Journalism is expensive. Has anybody really figured out sustainable funding for it?
That's one example that comes to mind of a potentially viable model - less clickbait, shorter news cycle, more depth, with a print option.
Online-only news has been a race to the bottom, I'd guess that profitability is more likely at the higher end.
That isn't a criticism, just recognition that even though the other sites are still ad supported, that alone isn't enough.
They've also been pretty unprofitable in recent years. https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GCI/earnings
First, you need organizations interested in sustainable and not more and more shareholder returns. Sustainable is a different way to look at the financial planning.
Second, newspapers have long been funded by ads. But, the current structure of the ad business puts most of the profits in the pockets of the middlemen. Newspapers would need to re-evaluate ads and how to functionally be successful.
Third, you only need so many national or international level news organizations. Local news brings a of opportunity. Investment there may be worth while (I'd like to think so).
Basically, we need to change the way we think about it. Innovation.
Yeah, I agree. Lots of local papers have been bought up and hollowed out by national organizations. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. Smaller & more focused is the key. One reason I don't pay for the big news outlets, and even the local big-name newspapers, is because they are owned by and employ some really disgusting people, who I don't want to financially support. The bigger you are, the more likely that is to happen. More choice of many smaller outlets means you can be choosier.
As a single example, here in the Twin Cities a handful of journalists are trying out the model at Racket[1]. They're mostly reader-funded, and because they're not doing big national stories, they don't need a shitload of subscribers or scummy ad money to keep the lights on. There's some hope to be found here.
[1] A look at their first year of finances: https://racketmn.com/rackets-year-in-review-august-2021-july...
Why and how is it a public service? I wish I could remember the episode.
1. When journalists investigate their local politicians it helps keep those politicians clean.
2. Strong local papers and journalism is taken into account by loan officers who in turn save the municipalities tons of money by shaving off a percentage of a loan. This is massive returns when it takes 20million to build a local high schools, Libraries, etc.
But PP, along with Axios and Politico, is an exception that proves the rule. The NYT is probably the only legacy news org that has an optimistic long-term future, due to its last-man-standing position and diversification into tech and games.
(TV news is a different situation, obviously Fox News has done very well. CNN had major cuts during the Discovery-Warner merger, but I don't think they're on a downward spiral)
https://www.propublica.org/reports
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/142...
Real journalism is difficult and ultimately expensive. Telling people what they want to hear is cheap and easy.
I'm not certain that that's the case, at least in Canada.
Time and time again, much of the lowest-quality reporting/journalism I've seen has been from the largest Canadian news organizations that have significant resources at their disposal.
On the other hand, most of the best journalism I've seen has been from the organizations that are far smaller, and with far fewer resources.
It has even gotten to the point where relatively average individuals who are merely live streaming or sharing videos/photos of events end up providing more detailed, representative, objective, and timelier reporting than the large news organizations.
This could be stated for all news organizations, especially those that claim to be impartial on paper. You could argue Fox News is worse, but don't pretend that the New York Times or Washington Post don't have a slant - or a 30 degree angle. Especially after the Nicholas Sandmann debacle in which they paid settlements for defamation. Or another example, MSNBC was banned from the Rittenhouse trial after being caught following the Jury Bus.
This is why it is fascinating to watch what happens to experiments like NPR, although even in that case it was only a partial success.
Page 43:
- 5.8 million monthly page views
- 506,544 newsletter subscribers
Page 44:
- 2022 revenue $42 million
- Online donations $4.3 million
- The rest is grants and gifts
- Expenses $40.2
This is... not good at all.. it is basically a tiny blog that runs 90% on donations from a few rich people. I've seen single tweets with more views than what they get in a month, propublica sadly can't be sustainable for much longer I wouldn't think.
This subject has been giving me anxiety since about 2006. Nothing seems to stem the decline and I am scared what kind of world we will end up in soon as a result.
It's worth noting that investigative work has always been like this. Even before news orgs had web analytics, they knew that a multi-month investigation into government spending/corruption might be a few thousand or just hundred readers, but as long as those readers included people in positions of power and influence -- e.g. a member of congress who can call for a congressional hearing -- then that boosts the newspaper brand and influence as much as any popular story.
PP focuses on investigative work rather than general news. It doesn't publish frequently enough, or about any specific topic, to drive regular annual readership (i.e. subscribers) -- I doubt there are many people who'd check PP's homepage on a daily or even weekly basis. So, better to attract charitable foundation grants and small donor contributions than to do a subscriber paywall.
[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-un...
The thinking is that in the old days, when you had a print newspaper, there were ads and articles, but they were completely decoupled. You could read an article, or just the headline, or just glance at a photo, but regardless, you would see the ads. Now, of course, you have to decide to click through.
BUT -- and this is the key part -- the newspaper-style ads still exist, they just exist upstream in the flow, and giving the revenue to the aggregators, not the people doing the reporting. (It also leads to incredibly misaligned incentives between the aggregators and the publishers, leading to things like clickbait...)
Our hope is to be able to close that loop, share the revenue from in-feed ads with the reporting partners, and try to get away from the Facebook/Google/Twitter/etc model.
Is it? Why? Journalists don't make a lot of money. A lot of them are trust fund babies because you can't write for the New York Times and live in NY without outside help.
I'm not clear if that totally covers its operational costs, but it sounds like a good start.
Of course, critical analysis is beyond the average know-it-all who gets their opinions from headlines with no real analysis
Very few. But we know all about Trump’s dealings with porn stars.
2) Find a rich patron.
3) Disinformation for hire.
or a combination of all 3.
I personally like Breaking Points and I am happy to pay for it. [1]
You wont find good journalism in NYT and Washington Post anymore bc they have not figured out that high quality, subscriber-only content is more sustainable than advertising. You will increasingly find good journalism if you subscribe to individual journalists that are not beholden to their advertisers.