About GroundUp

GroundUp publishes news that matters.

South Africa’s Constitution gives people the rights to housing, education, health, safety, a decent environment, justice, food and dignity. Our stories show what these rights mean in daily life.

Our journalists won the prestigious 2021 Nat Nakasa Community Award.

We are a news agency. Our articles are made available for republication, usually under a Creative Commons license, to news publications.

We value high-quality, ethical journalism. We are independent and do not promote any political party. We write in plain language. We also occasionally solicit and publish opinion pieces. We prefer opinion pieces that are fact-rich from people who work in the field about which they are writing.

We are non-profit. We rely on donations to do our work. We don’t run ads and our articles are always free to read.

GroundUp started in April 2012 as a joint project of Community Media Trust and the University of Cape Town's Centre for Social Science Research. As of June 2020, we became a standalone non-profit company (i.e. we are no longer a project within another company).

GroundUp displays the “FAIR” stamp of the Press Council of South Africa on all our web pages, indicating our commitment to adhere to the Code of Ethics for Print and Online Media which prescribes that our reportage is truthful, accurate and fair. Should you wish to lodge a complaint about our news coverage, please lodge a complaint on the Press Council’s website, www.presscouncil.org.za or email the complaint to enquiries@ombudsman.org.za. Contact the Press Council on 011 4843612.

GroundUp does not publish pseudoscience (such as AIDS denialism, climate change denialism, vaccination denialism) or bigotry (such as  racism, sexism and homophobia).

GroundUp does not run adverts.