Franklin News Foundation

The Franklin News Foundation, previously the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is an American online nonprofit news organization that publishes news and commentary from a conservative and free market, limited government perspective on state and local politics. Its journalism platform is called The Center Square, rebranded from Watchdog.org. Founded in 2009 in North Dakota, the organization moved to Virginia and is now based in Chicago.

It was associated with reporting in 41 states as of its second year, but it scaled back later in the 2010s. Its stated mission is "to hold government accountable through objective, balanced, citizen-focused public journalism with a taxpayer sensibility." Much of its funding has come from conservative and Republican-connected large donors, especially via Donors Trust. Chris Krug is the foundation's president.

2009 founding
The Franklin Center was founded in January 2009 with an initial sponsorship grant from the Sam Adams Alliance, a conservative think tank. It was described that year by the Associated Press as "a government watchdog group led by former Republican staffers". One of its founders was Jason Stverak, a prior executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party. The organization was originally based in Bismarck, North Dakota, before moving to Alexandria, Virginia.

In September 2009, the Franklin Center launched Watchdog.org, a network of state-based journalists who investigate and report on state and local government. Stories from the state news bureaus were linked on Watchdog.org and syndicated for newspapers.

The Franklin Center is an associate member of the State Policy Network, a consortium of conservative and libertarian think tanks which focus on state-level policy. The Franklin Center partnered with the State Policy Network to help establish news websites and hire reporters in each of the State Policy Network think tanks. Thirty news bureaus were established in the first year and 41 as of the second year, almost all in State Policy Network think tanks.

2010s
In early 2012, the Franklin Center created a platform for citizen journalism under a banner called Watchdog Wire. As of 2013, many officials of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-affiliated group known for its Tea Party rallies, were leading the Franklin Center, according to The Nation.

As of 2014, the Franklin Center owned 14 of the 33 ideological press outlets (as identified by a Pew Research Center study) that assigned reporters to state governments. Such ideological outlets were described as filling a void when financially struggling daily newspapers were cutting their statehouse reporters during and after the Great Recession. Governing described the Franklin Center outlets in 2014: "Some covered events in a relatively straightforward fashion; others made little effort to conceal their ideological bent. After some shake-ups and streamlining, most of the sites that didn’t become financially self-sufficient now appear under the Watchdog banner." Governing noted that the Franklin Center had been one of the largest recipients of money from groups connected to the billionaire Koch brothers.

Nicole Neily was appointed the Franklin Center’s president in March 2016. In April 2017, the Franklin Center acquired the non-profit Illinois News Network and its associated assets from the Illinois Policy Institute, with INN publisher Chris Krug being named President of the Franklin Center and the headquarters moving to Chicago, Illinois.

By April 2017, the Franklin Center ran just five news bureaus, in Wisconsin, Vermont, Florida, Mississippi and Arizona, at which point it underwent "reorganization". In January 2018, Krug announced that Watchdog.org would be resuming statehouse coverage based upon the Illinois News Network model.

In May 2019, the organization was renamed the Franklin News Foundation, while Watchdog.org and INN's website were replaced with The Center Square. The website's name was chosen to signify a move towards "shorter, more timely and faster-moving content" and away from long-form investigative reporting.

Activities
In the past, the Franklin Center provided training for investigative reporters, state-based news organizations, public-policy institutions, and watchdog groups.

On May 10, 2011, Franklin Center journalist Lynn Campbell of IowaPolitics.com was named moderator for the 2012 Presidential Candidate Series.

In June 2012, the Franklin Center and The Heritage Foundation hosted the first annual Breitbart Awards dinner. The awards honored the life and work of the late Andrew Breitbart. Syndicated columnist and Fox News Channel contributor Michelle Malkin took home the honors in 2013.

At Conservative Political Action Conference 2013, Erik Telford of the Franklin Center served on a panel discussing "Current trends in technology." The Franklin Center ran a promotion with a Ben Franklin mascot handing out free drink tickets in exchange for tweets.

Reports in The Guardian in 2013 and 2015 said the Franklin Center was leading a "campaign against wind and solar power" and that it had not disclosed the sources of its funding.

GreenTech Automotive investigation
The Franklin Center published a series of articles that raised questions about GreenTech Automotive and its presumed chairman, Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, regarding the company’s reliance on a controversial fundraising program, EB-5, that has been criticized for its lax oversight and subject to abuse. The investigation also revealed that McAuliffe’s public projections, starting back in 2010, of how many cars would be built and jobs created had not come to fruition. In April 2013, it was revealed that McAuliffe had left the green energy car-maker in December of the previous year.

GreenTech Automotive filed an $85 million libel lawsuit against Franklin Center in 2013, but in 2014 a federal judge in Mississippi dismissed GreenTech's case. GreenTech filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, stating that articles from Watchdog.org “negatively affected governmental, investor and public perception of GreenTech” and led to investigations by the SEC and the Department of Homeland Security. GreenTech also blamed U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who had raised concerns about the company's use of a visa program, among others.

Funding
As of 2012, much of the funding for the Franklin Center came from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two affiliated donor-advised funds whose funds cannot be traced to individual donors. In 2011, the two funds granted the Franklin Center US$6.3 million. The grants were 95% of the Franklin Center’s revenue that year and was the second-largest grant made by Donors Trust that year. In 2012, the two funds granted the Franklin Center nearly US$9.5 million, more than 80% of the Franklin Center’s revenue that year. For tax years 2011 through 2013, the Franklin Center received US$22 million from the two funds. In 2019, Mlive.com described Franklin as "connected to GOP mega-donors". Around 2021, DonorsTrust announced a $50,000 grant to the Franklin News Foundation to "offer an alternate perspective" on COVID-19 policies.

The Bradley Foundation had contributed nearly $800,000 to the Franklin Center's Wisconsin Watchdog as of 2017.

Awards and recognition
In November 2010, Franklin Center reporters at Maryland Reporter and Illinois Statehouse News were honored by the National Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors.

The Franklin Center's Maryland affiliate, Maryland Reporter, has won awards from the Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and from CapitolBeat, the national Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. In 2012, Maryland Reporter was named Maryland's best political website by Baltimore Magazine. Maryland Reporter was also named one of the best state-based political blogs in the nation by the Washington Post.

In August 2011, Maryland Reporter was awarded a $50,000 grant by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation to provide "in-depth coverage of Maryland state government and politics and to expand capacity by giving those who plan on entering journalism as a career real-world experience in investigative reporting supervised by veteran journalists."

Franklin affiliates CapitolBeatOK in Oklahoma, Hawaii Reporter, and the New Jersey Watchdog blog have won awards by from respective state chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. New Jersey Watchdog has also won two New York Press Club awards.