An anonymous donor bought $1 million in The New York Times subscriptions for public school students, according to a statement by the paper Thursday.
The paper began a subscription-sponsor program Feb. 3, and announced it had collected more than 15,500 individual contributions. The donations ranged from $4 to the anonymous $1 million, the paper said.
Some 1.3 million students across the U.S. will gain free and unlimited access to the Times thanks to the program.
The donations will help set up a webinar series with Times journalists about news literacy, personal finance, persuasive writing, climate change, immigration, and the Supreme Court. Teachers will also have access to the webinars to incorporate the Times into educational projects, according to the statement.
International sponsors made 830 contributions, even though the program is currently open only to U.S. public schools.
"The genesis of the 'sponsor a subscription' program came directly from readers who approached us with the desire to help support independent journalism and promote news literacy after the U.S. elections," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., The New York Times publisher, said in the statement. "Thanks to their tremendous generosity, schools that would not normally have had the means to pay for resources like the Times are now able to empower their students with the news and information they need to help them understand the world around them."
The outreach program comes as the paper is under fire from President Donald Trump and his administration. The president has frequently accused the paper of reporting "fake news."
While Trump has claimed the Times is "failing," subscriptions in 2016 doubled, according to The Hill.
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