Question:
Local News Publishers: How do you make it work financially?
How do startup news publishers make an impact – and make money? Among the many local news businesses there are successes to mimic and struggles to overcome.
Who or what will support the continued creation of news and sustain its quality? And how?
Jump in to the conversation below! Looking for background? Feel free to check out the stories of a few publishers featured in this forum. What tips do you have about managing freelancers, selling ads or creating any sustainable revenue stream? What would you like to learn from someone with experience relevant to what you want to try next?
Posted by Journalism Accelerator on February 25, 2012
Topics: Community Distribution Experiments Questions Revenue
Topics: Community Distribution Experiments Questions Revenue
Award-winning media innovator, consultant, speaker and co-founder of The America21 Project.
There is no one-size-fits-all business model for local news publishers. But there is a single philosophy that can help local news publishers succeed: Content is NOT king; it is queen. The point is that community building is king. The content is secondary to the process of creating a user-friendly platform and building sustained engagement of the platform by the local community. That process requires a different philosophical approach that ultimately results in the platform being used to provide local news content to a community that uses the platform for myriad reasons, not necessarily prioritizing news content. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if news is the quintessential reason that unique visitor traffic, pages viewed and time spent on site metrics skyrocket. Print newspapers aren’t concerned with the fact some subscribers pay just to read the comics, weather or sports page. Bottom line is they paid for a perceived value. Bottom line is users will use a platform they value.
Lead author of FCC media report. Also: journalist, bureaucrat, entrepreneur
“Content is NOT king; it is queen. The point is that community building is king” . I love that — and agree
Lead author of FCC media report. Also: journalist, bureaucrat, entrepreneur
I’m curious how online community is working these days. I dont mean user generated content, or readers commenting on content — but users interacting with each other. In the olden days, this was done primarily through message boards but Facebook and Twitter have somewhat sucked the life out of some of the traditional communities. But surely there must still be some geographically based online communities that work well.
Journalist, poet and community organizer
Steven Waldman, to the contrary, fb has actually created community (a way to stay in touch and share content) if you actually KNOW your fb friends here in Southern Appalachia. I see twitter as more of a way to mnitor breaking news from journalists and to share the same See: http://bethwellington.blogspot.com/2012/02/zen-and-oof-of-journalism-impact.html and http://bethwellington.blogspot.com/2012/02/more-on-sampler.html
An urban conversationalist/digital communications geek always looking for the next adventure (& a baseball game).
I’ve seen Facebook and Twitter be helpful here in Birmingham. We were more successful with Twitter, engaging with folks using the #bham hashtag (even the folks from Bellingham who were wondering what kind of site we were). We also created a weekly Twitter chat called #bhamchat that we’re preparing to re-launch in April. It’s something that folks who used to take part say they’ve missed; the ability to know what some folks think about issues happening in the city and finding out what’s a rumor vs. what’s fact. It also helped build trust so that if they learn of something happening and they don’t think we know, they trust us enough to send a DM or an email with the news tip.
Award-winning media innovator, consultant, speaker and co-founder of The America21 Project.
Has anyone used phpFox? http://phpfox.com/ as a platform to experiment with building hyperlocal community engagement platforms?
Journalist, fan of facts, character and motivation. Former JA editorial director.
Thanks everyone, for participating today! We’ll pull out major themes and explore follow up; also track down answers for remaining questions. Comments will stay open on this thread (and it might be a little easier to read through and comment when it’s not live!) Thanks for the feedback on the platform – always helpful.
Join us tomorrow to talk about specific revenue challenges / opportunities for niche content sites. The New England Center for Investigative Reporting and The Lund Report, tracking the health care industry, will be featured, plus business coach Rusty Coats and Bob Buderi of Xconomy. Others we look forward to seeing: Susan Mernit of Oakland Local, David Hirschman from Streetfight, and Robert Cox from Talk of the Sound.
Work at @Antiwarcom @BushwickBK. I seem contrarian for its own sake but it's just that everyone is wrong. I'm from FL and I can badmouth it but you can't.
Thanks, Emily. Could definitely use a new interface next time.
Thanks everyone for your input. I’m actually pretty encouraged.
