ORBmedia and Molly Bingham

                Media coverage is dictated by an elite group of companies. From the United States through Europe and Asia many media sources are owned by a few select companies. From billboards to magazines and newspapers, to online websites the controlling shares that these corporations have is astonishing. In Ireland the Independent News and Media PLC was controlled by just one family for over 30 years (http://www.inmplc.com/group-websites), the Czech Republic’s news sources are owned by just two European corporations, none of which are Czech based. There is a need for independent media sources domestically and internationally to relay sometimes unpopular but sought out information.

                One independent media source is The Center for Public Integrity. It was established in 1989 by Charles Lewis and is committed to “To enhance democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism.” http://www.publicintegrity.org/about/our-people/board-of-directors Sitting on the Board of Directors are nineteen journalists, educators, media specialists etc…, only six of those nineteen are women. One of those women is photojournalist Molly Bingham founder of ORBmedia.

                Molly Bingham is a distinguished photojournalist who has documented stories from all around the world. Throughout the 90’s she spent time in Africa covering several events, the genocides in Rwanda, arms trafficking in Burundi and the Sierra Leone. She also worked post 9/11 in the Middle East and was held captive with four other Journalist in Iraq for nine days. During her years in Iraq she co-directed and produced the documentary Meeting Resistance. It features interviews with Iraqis directly involved in the violent resistance to the occupation of the country in Baghdad in 2003-2004.

                In 2011, seeing a need for a new approach to photojournalism, Bingham founded ORBmedia. It “combines classic journalistic reporting and new technical capabilities to generate and deliver a daily multi-media story to a diverse global audience. ORBmedia covers transnational topics, holding governments, corporations and international structures accountable for their actions on behalf of the global public. Differentiating us from existing journalism organizations, ORBmedia's allegiance is to humanity — not to any one national, ethnic, religious, cultural or ideological community. ORBmedia believes in each individual's equality, right to dignity and justice. ORBmedia simultaneously recognizes that the world's socio-economic "middle billion" have the power to determine our collective future through their individual and daily choices” http://www.idealist.org/view/nonprofit/34knzzXHcXBfP/

                ORB media and Molly Bingham are examples of a women taking control of her own journalistic integrity. After working for and with many “big” media outlets and even the White House Bingham branching out shows that what she could not find where she was working she created. He organizations work is now featured online only but it is an alternate source for getting information. Although some companies are trying to limit online content, it is still the quickest and easiest way to distribute information.

ORBmedia is a nonprofit meaning that it cannot be bought into by outside corporations. Like many other nonprofit media sources they work off of donations, trust and private funding (mostly buy the founder). The benefit of this is that mergers and acquisitions of media companies do not affect them like other broadcasting companies. “There are all sorts of benefits to a competitive media landscape. The more independent outlets a community has, the more different viewpoints will be presented on the air.” http://www.freepress.net/media-consolidation  Alternate media sources such as ORBmedia are essential to keeping the media competitive and informational.