ABOUT

The Association of Principled Press was born out of litigation between the founders of the provocative local news service company, BlockShopper. One, a seasoned journalist who had moved into politics, the other an investigative reporter who had built the foundation of fact-driven news processes using public records. Facts won.

Facts always win.

That’s why the APP exists. We believe that news journalism has moved away from facts and abandoned its role in a democracy. Through the APP’s three service offerings, we help gauge and improve the media in its mission of holding all of us, especially the most powerful, accountable to the truth.

The greatest act of insurrection is to report on government, truthfully. 

STORY

Investigative Reporting

Our first Executive Director began his media career as a credentialed Capitol Hill investigative journalist. This was prior to the Internet’s public use. Facts and public records were the mainstay of a reporter. The journalism had an angle, and everyone knew it. The ‘ax’ (as in ‘ax to grind’) played out in the writing as a result of the facts reported. 

Discourse

Discourse. Disputation. This is what doesn’t happen to today on social media. Friends blocking former friends, tweet-memes with little thought. The discourse happens but there are very few players in that game and almost none in news journalism. The letters to the editor, once a prominent forum for the public is lost in the noise. Should you wish to listen to real discourse, come to Speaker’s Corner at Marble Arch, the northeast corner of London on any Sunday afternoon, rain or shine, if you want to understand discourse of engaged minds. A principled press creates the forum for discourse, but is not responsible for the outcomes.

Fact-driven Journalism

Our original Executive Director is credited for creating and overseeing the first nationwide, large-scale, process-driven news workflow. The self-congratulating media mistook it as a story about “news being produced in the Philippines” (Switcheroo, This American Life, 2012). They missed the real story. Our fact-reporting process value has to do with uncovering data and reporting it en masse, so that something else can be done with it. It seems that the full-scale automation of news-gathering has gone mainstream. Its a pity that the good people of the Philippines took the insults they did while creating the basis on which mainstream AI now reports the news. Nonetheless, a principled press reports the facts as they are, regardless of the identity of its author.   

The Content Pyramid

The APP does not seek to limit the press, but rather force the press to think about its role in our society before giving us its opinion. The original APP Executive Director gave us the right to republish the Content Pyramid model of understanding quality journalism.  Most publications (and writers) seek to jump to the top of the pyramid. It has the highest value to readers after the other layers. The APP is not measuring an organization or judging it for where it sits on the pyramid. Thus, the APP will not measure the ‘quality’ of a publication, but asks and answers where does it follow the principles required of it for fulfilling its purpose in society. For example, a news item – which could be as simple as a new court opinion, or a bill proposed in Congress that is full of opinion, is an opinion piece, not a news item. A principled press knows the difference and tells its readers as much.

The Litigation

The APP was founded as a result of litigation as noted above. The litigation really began as a result of some public actions in 2012 taken by one of the purported members of the mainstream media – the company once known as “Tribune Company.” Four lawsuits and 11 years later, the APP arrived, by Court order. The financial payments made by the Tribune and its successors and their costs to fight the legal battle are not the source of funds for APP’s founding. No, those come from a bitter fight between former partners.

The Jailing That Wasn’t

The original APP Executive Director sought jail for his former business partner in the litigation. It stemmed from the latter’s attempts to avoid jurisdiction in Missouri, where, according to filings, his own lawyer contradicted his sworn statement related to the existence of an authorized agent in Missouri. Although the May 27, 2022 motion was granted in the summer of 2022, the jailing was not. But the incident meant that the stakes were rising. Absent resolution which authorized these principles  to take hold at the much press-maligned “Locality Labs,” the company could be destroyed. 

The Settlement

It was a group of UCLA students who saved the company in question which allowed the APP to come into existence. They were clamoring for the creation of a different non-profit. The Settlement, which you can read in full here, requires the Defendant, once BlockShopper, Journatic, Locality Labs LLC etc to pay $100,000 for the creation of the APP and the APP to conduct its full audit subject to the these principles

The Initial TEAM

Even with a judge’s order being enforced, finding an initial board of directors for a 501(c)(3) is a difficult task when the job is as thankless as monitoring the press. First, we have picked a boastful, self-congratulating class of business with the largest bullhorns. Second, the job doesn’t pay much. Our Executive Director is barred from compensation by the Court Order from the initial $100,000. In the end, we found a law partner who had been a successful reporter and a credentialed media professional in Britain whose own standards and principles reflect much of our own to create a diverse board in thought, opinion, and background. Other team members