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Outlet profile

The 74

U.S. center / education-reform advocacy

Owned byNonprofit organization; co-founded in 2015 by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown and former New York City education official Romy Drucker, who serves as CEO
FundingEntirely donor-funded (no advertising or subscriptions); major funders include the Walton Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the American Federation for Children — all organizations associated with charter-school expansion or education privatization advocacy
On the administrationmixed

Background

The 74 launched on July 13, 2015, named for the roughly 74 million children in the United States under age 18. It was co-founded by Campbell Brown, a former NBC and CNN anchor who had become active in education-reform litigation (she led the Partnership for Educational Justice, which sued to overturn New York's teacher tenure laws), and Romy Drucker, a former Bloomberg-era New York City education official. The outlet opened with a staff of about 13 journalists and positioned itself as filling a gap in dedicated education reporting. From the start, critics — particularly teachers' unions and education researchers opposed to school privatization — questioned its independence, pointing to its funding from the Walton Family Foundation, the DeVos family, and other pro-charter philanthropies, as well as Brown's seat on the board of the American Federation for Children, a voucher-advocacy group formerly chaired by Betsy DeVos. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Left-Center on framing while crediting it with high factual accuracy, though the outlet's funding base and advocacy connections place it closer to the bipartisan pro-reform movement than to traditional left-of-center education policy. Over the years it has grown into one of the largest dedicated education news operations in the country, covering everything from early-childhood programs to college affordability. Its reporting on Trump's second term covers both the administration's school-choice and deregulation agenda — sometimes favorably — and its cuts to federal programs and civil-rights protections — sometimes critically.

Sources

  1. The 74 – Wikipedia
  2. The 74 Media – InfluenceWatch
  3. The 74 Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  4. Who Funds The 74? – Diane Ravitch's Blog
  5. DeVos Has a Friend in Campbell Brown – Education Week
  6. About Us – The 74
  7. 8 Ways Trump Reshaped Education in Just 1 Year – The 74

Profile compiled 2026-08-21; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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