The Groundtruth Project

The GroundTruth Project is dedicated to training a new generation of international correspondents in the digital age, covering issues of social justice including human rights, freedom of expression, emerging democracies, the environment, religious affairs and global health. GroundTruth is a registered nonprofit headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, based at WGBH since 2014. Headed by GlobalPost co-founder Charles M. Sennott, we focus on narrative storytelling about issues that matter for an increasingly interconnected world and we search for solutions to these issues. At the core of what we do is the idea of "ground truth." Put simply, that means being there on the ground to tell the story. The origin of the word actually comes from NASA, and refers to part of the calibration process used in satellite imagery. When NASA measures something with a satellite, an employee on the ground takes the same measurement. That human measurement is known as “ground truth.” If the results differ, the “ground truth” has greater credibility. In the digital age, as we are bombarded with so much information from afar, GroundTruth takes a similar approach, valuing the idea that being there on the ground and calibrating events in human terms is the key to getting it right. GroundTruth publishes with its editorial partners including NBC News, Public Radio International’s The World, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, NOVA, FRONTLINE and PBS NewsHour. Our funders and partners include Ford Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Bake Family Trust, Galloway Family Foundation, Packard Foundation, RTI International, JMB Charitable Fund and the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.