Alan Mutter's latest blog post Wild guesses won't solve journalism crisis concludes with this admonition "It’s time for editors, publishers, academics and foundations to pony up for serious, in depth and disciplined study of what consumers want, what they need and how journalists and media companies can provide it."
That is exactly what we are doing with a survey team from the Minnesota State University at Mankato. We deliberately avoided using the traditional newspaper survey companies because we wanted a fresh look. And frankly out of all the years doing surveys, we tend to ask the same question framed by news producers, not news consumers.
Rather than ask "do you want more local news?" we are seeking the consumer's definition of local news.
The discussion with Associate Professor Lisa Perez of the Department of Psychology was simple. What do people need to direct their lives and how can we provide it.
I have no idea what will come of this experiment but in all likelihood it will raise more flags for us to explore. But the study being suggested by Mutter is getting underway.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Let the market, not largesse, save journalism
Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. not only thinks journalism is heading for extinction but believes its salvation can only come from a mix of philanthropy and federal intervention, including using taxes.
In the report The Reconstruction of American Journalism co-authored by Michael Schudson, professor at Columbia University, six solutions were offered to the state of affairs now afflicting news media.
While there was some modest attempt at providing a business model solution -- digital commerce and target marketing -- for the most part the survival of journalism, according to Downie and Schudson, depends on largesse. God help us all if that's our future.
Here are the six recommendations:
1. The Internal Revenue Service or Congress should clearly and explicitly
authorize any independent news organization substantially devoted to
reporting on public affairs to be created as or converted into a
nonprofit entity or a Low-profit Limited Liability Corporation serving
the public interest, regardless of its mix of financial support, including
commercial sponsorship and advertising. The IRS or Congress also
should explicitly authorize “program-related investments” by
philanthropic foundations in these hybrid news organizations—and in
designated public service news reporting by for-profit news
organizations. (Since we already have non-profits reporting on the news,
I'm not really sure the necessity of this.)
2. Philanthropists, foundations, and community foundations should
substantially increase their support for news organizations that have
demonstrated a substantial commitment to public affairs and
accountability reporting. (With the tremendous strain many non-profits
are feeling today and with the shrinking pie, this has little chance of
opening the purse strings for journalism.)
3. Public radio and television should be substantially reoriented to
provide significant local news reporting in every community served by
public stations and their Web sites. This requires urgent action by and
reform of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, increased
congressional funding and support for public media news reporting,
and changes in mission and leadership for many public stations across
the country. (Good idea to a point. I've always been in favor of expanding
our news coverage by sharing stories with public radio and television.)
4. Universities, both public and private, should become on-going sources
of local, state, specialized subject, and accountability news reporting as
part of their educational missions. They should operate their own news
organizations, host platforms for other nonprofit news and
investigative reporting organizations, provide faculty positions for
active individual journalists, and be laboratories for digital innovation
in the gathering and sharing of news and information. (I'm not sure propping
up newspapers is really the mission of our universities.)
5. A national Fund for Local News should be created with money the
Federal Communications Commission now collects from or could
impose on telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or
Internet service providers and administered in open competition
through state Local News Fund Councils. (This is one of the most problematic
of the suggestions. Not only is this rife with practical problems, using tax
money to support journalism is the antithesis of the role of The Fourth
Estate, is it not? One could argue that newspapers already receive some
government support from sales tax relief, legals and the Newspaper
Preservation Act. But direct funding from tax dollars is going beyond
the pale.)
6. More should be done—by journalists, nonprofit organizations, and
governments—to increase the accessibility and usefulness of public
information collected by federal, state, and local governments, to
facilitate the gathering and dissemination of public information by
citizens, and to expand public recognition of the many sources of
relevant reporting. (Yes, we all could do more to lead the horse to
water. But until we can increase the engagement factor of our readers
rather than making information they should know more available
this will be an exercise in futility.)
You will note that very little of this resembles a business model for journalism. As writer Howard Weaver on Twitter said "If the market won't support journalism, what makes us think society values it?"
Dan Gillmor noted correctly -- in my view -- that some element of market solutions have to be considered.
But even more importantly I wonder is why the discussion still centers on the health and well-being of the major metros as though our industry's future depends on their survival. We ignore that fact that there were 1,408 newspapers as of 2008 and 80 percent of them have circulation of 15,000 or less.
Even the authors admit these paper are not at risk. "Many of those less battered by the economic downturn are situated in smaller cities and towns where there is no newspaper
competition, no locally based television station, and, as is the case for now in many
communities, no Craigslist. Those papers’ reporting staffs, which never grew very
large, remain about the same size they have been for years, and they still
concentrate on local news."
