Our mission 

The Real News Network (TRNN) makes media connecting you to the movements, people, and perspectives that are advancing the cause of a more just, equal, and livable planet. We broaden your understanding of the issues, contexts, and voices behind the news headlines. 

We are rigorous in our journalism and dedicated to the facts, but unafraid to engage alongside movements for change, because we believe journalism and media making has a critical role to play in illuminating pathways for collective action. 

That’s why we make media engaging people not as a passive audience of consumers and spectators, but as active—or soon-to-be activated—participants in the struggle for a better world. Our platform highlights the voices and ideas not just of academics and pundits, but grassroots participants in social movements for change: the people on the frontlines of fights against injustice.

Our model 

TRNN is a nonprofit media organization. Financial support from our viewers and readers is critical to our ability to provide authentic and engaged journalism. 

While working across platforms, we have a primary commitment to digital video journalism. 

We believe that our coverage has the most impact when it is accessible to and engages a broad audience. We don’t just preach to the choir or narrowly target an already activated audience. 

Cooperation, collaboration, and partnership are central to our work as journalists because we believe this approach—and not a competitive race to the bottom—best models the world we need now.

TRNN does not accept advertising revenue or corporate sponsorship.

What we believe 

We ground our reporting in basic facts about the world we live in: 

  • that the failure of capitalism to deliver on either shared prosperity or ecological sustainability is an essential backdrop to stories about the political economy of our time. 
  • that you cannot provide rigorous journalism in a North American context without acknowledging and challenging the historical legacy and continuing existence of racialized violence and dispossession. 
  • that, while a nuanced and fact-based approach to geopolitical conflict is necessary, such reporting must be grounded in a recognition of the disastrous consequences of US efforts to achieve and maintain its global hegemonic status. 

Our commitment to Baltimore

While TRNN relies on the internet to distribute our content globally, we are also a place-based institution with a responsibility to serve Baltimore, the city we call home. 

We know that the struggles that the people in this majority-minority city face (unequitable access to resources like education, clean air, and transportation, for example) are the same struggles people face all over the globe. 

Our local coverage helps keep our friends and neighbors abreast of what’s going on in our city, but we also hope these stories will resonate with people united in the struggle everywhere.

Solidarity Circle

In addition to our thousands of grassroots donors, The Real News recognizes the following individuals and organizations as Solidarity Circle members for contributing leadership-level gifts of $1,000 or more annually:

Thank you for investing in The Real News Network!

We invite individuals, foundations, unions, and other funders to join the Solidarity Circle. Please contact Director of Development Rosette Sewali for more information or join today.

TRNN does not sell donor’s personal information to any third parties.