Freedom Forum
The Freedom Forum is a nonprofit organization that runs the First Amendment Center and the Newseum Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Freedom Forum is also the creator of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., which it sold to Johns Hopkins University in 2019.
The Freedom Forum was founded in 1991 when the Gannett Foundation, started by publisher Frank E. Gannett as a charitable foundation to aid communities where his company had newspapers, sold its name and assets back to Gannett Company for $670 million. Retired Gannett chairman and USA Today newspaper founder Al Neuharth took the money and the shell of the foundation and formed the Freedom Forum. Its mission was to foster "free press, free speech and free spirit."
Neuharth's daughter, Jan A. Neuharth, is chief executive officer and chair of the Freedom Forum.
The financial losses of the Freedom Forum and Newseum led to criticism of high salaries and some unusual proposals.
