Independent Journalism Rebuilding Trust and Strengthening Democracy
We are an independent nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to rebuilding trust in journalism, amplifying underreported voices, and reducing political polarization in America. Through immersive storytelling, podcasting, and community-centered reporting, we cover stories often overlooked by traditional media.
We produce independent journalism that prioritizes fairness, curiosity, and accountability, free from corporate influence or political agendas. We are neither right nor left. We follow the story wherever it leads, delivering balanced, human-centered reporting that helps audiences better understand the issues shaping their communities and the nation.
Special Series
About This Series
The crisis facing Minnesota is like nothing we’ve seen before in our lifetime. A state under siege. Ordinary people shot dead in plain daylight by the government. A community in hiding. We see the cellphone videos, we hear the elected officials, we challenge the government account of activities. But what is going on behind the headlines? What is happening outside of what you’re seeing on television and hearing on radio?
Free from pressure-packed deadlines and the constant cadence of feeding social media, the Front Porch Movement’s Ted Canova, an Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Award winning journalist, returned to the state he called home for 17 years in search of untold stories. Not to duplicate what mainstream news and citizen journalists were reporting. Instead, Ted used his experience, embedded himself in the community he knows, and met face-to-face with community activists, frightened immigrants hiding behind curtains, isolated children not attending school, and residents for whose opinions are never asked. What Ted found were stories of anger and fear, resistance and resilience, perseverance and ingenuity, moral tension and faith, and a deeper examination of indifference in a time of crisis.
We invite you to join his journey by reading Returning to Minnesota: A Journalist’s Journey Into a State in Crisis and by listening to podcasts of our series, Six Days Inside Minnesota.
Watch the trailer to our special series “Six Days Inside Minnesota.”
The Faces and Places Inside This Series
More from the Front Porch Movement
PODCASTS
Civic engagement starts with listening, and we started the Front Porch Movement listening in some very unique places: on a NYC subway car, at Central Park’s Imagine Circle on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, in a church housed in the basement of a temple on Christmas Eve, and in a crowded restaurant doorway on the night before Thanksgiving.
VIDEOS
It’s hard to believe in this era of Instagram moments and so-called influencers, that there are some people who don’t seek attention. It’s those people who we find who have something truly penetrating to say, and make us stop in our tracks to listen.
ABOUT OUR FOUNDER
We live in an urgent time and could very easily sit on the sidelines. But then you don’t know our founder, Ted Canova, who launched the Front Porch Movement to counter America’s growing polarization, not by duplicating mainstream media, but by giving ordinary people an unfiltered platform to start real conversations.