Indie startups offer hope amid local journalism's struggles
"With local coverage and civic engagement in decline in U.S. cities, outlets are experimenting with new ways to fund journalism."
Curbed has a thorough piece looking at the promising examples of a number of LION members who run both for-profit and nonprofit local independent online news organizations.
"Coverage of the crisis in local news can also zero in on big-money stories, to the detriment of small, local successes. It’s easier to cover something like the downfall (and slow re-emergence) of Patch, an AOL- and hedge-fund-backed experiment in local coverage, than look at how small local publishers are establishing effective and economically sustainable sites."
“We’ll look back at this as a major decentralization of media, when local publishers take responsibility for local information," said LION's Matt DeRienzo. "The safest, most secure ownership model is local and grassroots. But it’s going to be messy, diverse, and eclectic, and come in fits and starts.”
Related: A new wave of digital media startups are launching in Chicago. But will they survive?
Hedge fund cuts 1/3rd of Denver Post's already-stripped newsroom
After several years of cuts had left it thin to begin with, the Denver Post is laying off 1/3rd of its newsroom, leaving it with only 60 people.
The Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan called it "strip-mining."
The move by Digital First Media, a big newspaper chain owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital and known for ruthless cutting, fits a disturbing pattern at hedge-fund owned papers.
The same company has done significant damage to the San Jose Mercury News and numerous other newspapers.
Related: How do you support your daily newspaper when its owners are destroying it? More layoffs hit Chicago Tribune newsroom.
How local news sites choose between nonprofit and for-profit
Media Shift has an extensive piece about the pros and cons of choosing nonprofit vs. for-profit status in establishing a local independent online news organization.
“It’s a tax status, not a business model,” said Matt DeRienzo, executive director of LION. “... Whether it’s for-profit or non-profit, you still have to be involved in the revenue side."
Approximately 20 percent of LION's members are nonprofit, but among the 80 percent who are incorporated as for-profits, most are guided by a public service journalism mindset that could be described as altruistic. And they're bringing in revenue in ways similar to nonprofits - i.e., voluntary paid membership programs and even grant funding.
Media Shift's piece spotlighted numerous members of LION and the Institute for Nonprofit News, including The Tyler Loop in Texas, Berkeleyside in California, and the Richland Source in Ohio.
Join us Tuesday for a webinar on setting ad rates and packages
LION will host a webinar on how to determine advertising rates and packages at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 20.
Do you question whether your ad rates are too low, or too high? Should you be charging a flat monthly rate, or by CPM? Need advice on best practices around how many ad positions work best for a home page?
Presenters will include Doug Hardy of CTNewsJunkie.com, Kim Clark of Noozhawk and Kenny Katzgrau of Broadstreet Ads.
Join us April 6 for a summit on reader revenue for local news
LION and the Center for Cooperative Media will host a day-long summit on Reader Revenue April 6 at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
"As news organizations across the U.S. continue to experiment with altered business models and new streams of revenue, it’s become clear that building reader revenue needs to be part of nearly everyone’s strategy."
The program will include presentations and workshops on membership programs, subscriptions, paywalls and audience and donor development. It will feature speakers including LION members who've had success with reader revenue, and representatives from The Membership Puzzle, Lenfest Institute, American Press Institute.
'By the Bay' is taking an explainer approach to local news coverage
"Keeping up with local news is important. Participating in local politics is important. Bay Area engineer and designer Jimmy Chion felt these pressures of civic duty, but wrestled with what he felt was a shallowness to his understanding of the city he lived in, and the policies that would define it."
Nieman Lab has a piece profiling a new site called By the Bay that was recently launched in the San Francisco area by Chion and LION member Yvonne Leow.
"Current local issues explainers include 'How to pass a law in San Francisco' and 'Why your rent is ridiculous,' a well-researched, interactive timeline of the various factors that led to the Bay Area’s housing shortage, with options to learn more, interrogate sources of information, and suggest edits, as well as a section to motivate residents to act."
News About Local Independent Online News Organizations
CHICAGO: Community-Building With a Purpose: How City Bureau is engaging its community in local journalism.
CONNECTICUT: CT Mirror is looking for an executive editor.
LEVITTOWN: Pennsylvania local independent online news site Levittown Now is celebrating its fifth anniversary.
NEW ORLEANS: The Lens has named an interim executive director.
NEW YORK: Patch has 36 neighborhood news sites covering New York City with a staff of 7 editor-reporters.
SAN DIEGO: Local independent online news site Times of San Diego is celebrating its fifth anniversary.
Tools and Tips: Advertising and Revenue
AD TECH: As More Brands Demand Transparency, Publishers Must Answer The Call. In 2017, Google removed 3.2B ‘bad ads’ and blocked 320K publishers, 90K sites, 700K mobile apps. Selling advertising used to be suited to the lone wolf; now, only team players need apply. That’s a function of the product being sold becoming more complicated and involving multiple parts of the media organization.
