The GroundTruth Project welcomes prominent journalism academics to its board of directors

The GroundTruth Project today announced the appointments of Dinesh Balliah, the director of the Wits Centre for Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and Anya Schiffrin, the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, to its board of directors.

The GroundTruth Project is an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up. Its flagship programs, Report for America and Report for the World, place talented, diverse journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

“We are honored and delighted to have Dinesh and Anya join our board during this important time for local news in communities around the world,” said Rob Zeaske, GroundTruth’s CEO and president. “Both women are global leaders in journalism and bring experience and perspectives instantly valuable to our mission to bring trusted, exceptional local news to communities everywhere. ”

Dinesh Balliah, Ph.D., is the director of the Wits Centre for Journalism. She is the former deputy public advocate of the Press Council of South Africa, and until very recently, chaired the Health-e News Service board. She also served as a member of the advisory committee of the South African Media Innovation Project (SAMIP), run by the New York-based MDIF (Media Development Investment Fund), and the editorial advisory committee at Newzroom Afrika. She currently leads the Centre for Journalism and its academic and professional programs in its mission to grow and sustain journalism in Africa while showcasing and mainstreaming local practices globally.  

“GroundTruth is contributing to filling the gap of a serious resource constraint in local journalism newsrooms, ensuring that we have access to personnel, people who can grow journalism, develop journalism, and produce journalism for the next generation,” Balliah said. “I’m most looking forward to working with a fantastic bunch of people who are committed to growing journalism globally, to make an impact in local community journalism in particular, and from learning from them and contributing to their conversations and discussions around this particular issue.”

Balliah and the Wits Centre have been key partners in helping Report for the World expand its support and training of newsrooms in Africa, and in elevating coverage of climate issues globally through both organizations’ roles as regional hubs with Syli’s ClimateXChange.

Read Balliah’s’ full biography here.

Anya Schiffrin, Ph.D., is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a senior lecturer who teaches global media, innovation and human rights. She writes on journalism and development, investigative reporting in the global south, and has published extensively over the last decade on the media in Africa. More recently she has become focused on solutions to the problem of online disinformation, earning her doctorate on the topic from the University of Navarra.

“I’ve been an admirer of GroundTruth for years. Of course, everybody knows the important work that they’ve done, so I was honored when I was asked to become part of the board,” Schiffrin said. “I’m hoping that my decades of experience studying journalism, understanding impact, looking at business models, and also government policies to support journalism will be of help to this very illustrious board and organization.”

Schiffrin’s engagement with GroundTruth predates the appointment, having worked with Report for the World on a study to identify and understand how newsrooms create an impact in their communities, to learn about barriers they face, and from that, and learn how we can help overcome them. The top findings of the impact review were recently shared during the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.

Read Schiffrin’s full biography here.

About The GroundTruth Project

The GroundTruth Project is an award-winning nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding journalism from the ground up. GroundTruth serves under-covered communities by supporting the next generation of journalists to do on-the-ground reporting and to advance sustainability, innovation and equity in journalism worldwide. GroundTruth’s flagship programs — Report for America and Report for the World — place talented, diverse local reporters in the newsrooms that need them most.

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