Nonprofit News Outlets Face Long Waits for IRS Approval

When SF Public Press, a nonprofit news organization in San Francisco, applied to the Internal Revenue Service for a tax exemption in January 2010, its founder, Michael Stoll, thought the bid would be a “slam dunk.”

He says he had studied IRS rules, and his group seemed to fit all of the federal requirements of a charity: It publishes only public-interest journalism, does not endorse political candidates, operates mostly with volunteers on a shoestring budget, and does not accept advertising or resemble a commercial operation in any other way.