Opinion: America Needs Restraint—and Facts

Callie Ferguson, of the Bangor Daily News, and Josh Keefe, formerly of The Maine Monitor, were the inaugural recipients of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting Award of Excellence in Maine for their series “Stop Punching Him,” which investigated a March 2024 arrest in rural York County by the Maine State Police when a trooper pinned a handcuffed man to the ground and repeatedly punched him in the face while arresting him. The incident was captured on cruiser cameras, providing a visual record that the newsrooms’ joint investigation found conflicted with how responding officers described the event in their written reports. The episode raised questions about the agency’s use of force policy and its process for reviewing complaints, according to the newsrooms: Instead of disciplining the officer, the agency cleared him of any wrongdoing and promoted him. The determination fit into a broader perfect record in the state’s largest police force, the newsrooms found: the agency reviewed nearly three dozen complaints about use of force in the past decade; none were found to be excessive. Rufus Friday, executive director of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting, attended the Maine Press Association Better Newspaper Contest awards ceremony Saturday evening at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in South Portland to present the honor as well as the $5,000 prize, which will be split between the two reporters. In selecting “Stop Punching Him” as the prize winner, one judge wrote the series is “a shining example of what solid, public-interest news reporting should look like and that serves its readers (and the community at large) well." Complete results from the awards are available by clicking here . Judging comments and the ability to view many of the winning entries can be seen by clicking here .

Twelve journalists in seven newsrooms accepted the Center's new $5,000 awards for impartial, objective and fair reporting

August 30, 2026 — The Center for Integrity in News Reporting will expand its state journalism awards to California with a gift from Larry W. Sonsini , the prominent attorney who counseled many of the technology industry's defining companies. California becomes the 23rd state covered by the center's awards program and the most populous, home to more than 39 million people. The center will partner with the California News Publishers Association , which has served the state's newspapers since 1888, to present a $5,000 annual award honoring exemplary impartial, objective and fair news reporting. "Larry's generosity lets us recognize California journalists whose reporting meets the highest standards of impartiality, objectivity and fairness," said CFINR Executive Director Rufus Friday. The gift continues a period of rapid growth for the program. On Aug. 7, the center announced new awards in Iowa and Ohio , funded by the Adler Schermer Foundation and by John and Jane McCoy. With California added, the 23 participating states are home to roughly 197 million Americans, well over half the U.S. population. Sonsini is senior and founding partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati , the Palo Alto law firm he led as CEO and chairman for more than 35 years. He served as counsel to companies including Apple, Google, Netscape and YouTube, and as an adviser to industry figures including Steve Jobs. He also sat on the New York Stock Exchange's Board of Directors from 2001 to 2003 and later chaired the exchange's Commission on Corporate Governance. Sonsini also served on the Board of Visitors of the University of California at Berkeley. The state awards launched in 2025 with a grant from the SNPA Foundation covering 14 southern and southeastern states . A grant from the Stanton Foundation later extended the program across New England . The expansion comes as American trust in news media sits near record lows. Gallup polling shows the share of Americans who trust the media has fallen to 28% , down from about 70% in the 1970s. Founded in 2024 by Walter E. Hussman Jr., the Center for Integrity in News Reporting is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to improving public trust in journalism. Learn more at cfinr.org .

New York Times White House correspondent Tyler Pager accepts the 2026 Center for Integrity in News Reporting Award from CNN's Wolf Blitzer at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C., on Friday, July 24. (WHCA photo by Mike Theiler)

Sponsorship establishes new Benjamin Franklin Prize recognizing impartial, objective, and fair student news reporting

CFINR Executive Director delivers keynote to three state press associations

Center’s state press association awards now cover 22 states 

June 10, 2026— Only two of eleven of the most well known national news organizations have a majority of Americans who have a great deal or fair amount of trust in them, according to a new survey conducted by YouGov for the Center for Integrity in News Reporting. However, the survey also found greater trust among these 11 national news organizations individually than estimates of public trust in the mass media in general. The survey also highlights a reason for the lack of trust, as only 12% on average say they have 'a great deal of trust' that these news outlets present facts without intentionally omitting important information that could change the meaning or context. It also suggests a possible way to increase trust, with the public saying only 13% of these news organizations on average always make a clear distinction between news and opinion. "For readers and viewers to trust news reporting, they need to understand what a news organization stands for. Adopting a concise statement of core journalistic values and making it transparent is a relatively inexpensive step that a number of news organizations have already taken and one that can help rebuild trust, transparency, and accountability," according to Rufus Friday, Executive Director of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting. The survey, conducted by YouGov between February 16 - 26, 2026, finds that Americans are about evenly divided in their preference for reporting that takes a more neutral approach (reporting the statements of public officials and others and let the news consumer decide what they believe to be the truth- 53% of American say this) and a more active style of reporting that tells news consumers about what news organizations consider the accuracy or inaccuracy of statements directly (47%). Share of Americans who say they prefer media that …

The Center for Integrity in News Reporting (CFINR) has named Terry Tang, executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, to its board of trustees . Tang was appointed executive editor of the Times in 2024, becoming the first woman to hold the top editorial post in the paper's 144-year history. She oversees both the newsroom and the opinion section of one of the country's largest daily newspapers. Her arrival on the CFINR board comes weeks after the Los Angeles Times received the Center's inaugural $25,000 Investigative Reporting award for "LA Firestorms: Uncovering How the Government Failed the Public" — a sustained investigation into the public-sector response to the January 2025 firestorms. The reporting team drew on dispatch logs, public records, witness accounts, radio traffic, and independent soil testing to establish a documented account of how governments at multiple levels prepared for, responded to, and recovered from the disaster. Among the investigation's findings: that the Los Angeles Fire Department chose not to deploy roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines despite hurricane-force wind warnings, a decision that contributed to the ouster of the LAFD chief; and that an independent Times-led soil-testing effort found hazardous heavy metals on properties FEMA had declined to retest, prompting the EPA to reverse course nearly a year after the fires. Before joining the Times in 2019, Tang held multiple editing roles at The New York Times, including deputy editorial page editor and opinion editor. Earlier in her career she was an editorial writer and columnist at the Seattle Times and a reporter at the Seattle Weekly. Tang holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Yale, a J.D. from NYU School of Law, and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard. "Terry Tang is exactly the kind of trustee CFINR needs," said Walter E. Hussman Jr., founder of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting. "She has spent her career at some of the most respected newsrooms in the country, and she uniquely understands what it takes to produce reporting that is impartial, objective, and fair. Having Terry on this board will strengthen everything we are focused on at the Center." CFINR was founded by Hussman, the chairman of WEHCO Media and a veteran newspaper publisher and media executive, to address what Gallup polling identifies as a measurable collapse in American public trust in mass media, which has fallen from roughly 70 percent in the 1970s to 28 percent today. The Center's annual awards program, which drew 397 entries from at least 35 states this year, recognizes reporting that is impartial, objective, and fair. Beginning in 2027, the program will be renamed the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Impartial, Objective News Reporting. More information about CFINR and its trustees is available at www.cfinr.org .