It has been very painful to watch papers like the Post offer buyouts to dozens of talented journalists at the height of their powers while shutting overseas bureaus and even entire sections of the paper. Not to pick on any one institution, but, from a constitutional perspective, how did we end up in a society where Williams College has (or had, before September) an endowment well in excess of one billion dollars, while the Washington Post, a fountainhead of Watergate and so much other skeptical and investigative reporting critical to the republic’s health, is in jeopardyàI’m sure that Williams-generated nostalgia in the emotional lives of wealthy people is hard to overestimate, but still […]
The typical spend rate for endowed nonprofits is in the five-percent range. If the Washington Post had a two billion dollar endowment, it would be able to fund a very healthy newsroom. And this is before revenue from continuing operations—advertising, circulation, etc., which could surely cover at least the cost of distribution and overhead, particularly if the form of delivery is increasingly digital. Two billion dollars, by the way, represents something in the neighborhood of five per cent of Warren Buffett’s net worth, the last I knew that figure. (Buffett is a director of the Washington Post Company and one of the great public-minded businessmen of his age, although my impression is that, as someone who is so talented at making money, he is congenitally unhappy about giving it away—so he has asked his friend Bill Gates to do it for him).
Tagjournalism
Mere speculation, but this would be a huge hit to investigative journalism:
Conde Nast shuttered Domino earlier today and unless things turn around quick (don’t hold your breath), the magazine publisher will undoubtedly be looking to make more cuts. Could The New Yorker be next?
At first glance, you’d immediately assume no. David Remnick’s book consistently produces some of the best journalism around. Year in, year out, its assured multiple Ellie noms and a couple of wins. But the economics might end up forcing Si Newhouse to kill his baby.
The mag’s struggles to retain advertisers have been well documented. Earlier today, Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan called it the company’s “Plutonium loser” for seeing its ad pages drop 26.8 percent over last year. (We would have gone with “Adamantium loser” but we quibble.)
The February 2 issue paints an even more dire picture. Checking in at 83 pages, it features — by our count — a mere 15 pages of ads, or roughly 18 percent. Five of those pages, however, are “house ads” for New Yorker or Conde Nast products, bringing the total paid ad pages down to 12 percent. That, my friends, is not good. Not good at all.
The question might be not can Conde afford to shutter The NYer but rather can the publisher afford not to.
(via Steven Walling)
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The better alternative is to act now, before panic ensues, and actually change the way we think about journalism. Is it a product that corporations sell to us in whatever form is most profitable, and only as long as the money keeps flowing? Or is it something that we think of as a public good and value for its own sake?
If we choose the latter, we should urge the incoming administration to create a new National Endowment for Journalism – let’s call it the NEJ – a federal fund aimed at supplementing the free market for media and enhancing the aspects of journalism that contribute most to the public welfare
One simple idea would be to create an enterprise reporting fund where editors at existing newspapers (or radio stations, TV stations or websites) could apply for money to execute reporting projects they couldn’t otherwise afford, allowing them to pay for staffing, reporting expenses, travel abroad and production of in-depth international or investigative coverage.
The Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting has been funding reporting using this model on a smaller scale for several years with a lot of success (disclosure: the CLP received a Pulitzer Center grant last year for reporting on water scarcity in East Africa). Newspapers would keep the same means of distribution, but could grow their revenues by delivering an enhanced product at little additional cost.
See also: Towards new business models for professional media
After reading Josh Ellis’s article on what professional media is for and Ethan Zuckerman’s article on the coming collapse of advertising as a business model for newspapers, I came up with a new challenge for myself: think of 5 business models for professional media organizations, along the lines of my 5 business models for Twitter.
I decided to rule out all the “traditional” business models. I’ve been thinking about it all week and it’s a lot harder than thinking of business models for Twitter. To help me along, I’ve decided to write up the 5 primary business models for professional media, the ones I am seeking alternatives to.
Advertising
I’m less pessimistic about the idea that online advertising can support professional media than Josh and Ethan. Gawker, Federated Media, etc. seem to be doing quite well for themselves. The TPM family of sites has done high quality national political reporting, and I suspect they’re doing ok financially. But what about local journalism? There’s probably plenty of money to be made in big cities, but what about small cities and smaller towns? More thoughts on this in the future.
Subscriptions
Salon tried this and failed. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have given up on digital subscription sales. Subscriptions are a bust online. I can’t think off the top of my head of any professional print publication that sustains itself on subscriptions alone.
Public ownership
Like the BBC. Last I heard this is what Robert McChesney advocates. This is fine for somethings, I guess. But I think we’d all like to see a more rich media than what states can provide us.
