Documents: In foundation grants, Neuharth ties

The Freedom Forum journalism foundation gave $42.4 million to non-profit groups in 2008, newly released public documents show, and the single-biggest award went to its Newseum. The museum about news in Washington, D.C., got $37.9 million, the foundation's public reports to the Internal Revenue Service show -- the most recent such filings available.

But the foundation awarded grants to hundreds of other non-profits with little apparent connection to journalism, or to groups with ties to Founder Al Neuharth of Cocoa Beach, Fla., and Chairman and CEO Charles Overby. That follows a similar pattern I found in a review last year. A 2008 sampling:

• Cocoa Beach Junior/Senior High School: $5,000
• Home At Last Adoption Agency of Cocoa Beach: $6,000.
• Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi: $35,000
• University of Mississippi Foundation: $15,000
• United States Equestrian Team, Gladstone, N.J.: $5,000. (Neuharth's daughter, Jan Neuharth, owns an equestrian sports center in Middleburg, Va. She also is a member of the foundation's board of trustees.)

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