WASHINGTON – The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation announced today that it has been awarded a two-year grant totaling $250,000 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to provide journalists with access to quality safety resources through an online education toolkit. These resources will be customized for student journalists, freelancers, and newsrooms in under-resourced communities across varying levels of proficiency. The safety toolkit will empower those journalists in conducting risk assessments, mitigating physical and psychological threats, improving their digital security, identifying and addressing mental trauma, and gaining a better understanding of the legal, financial, and personal considerations they face.
Foley Foundation President and Founder Diane Foley said, “We are deeply grateful to Knight Foundation for entrusting us with this grant to increase online access to critical journalist safety information for all US-based journalists, particularly those in under-resourced communities. This online safety toolkit will educate and help to protect our journalists who face increasing physical, verbal, and online safety threats.”
The Foley Foundation also announced today the appointment of Dr. Lauren Walsh to serve as its new Managing Director of Journalist Safety Initiatives. Walsh will lead the creation and implementation of the journalist safety toolkit, alongside the foundation’s Safety Education Director Dr. Tom Durkin. Walsh has served as the director of the Gallatin Photojournalism Intensive at New York University, the director of Lost Rolls America, a national archive of photography and memory, and was named a Fulbright Specialist in Photography and Ethics in 2023.
“We welcome Lauren to our team as a leading journalism educator, practitioner, and safety expert. Her mission is to ensure that aspiring, freelance, and local journalists are provided with essential journalist safety information to do their work as safely as possible,” Foley said.
With experience in the field and the classroom, Walsh has led global workshops on journalist safety, media literacy, and trauma-informed reportage; developed the first nationwide study on media worker mental health in an active war zone (Ukraine); and is co-leading the first regional initiative on psychological wellbeing for Arab-world photographers.
ABOUT THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION
For 75 years, Knight Foundation has supported a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in the areas of media and democracy, and the success of the cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers.
ABOUT THE JAMES W. FOLEY LEGACY FOUNDATION
Conflict journalist James W. Foley was taken hostage by ISIS terrorists in 2012 while covering the Syrian civil war. His captors tortured and ultimately brutally murdered him in 2014. The James W. Foley Legacy Fooundation was established within weeks of his death. The mission of the foundation – inspired by the moral courage of James Foley – is to advocate for American hostages and wrongful detainees held abroad and promote journalist safety.
For more information or to learn how you can make an impact, please visit jamesfoleyfoundation.org or contact us here. Charitable donations to support the work of the foundation may be made here.