestate.org
Journalism
BS Icon - Newspaper.svg
Areas
Genres
Social impact
News media
Roles
  • Newspaper nicu buculei 01.svg Journalism portal
  • Category: Journalism
  • v
  • t

The Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation (also referred to as Fourth Estate) is an international, non-partisan, human rights, membership organization dedicated to a strong free press.

Organized as a public benefit cooperative, a type of member social cooperative,[4] members of the Fourth Estate are both individuals and organizations representing news producers as well as consumers.

Its name references a segment of society that wields an indirect, but significant, influence on society even though it is not a formally recognized part of the political system.[5]

Its national office is located in Washington, DC. Its membership is global. Individual members may be: news consumers, or working journalists; organizational members are news organizations, corporations and educational institutions.

The organization provides news and journalism content, and technology services to customers that pay a fee to use the services.

Key initiatives[]

The organization's initiatives include: advocacy, publicity efforts, investments, and strategic litigation strategies.

Journalism Ethics and Standards[]

In November 2019, the Fourth Estate revealed a new Journalism Code of Practice designed to reflect the key standards and principles of modern journalism.[6] The new Code of Practice is particularly notable for officially recognizing that journalism is no longer solely the preserve of the professional journalist.[7]

In April 2019, the organization announced the creation of the announces the "Office of the Journalism Advocate[8]" and the appointment of Alan Sunderland to the newly created role. According to the organization's Executive Director "the Journalism Advocate serves as the independent and authoritative voice for journalism in the Fourth Estate, free of any particular news company influence or affiliation."[9]

First amendment and freedom of press advocacy[]

The Fourth Estate advocates for the First Amendment and Freedom of Press and works cooperatively[10] with other civil-society organizations[11] on Freedom of speech programming and initiatives.

Journalism Entrepreneurship[]

The Fourth Estate Angels provide seed and early stage funding in the range of $5K-$25K for news and journalism startups.[12] The Fourth Estate Angels is not a fund and does not invest as a LLC. Members collaborate in the due diligence process, but make individual investment decisions.

NewsFoundry was a prototype program that sought to apply proven lean and startup tools and techniques to build successful journalism businesses over 54 exciting and inspiring hours.

JournSpark is an incubation program that provides free web hosting and support for startup digital news organizations, press clubs, or student news publications.

Virtual private network (vpn)[]

In March 2019, the organization announced that it was launching a global virtual private network service for members of the organization. In 2021 the organization spun the project off into a stand-alone service called SupraVPN.

Journalism awards and grants[]

The Fourth Estate runs various contests open to professional, collegiate and high school journalists and news organizations in all forms of media.[13]

Awesome Journalism was a program that provided a monthly $1,000 micro-grant to a journalism project that commits a crazy, brilliant, positive act of journalism in the public interest. The initiative was originally launched as a cause oriented chapter of the Awesome Foundation before becoming a more formal stand alone program. It operated independently.

Media law network[]

The Journalism and Media Law Project connects members of the Fourth Estate with access to reduced fee or pro-bono legal representation and assistance with First Amendment issues.[14]

Committees and advisory board[]

The organization's Advisory Board[15] consists of select members from the journalism, academic, legal and business communities represent and support the organization's efforts and mission.

Strategic litigation[]

Main article: Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com

In March 2016, the Fourth Estate filed a federal copyright lawsuit against Wall-Street.com, LLC and Jerrold D. Burden alleging that the defendants infringed on its copyrights and intellectual property. The Fourth Estate argued before the court that copyright owners risk losing the right to enforce their intellectual property rights in an infringement action because of the long time period the United States Copyright Office needs to review a copyright application.[16] The court ruled that copyright registration, not application, must precede suit.[17]

References[]

  1. ^ "Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation". B Lab.
  2. ^ "About the Fourth Estate: fourthestate.org".
  3. ^ "FIU looks to bring entrepreneurship to journalism with appointment". South Florida Business Journal. Retrieved May 8, 2017.
  4. ^ "Governance Documents of the Fourth Estate". Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  5. ^ "fourth estate". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
  6. ^ "Journalism Code of Practice". Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate.
  7. ^ "The Fourth Estate Code of Practice for Journalism". Fourth Esgtate. Fourth Estate. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  8. ^ "Office of the Journalism Advocate". Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate.
  9. ^ "The Fourth Estate Announces the Creation of the Office of Journalism Advocate". Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate.
  10. ^ "Fourth Estate + Project Galileo". Project Galileo. Cloudflare. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
  11. ^ "Org Spotlight: Fourth Estate". National Association for Media Literacy Education. National Association for Media Literacy Education.
  12. ^ "Fourth Estate Angels". Gust.com. Gust. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
  13. ^ "Journalism Awards".
  14. ^ "Media Law Network".
  15. ^ "Fourth Estate Advisory Board". Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  16. ^ Britain, Eakin (March 6, 2019). "Copyright Registration, not Application, Must Precede Suit". Courthouse News Service. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  17. ^ Eakin, Britain (March 4, 2019). "Copyright Registration, not Application, Must Precede Suit". Retrieved March 9, 2019.
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