Journalist, poet and community organizer
Thanks, Emily for convening this. Very helpful…too bad Steven Waldman came in so late…
ان الحياة عقيدة وجهاد - Founder of http://mandaraonline.com Local News Portal for Upper Egypt - Studying Entrepreneurial Journalism @ CUNY
Can someone explain to me why Chicago News Co-op failed at it (and maybe the Bay Citizen too having to partner with the center for investigative journalism) while Texas Tribune is hitting it?
Community Impact Newspaper founder, publisher and CEO
yes… Evan Smith (one of a kind editorial leader) and John Thornton (one of a kind news lover with vision and money and contacts)
Journalist, Knight Circuit Rider, founder of Block by Block: Community News Summit, KDMC @USC blogger, traveler, Cambodia lover
That’s a very long answer. One key factor is that Texas Tribune invested early and much in a) business development and b) tech and data, which account for huge amounts of its traffic. Both Texas Tribune and Bay Citizen started with much more money than the Chicago News Coop and the Coop will say it just didn’t have enough to spare from content for business development. But that’s a choice.. Other sites such as MinnPost and Voice of San Diego, started with lesser amounts, were very entrepreneurial about revenue and are making good progress toward being sustainable. Unlike Chicago, these other sites also devote energy to community engagement on and off line. That’s the highly oversimplified answer.
I run the newsroom at NPR-member station WLRN in Miami
I would agree with Michele that a huge element of the success of the Texas Trib is it’s smart visualization of data, which last I heard accounts for 70 percent of its traffic. Data journalism is an area we all should be exploring. Interactive data maps often have a very long tail.
Journalist, Knight Circuit Rider, founder of Block by Block: Community News Summit, KDMC @USC blogger, traveler, Cambodia lover
Here’s a recent KF report that looks at the revenue and sustainability efforts of some of the larger, nonprofit news sites. http://www.knightfoundation.org/publications/getting-local-how-nonprofit-news-ventures-seek-sus
Community Impact Newspaper founder, publisher and CEO
Let me add this to Michele’s comment: Evan Smith is very well respected but in my opinion way underrated in all of this. He knows good content, knows how to brand his medium, and his name sells ads (they call them sponsorships – but they are ads). His good name also helps him attract great talent. If you want to be big time in the online or legacy news space study him and his work.
Journalist, Knight Circuit Rider, founder of Block by Block: Community News Summit, KDMC @USC blogger, traveler, Cambodia lover
I agree about Evan. And John’s connections have helped them raise some big donations. These are definitely part of the picture. Their entrepreneurial outlook is the biggest factor, I think.
ان الحياة عقيدة وجهاد - Founder of http://mandaraonline.com Local News Portal for Upper Egypt - Studying Entrepreneurial Journalism @ CUNY
Thanks a lot guys for the valuable comments.
Journalist, fan of facts, character and motivation. Former JA editorial director.
One thing we haven’t talked about in this money conversation is not spending it in the first place. Where do you pinch pennies and why?
Publisher of SheepsheadBites.com and BensonhurstBean.com
Everywhere. And because it’s the smart thing to do. Do you have to spend money to make money? Abso-freakin’-lutely. However, I want to hear the argument for buying another box of paper clips when it works just as well to fold the corner over.
I’m lucky. I’m an extraordinary cheapskate (genetic). My business manager is not. That means he’s always making purchasing requests, and he has to justify every one to me, and things only get bought if I see a value in it. And, yes, we do fight over paper clips.
Publisher of SheepsheadBites.com and BensonhurstBean.com
My point being that the tension is good, and helps ensure smart investments. Paper clips notwithstanding.
Photographer, musician, publisher of CaryCitizen.
We shy away from giveaways & contests. Both are good marketing opportunities, but can require significant cash and time. Wish I could give away 10,000 t-shirts. Not going to happen this year.
Journalist, poet and community organizer
Not so much cash if others pay for the giveaways and co-brand them or even are offered as premiums, such as the npr model…Also there are some giveaways that are really cheap. Solar powered wordprocesser, i.e. pencil. Not sure of the pricing now, but at one time I ordered mugs w. logo for very little. Picked a classy color (cobalt blue) that made them look like they were worth more than they had cost us. Also had a caligrapher do something that could be xeroxed on parchment suitable for framing (and framed for hgh value donors)