I keep being forwarded this article about the rising trend of non-profit news gathering. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but it’s an interesting read:
As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities…
Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.
The fledgling movement has reached a sufficient critical mass, its founders think, so they plan to form an association, angling for national advertising and foundation grants that they could not compete for singly. And hardly a week goes by without a call from journalists around the country seeking advice about starting their own online news outlets.
Here in Seattle, Crosscut is considering going non-profit (as opposed to non-profitable, which I hear is its current situation). Whether or not that publication makes it work as a non-profit, it does seem, with all the layoffs and departures at the Seattle Times, and all the assorted people I know who have bailed out of for-profit print jobs because of the grim trend-lines, that some sort of non-profit news publication could easily crop up in our city.
Which points at yet another bind that for-profit newspapers are in these days.
They can’t make enough money via online advertising to make up for the revenue they’re losing as their print readers and print advertisers disappear. So they start laying off writers to cut costs. But, when they do this, they create a pool of unemployed, trained writers who, because of the low barriers to entry into the online information market, can potentially band together and compete with their former employers as a .org.
Just another irony for a very troubled industry.
Here’s a thought — give up all journalistic integrity and become an unbridled Democrat supporter. Then you will automatically get revenues…they will support you just like you supported Obama.
Just like Air America.
And MSNBC.
And…
Oh poo! What nonsense. Anybody who isn’t FOX and doesn’t repeat right wing nonsense is for Democrats! Same bullshit as always from the right. Now they’re the victims of prop. H8 according to Newt Gingrich, one of the puffed up fools who led this country down the garden path, and gay people who are fighting them are fascists. The country said they have had enough of fools like you, Newt. That is except the south, which has a long history of derogating intelligent decision making and creating hatred against minorities. And gay people who fight you are the new freedom fighters for justice. So suck it!
I have pretty mixed feelings about this trend, especially considering the ridiculous amount of bullshit I’ve been forwarded from people who got their information off a “news blog” written by Lance G. Somedude, who thinks he’s a real journalist because he blogs about politics/government. People seem to be completely losing their ability to think critically about anything they read. This is only marginally safe when what you’re reading is coming from an actual newspaper (which supposedly has an ethical code, though I know they don’t always manage to live up to it). But it’s full-on stupidity when it comes to news blogs. For example, at least half of the Huffington Post stuff that was forwarded to me during the last six months was not legitimate (Sarah Palin’s list of banned books was one), and yet most of the people I know didn’t seem to understand that just because it appeared on a web site they’d heard of didn’t mean it should just instantly be accepted as the truth.
I worry about the quality of news reporting when all the newspapers are gone and everybody’s just doing it free-for-all on the web.
The Stranger’s pretty skimpy on ads these days, too. And NO I do not work for the Weekly (you guys have that retort on a save/recall string, don’t you?).
The problem for newspapers isn’t the lack of readers; if anything they have many more readers than in the past — just not paying ones.
Using Crosscut as a model is rich: 80 percent of the site is links to newspapers. Original content consists of a handful of stories (primarily commentary) a day. And yet it still can’t make it, even with only a few employees and investors propping it up.