Sameer Padania

Sameer Padania is an internationally trusted analyst in and advocate for better funding, financing, policy and protections for public interest media, from the local to the global level. He leads the Local News Plans initiative for the UK's Public Interest News Foundation, which includes the country's first Local News Fund in Newry, Northern Ireland, and is on a Visiting Fellowship with the German Marshall Fund's Cities Program. His reports include the Forum on Information and Democracy’s global report calling on governments to deliver A New Deal for Journalism, an overview of media and journalism festivals in the Global South, and guides on grantmaking to journalism, funding investigative journalism, and developing national funds for journalism. He writes an independent newsletter on journalism funding, and from 2019-2022, he wrote the Journalism Funders Forum newsletter. He is a Fellow of the RSA, and is a trustee of the Indigo Trust, Doc Society and the Orwell Foundation.