That's the point exactly. These newspapers concentrate on local news, are connected with their communities. Isn't that the winning formula? The louder voices in this debate come from those most worried about survival because, I posit, they are the ones who despite having the largest staffs and higher salaries are less connected with their communities.
Now I'm just a small town publisher but it strikes me that survival of the newspapers and, yes, journalism, will depend more on experiments such as those at Cedar Rapids with its Complete Community Connection initiative. We need to be more attuned to our communities, giving them news, solutions and analysis they can use and let the market control the outcome. If not, there isn't any amount of tax dollars or donations that can make our communities want to read us.
In the report The Reconstruction of American Journalism co-authored by Michael Schudson, professor at Columbia University, six solutions were offered to the state of affairs now afflicting news media.
While there was some modest attempt at providing a business model solution -- digital commerce and target marketing -- for the most part the survival of journalism, according to Downie and Schudson, depends on largesse. God help us all if that's our future.
Here are the six recommendations:
1. The Internal Revenue Service or Congress should clearly and explicitly
authorize any independent news organization substantially devoted to
reporting on public affairs to be created as or converted into a
nonprofit entity or a Low-profit Limited Liability Corporation serving
the public interest, regardless of its mix of financial support, including
commercial sponsorship and advertising. The IRS or Congress also
should explicitly authorize “program-related investments” by
philanthropic foundations in these hybrid news organizations—and in
designated public service news reporting by for-profit news
organizations. (Since we already have non-profits reporting on the news,
I'm not really sure the necessity of this.)
2. Philanthropists, foundations, and community foundations should
substantially increase their support for news organizations that have
demonstrated a substantial commitment to public affairs and
accountability reporting. (With the tremendous strain many non-profits
are feeling today and with the shrinking pie, this has little chance of
opening the purse strings for journalism.)
3. Public radio and television should be substantially reoriented to
provide significant local news reporting in every community served by
public stations and their Web sites. This requires urgent action by and
reform of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, increased
congressional funding and support for public media news reporting,
and changes in mission and leadership for many public stations across
the country. (Good idea to a point. I've always been in favor of expanding
our news coverage by sharing stories with public radio and television.)
4. Universities, both public and private, should become on-going sources
of local, state, specialized subject, and accountability news reporting as
part of their educational missions. They should operate their own news
organizations, host platforms for other nonprofit news and
investigative reporting organizations, provide faculty positions for
active individual journalists, and be laboratories for digital innovation
in the gathering and sharing of news and information. (I'm not sure propping
up newspapers is really the mission of our universities.)
5. A national Fund for Local News should be created with money the
Federal Communications Commission now collects from or could
impose on telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or
Internet service providers and administered in open competition
through state Local News Fund Councils. (This is one of the most problematic
of the suggestions. Not only is this rife with practical problems, using tax
money to support journalism is the antithesis of the role of The Fourth
Estate, is it not? One could argue that newspapers already receive some
government support from sales tax relief, legals and the Newspaper
Preservation Act. But direct funding from tax dollars is going beyond
the pale.)
6. More should be done—by journalists, nonprofit organizations, and
governments—to increase the accessibility and usefulness of public
information collected by federal, state, and local governments, to
facilitate the gathering and dissemination of public information by
citizens, and to expand public recognition of the many sources of
relevant reporting. (Yes, we all could do more to lead the horse to
water. But until we can increase the engagement factor of our readers
rather than making information they should know more available
this will be an exercise in futility.)
You will note that very little of this resembles a business model for journalism. As writer Howard Weaver on Twitter said "If the market won't support journalism, what makes us think society values it?"
Dan Gillmor noted correctly -- in my view -- that some element of market solutions have to be considered.
But even more importantly I wonder is why the discussion still centers on the health and well-being of the major metros as though our industry's future depends on their survival. We ignore that fact that there were 1,408 newspapers as of 2008 and 80 percent of them have circulation of 15,000 or less.
Even the authors admit these paper are not at risk. "Many of those less battered by the economic downturn are situated in smaller cities and towns where there is no newspaper
competition, no locally based television station, and, as is the case for now in many
communities, no Craigslist. Those papers’ reporting staffs, which never grew very
large, remain about the same size they have been for years, and they still
concentrate on local news."
That's the point exactly. These newspapers concentrate on local news, are connected with their communities. Isn't that the winning formula? The louder voices in this debate come from those most worried about survival because, I posit, they are the ones who despite having the largest staffs and higher salaries are less connected with their communities.
Now I'm just a small town publisher but it strikes me that survival of the newspapers and, yes, journalism, will depend more on experiments such as those at Cedar Rapids with its Complete Community Connection initiative. We need to be more attuned to our communities, giving them news, solutions and analysis they can use and let the market control the outcome. If not, there isn't any amount of tax dollars or donations that can make our communities want to read us.
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