The Thomson Foundation is a media development not-for-profit organisation based in London, United Kingdom but operating worldwide.
The goal of the foundation is to promote transparency and media freedom across the world and train journalists in the skills that will help them to perform their role of holding governments and commercial entities to account in the public interest.
Its online academy Journalism Now is a series of interactive courses designed and led by industry experts providing e-learning in digital and multimedia skills.
An extract from the Trust Deed on the formation of the foundation reads as follows: "Its purpose is the advancement of knowledge and spiritual enlightenment of all peoples enabling them to achieve closer understanding and to play an informed and responsible role in the affairs of their nation and the world.
[8] The foundation's previous projects have included a long-running programme of work in Sudan, which included training for journalists working in a range of media,[9] Africa Means Business, a project in collaboration with University of Ghana and the African Research Consortium based in Kenya,[10] with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Inquirer Awards,[11] which promoted investigative journalism in a number of countries across Asia and the Middle East.
The Thomson Foundation runs an annual digital and multimedia summer course, which sees journalists from across the globe come to the UK for a five weeks of training and work placements.
[12] The foundation has also done a lot of work in China over the past three decades, including encouraging modern journalistic practices in the state news agency Xinhua.