NEWSLETTERS: Inside The Seattle Times’ newsletter strategy. Using data science to improve the effectiveness of email. TheSkimm is raising $12 million from Google Ventures and other investors to build its subscription business.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: The Challenges Publishers Face in Monetizing Digital Content. Google Will Prioritize Stories for Paying News Subscribers. Why subscription sports sites have scored early wins. Journalists seek impact – but are anxious to publicize it. Daily Telegraph generates tenfold uplift in paywall subscriptions with data analysis. After 10 years, could French independent publisher Mediapart be a model for the whole news industry? The New York Times will experiment with giving subscribers early access to its first documentary podcast series. The Financial Times uses YouTube to boost subscriptions. Schibsted audience analysis indicates churn likelihood, dictates communication.
Tools and Tips: Journalism and Technology
ALERTS: The New York Times has shut down its customizable keyword email alerts feature.
CRIME: Baltimore Sun duo tackles a city’s evolving crime beat.
DATA: Reuters’ new automation tool wants to help reporters spot the hidden stories in their data (but won’t take their jobs).
ENGAGEMENT: The Join the Beat project wants to tease out better ways of working with an audience directly and regularly on stories.
FREELANCE: What makes gig economy workers anxious?
INVESTIGATIVE: Creating investigative groups in the local newsroom.
KIDS: Conducting interviews with kids: Do’s and don’ts.
REVIEWS: Seven ingredients for effective reviews.
SEO: The SEO Factors You’re Probably Ignoring.
TECH: Fourteen tech trends that news organizations need to pay attention to now.
VIDEO: 'Look for the sweet spot between news and context' – How to make your live streams more engaging. Walking in another’s virtual shoes: Do 360-degree video news stories generate empathy in viewers? Here’s how to make VR content that actually helps users empathize and take action. No budget for big video cameras? Just use your phone (and this app).
Industry News
ALGORITHMS: The Day the Algorithm Died: It’s not just Facebook. The Internet has failed as a public forum.
AMAZON: Americans are now more impatient online shoppers than ever — and it's all because of Amazon.
APPLE: Apple is buying the ‘Netflix of magazines’ for an undisclosed amount.
AT&T: How the DOJ’s Face-Off With AT&T Could Alter American Business.
DIVERSITY: National Geographic: "For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It." Memphis editor says papers have duty ‘to tell their own story’ on race.
FACEBOOK: How Facebook's algorithm change could help local publishers. For News Publishers, Facebook Is a Less Reliable Friend. Facebook aiming to launch News for Watch this summer. Facebook Bans U.K. Far-Right Group Once Retweeted by Trump. BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti: Platforms need to pay publishers or risk regulation.
FAKE NEWS: 'Fake news' smear takes hold among politicians at all levels. Soft power — not government censorship — is the key to fighting disinformation and “fake news.” When wire services make mistakes, misinformation spreads quickly. We finally know for sure that lies spread faster than the truth. This might be why.
NET NEUTRALITY: California weighs toughest net neutrality law in US—with ban on paid zero-rating.
PINTEREST: After Facebook news-feed changes, publishers look hopefully to Pinterest.
PRESS FREEDOM: US sets new record for censoring, withholding government files.
How journalists are using Spotify to circumvent press censorship. An increasing number of journalists have recently faced subpoenas. Australia's media companies join forces to fight 'chilling' security laws. In Pakistan, can a bill keep journalists safe?
REDDIT: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet.
SINCLAIR: This major challenge to local news has gone almost unnoticed.
SOCIAL MEDIA: A majority of Americans use Facebook and YouTube, but young adults are especially heavy users of Snapchat and Instagram.
TV: It’s mostly older people who watch TV news. Can Netflix and Facebook change that? Turmoil in Local TV, But Brands Still Like It and New Tech Gains Momentum.
TWITTER: Twitter Is Experimenting With A Way To Show You Even More Breaking News Tweets. The appeal of Twitter for reporters is well known, but it’s worth spelling out: The benefits we get from it, real as they are, come at the cost of constant partial attention, all day and all night. Project Veritas catfished Twitter staffers. Was it illegal?
WIKITRIBUNE: The WikiTribune Way: What it’s like to run a news site with a “neutral point of view.”
YOUTUBE: YouTube Said It Will Link To Wikipedia Excerpts On Conspiracy Videos — But It Didn't Tell Wikipedia. YouTube Slaps a Feel-Good Band-Aid on Its Fake-News Problem. YouTube, the great radicalizer. Why media companies are shifting their attention from Facebook to YouTube. With an eye on TV ad budgets, YouTube debuts search-based video ad targeting.
Upcoming Events
AD RATE BASICS WEBINAR: LION will host a webinar on how to determine advertising rates and packages at 1 p.m. March 20.
YOUTUBE FOR PUBLISHERS WEBINAR: LION will host a webinar on YouTube for local news publishers at 1 p.m. April 24.
READER REVENUE SUMMIT: LION and the Center for Cooperative Media will host a day-long summit on Reader Revenue April 6 at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
LION ANNUAL CONFERENCE: LION's annual conference, the country's largest gathering of local independent online news organizations, will be held Oct. 11-13 at Columbia College, Chicago. |