Underwriting, public funds, donations, etc.
Here’s where I put most public media organizations like NPR. They receive public funds, but they are not state owned and are not solely dependent on state funds.
This is also the category I would put non-profit news media outlets that support themselves receive grants or underwriting other than public funds (such as The Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, and Reason) and the sort of “micropatronage” Josh Ellis has engaged in).
I think this may be the primary form serious investigative professional journalism takes in the future, especially in smaller communities. However, publications like Mother Jones and Reason do seem to take in a lot of revenue from advertising, so it remains to be seen whether they can survive a serious downturn in ad revenues.
A worsening economy could take a serious chunk out of donations and underwriting as well.
Payolla
Mostly known as a source of revenue for radio, Douglas Ruskkoff has accused Wired as essentially being a front for the Global Business Network and covering their clients more favorably than others. I won’t even begin to go into why this is bad for journalism (but I will say that Wired is still pretty much my favorite professional media outlet).
So what else is there? How else can the watchdogs make money? I will continue racking my brain.
My comment at on an article on Josh Ellis’s blog:
I agree with you that Godin’s wrong about the cost of reporting. I’d expect reporters salaries to the biggest cost in running a paper. But I disagree with this bit: “What newspapers have that blogs don’t — and can’t, and won’t for the foreseeable future — is full-time staff, who are paid a (presumably) living wage to do the kind of in-depth work that blogs don’t, can’t, and won’t for the foreseeable future.”
I’m not so pessimistic about the possibility of online media to pay full time staff. This is already happening a few outlets – such as Wired’s blogs, and Gawker Media for example. There’s not really any reason that professional, paid journalism has to come from newspapers, except that they have money. But their money has been quickly vanishing and moving online (online advertising has many benefits over other forms of advertising). Like Godin pointed out, the establishment media hasn’t even been doing a good job lately.
So better questions are: how can established media companies profitably move online and still do quality journalism, and can upstart online media companies make enough money to pay for quality journalism? How can upstart media companies develop a name for themselves so that sources return their calls? These aren’t easy questions, but I don’t think clinging to print media is the answer to any of them.
The two big alt weeklies here in Portland have high quality online presences and are well poised to make good money online. They have competition from various local blogs that are making money and in some cases doing serious work. For example, bikeportland.org. They’re a niche site, obviously, but have done a remarkable job covering local transportation issues. I see a bright future for journalism in Portland, even if it’s not in print.
Other communities might not be so lucky, so here’s another question: what if there’s not money for quality local online journalism in your community?
1. Content is Storytelling
2. What is the Conflict?
3. What’s your Angle?
4. Write thoughtful and strategic headlines.
5. The importance of the sub-headline.
6. A good lede needs a compelling hook.
7. Quoting Sources
(via Danielle Hatfield)
I suppose at some point I’m expected to say that the [second largest Pittsburgh daily paper] was an awful place to work, where I was expected to sell out my values and join the vast right wing conspiracy. That, however, wasn’t really my experience. Most of the people I have known in newspapers fit the same stereotype—overworked, underpaid, and generally miserable. Sure, there were editors who I was convinced had been placed on this earth solely to make my life miserable, but who doesn’t want to tell their boss to go fuck himself or herself every now and again? And for every truly worthless jackass I encountered there, I met ten or so inspiring, intelligent and genuine people.
Most newspapers I have known aren’t evil. They’re just boring. It really had nothing to do with the [newspaper I worked for]. Newspapers are miserable places full of miserable people. Dedicated, indeed, but still miserable.
(via Three Rivers Tech Review)
In an interview with MarketWatch, Hunter S. Thompson advises Bush to quit. Short interview, with a bit of back story. It says his new book will be published in December and will be called Kingdom of Fear (I can’t remember if the month and title had been announced before).
MarketWatch: Hunter Thompson is still all-Gonzo
(via The Drudge Report)
The author’s angle is what makes this piece interesting. It’s written by a somewhat skeptical third party about a man who threw away his journalism career pursuing the truth about a conspiracy. Like any good evil plot should, this one involves a few major corporations as well as some minor political figures.
“I call it muckraking. That means when you smell a story you don’t just write about the smell, you follow it as far as it goes and you don’t stop until you get two handfuls of it. And you write it all down, no matter how filthy it is. That’s muckraking.”
Here is an interesting example of the way data can be presented and interpretted in entirely different ways by the media. New Scientist‘s lede was “It’s official: smoking dope makes you a worse driver” and Getting It‘s headline was “DRIVING WHILE DOPED Are potheads better drivers?”
Both publications used the same source data to reach opposite conclusions. There is no reality.
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