Media reformers across the country have long complained that the current print media paradigm is in need of an overhaul. The Public Press concept is one effort to make up for inadequacies in the business model that has, until recently, supported robust print journalism. Approaching those new — and as yet unknown — business models has become a growing topic for debate. One illuminating sign was the publication late last month of the annual State of the News Media report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
This year’s report, unlike previous editions, concludes that the crisis currently plaguing journalism "may not strictly be loss of audience. It may, more fundamentally, be the decoupling of news and advertising."
The stock market value of newspapers have declined for a third straight year — 42 percent since 2005. The implication for media reform projects is that they must take the changing advertising market into account if they are to succeed. For generation it was assumed that the ad-driven newspaper was the only way to fund serious news. But recently, technology has shifted that dynamic, and the resulting cuts in news investment have not been pretty.
A new business model, writes one thoughtful media observer, might turn readers’ migration to the Web into an advantage. "Civic entrepreneurs across the country are offering multiple visions of local journalism’s future," writes Ryan Blitstein, "from technology-heavy, amateur-dependent nonprofit sites to more traditional approaches to news that just happen to be tax-exempt and distributed online, with a variety of nonprofit efforts that fall between those poles."
In exploring precedents for nonprofit ownership and management of newspapers, Douglas McCollam argues in Columbia Journalism Review that some existing models are problematic. The St. Petersburg Times provides an example of the pitfalls of complex ownership structures in which the term “nonprofit” may be a misconception — even when the cause of high-quality journalism is the priority. He explains in his essay how market pressures are persistent in a company whose charter is a as a commercial, profit-making business, but whose sole owner is a charitable foundation. The financial interests of the foundation and the newspaper often conflict, he reports.
The Public Press is just one proposal to that seeks to address this ownership problem by creating a more accountable and straight-forward newsroom financing mechanism. Chris O’Brien, a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, recently posted a piece in the PBS Idea Lab suggesting that "there needs to be a new revenue model that will support some form of authoritative journalism, one that ideally exists in tandem with an expansive community journalism element and that is able to be optimized for any platform used by its audience (print, online, TV, mobile, etc.)." He mentions the Public Press as one of several "efforts to identify a way toward a more sustainable journalism that are worth noting."
Poynter Media Analyst Rick Edmonds argues in his Biz Blog that while the newspaper industry is on the decline, it is far from dead. Edmonds criticizes the New Yorker’s Eric Alterman for an article in last week’s magazine praising the merits of the hardcopy newspaper while suggesting that the industry is spiraling downward. "Alterman and his editors damn near spoil the whole thing by buying into the ‘dying industry’ trope in the broadest and sloppiest way," Edmonds writes. He says Alterman cites oft-repeated gloomy statistics on circulation, ads, newsroom staff and market values that may or may not continue.
Unsurprisingly, the existing newspaper infrastructure in the Bay Area is also getting into the reform act. MediaNews, the company that controls most of the region’s papers, has proposed what it is calling an exploration of new business models — the "NewPaper Project." A post in the Poynter.org forums details how the company intends to start by analyzing Bay Area News Group readership and and even nonreadership. Kevin Keane, the executive editor of the East Bay unit of the company, writes in his staff memo that "we will never be able to support a fulltime news operation larger than what we have now." But he suggests reorganization can invigorate downsized newsrooms:
To sit still and not re-examine our newsroom operations in the wake of the staff reductions would guarantee that we would not only be a different news operation, but that we’d be a worse one. Given the commitment of local management and the quality of the journalists who continue to work here, that need not be the case.
I will not ask you to do more with less. But I will ask you to challenge your assumptions on what readers expect of us and how to best use our time. You should consider the NewPaper Project a unique opportunity to re-examine everything, from what we find front-page worthy to how our news pages are designed and presented. Ask yourself how you would put together a locally focused news operation of our breadth and size if you were to start one from scratch.
Another idea Keane puts forward later on in the document: starting an "employee-of-the-month" prize.
Efforts along these lines may or may not be enough to keep readers reading. Some commentators aren’t too sure that there’s anything left in print worth saving. In one opinion piece in Editor & Publisher, Steve Outing relays his experience of recently cutting his subscription to his local newspaper. It’s interesting to read how a print journalist came this decision — a decision he said he did not regret.
