The real challenge that journalism needs

Posted by on . 12 comments.

Forget the Knight News Challenge.

It’s not what journalism really needs. What journalism needs is a challenge to create local news startups with new business models — to make products that people care about again and that are sustainable without subsidies.

Now, that’s a challenge. And instead of this being grant funded, it should be venture capital backed. And the VCs would only fund ideas and people (this is what VCs really fund) that they think have a chance of making money.

The Knight News Challenge is a great idea, and I love it. Heck, I even applied this year. But it’s focus is more on altruism and developing news tools to help journalism and society. That’s a laudable goal, and it will help make this world a better place.

But the Knight News Challenge doesn’t address a mission critical part of journalism — making money. Journalism has always been a business. It always will be.

The Knight News Challenge doesn’t care if the projects it funds make money or are even successful. That’s not the goal of the challenge. That’s why we need a challenge based on making new, sustainable businesses that people care about.

Together, the Knight News Challenge and this new VC-backed challenge could really change the face of journalism for years to come.

  • http://www.danielbachhuber.com/ Daniel

    F*** yeah, that’s right.

  • http://www.lectroid.net Marc Matteo

    I don’t even think they need to go that far. Would it be that hard for a medium-to-large metro daily to spare a handful or reporters, outfit them with gear, set them up a blog and send them off into the communities to do, you know, Journalism?

    I’m not talking about a 6 week rotation, I’m talking about a 3 year commitment.

    And no, not some corporatized blog under the banner of all the other in-house blogs with arbitrary posting rules and BS like that, I mean a stand-alone completely separate operation — a 3 year blank check as it were.

    Don’t even let the blogger back in the office. They can work from field, that’s what wireless cards are for.

    (Obviously this assumes you aren’t relying on some flake or some web newbie to pull this off, it has to be someone with a clue)

    Think of what you might have after 3 years. Ok, you may have pissed away a reporter’s salary for 3 years — like that’s a large expense to a ~1000 person company.

    You might have a very experienced blogger on your hands, both a resource to the staff and a trainer. You may also have a viable (if small) business (and in 3 years it may be the only thing you have that’s viable).

    You may also have inroads in the community that you didn’t have before.

    What do papers have to lose?

  • http://sellingprint.blogspot.com Michael J

    Doesn’t http://beatblogging.org/ speak to exactly that issue? I think that McClatchey is using it. I have no information about what effect it’s having on their print stuff, but from I remember reading, the benefit was news leads from the ground, greater visibility in the market, interaction with a beat that built the trusted brand by the practice of being trusted over a long period of time.

    Has someone figured out how “make money”? I don’t know. But I have to think this is a path to getting deep local news, faster, better, cheaper than the other guy. Always the important first step of any business model. It’s often overlooked in the “business model” that most often means who do we get more people to buy what we know how to produce using the processes we can quickly modify.

    Meanwhile, it’s the same as the mess we are in as a nation, it’s taken many, many years to get into this mess, it’s not going to be solved in a month or year or maybe even 2 or 3 years.

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  • http://blogs.timesunion.com/classconflict Brandon J. Mendelson

    This gave me some pause. Thank you. Right now the industry is such a mess that you may be on to something here.

  • http://sellingprint.blogspot.com Michael Josefowicz

    Here’s one that’s trying a new business model that I think is interesting. They have tips – from anyone. Then pitches from journalists. Then the journo lists how much money they want to do the story. Then creds for the journo. Then people contribute $ to get to the amount the journo wants. Then the write the story and allow anyone to reprint and distribute.

    I have no idea if it’s going to work. But it sounds promising to me. Get the newspaper out of the local content business. Let them concentrate on logistics and getting ads and whatever else they do.

    Plus they can concentrate on getting stories they think are important. If they still have the ability to decide what’s important, rather than just joining the daily buzz. Sounds like win-win for everyone. The real resistance is that journos have to play in the market like everyone else. Plus editors have to let go of the idea that they get to decide what is news.

  • http://sellingprint.blogspot.com Michael Josefowicz

    Oops. I forgot to post the link: http://blog.spot.us/

  • http://www.newsless.org Matt

    Journalism has always been a business. It always will be.

    I like the spirit of this post. I’d quibble with that statement, though.

    It seems to me journalism is a social function that’s sometimes (especially in the US) been supported by a business. But sometimes it’s been supported by altruism. Sometimes by government.

    As the questions around this stuff become more pressing, I think precision becomes more important.

    But back to the core idea: how would a VC-backed challenge differ from traditional channels of seeking VC funding? (I.e., hiring an MBA, moving to SF/NY, schmoozing a lot, making a PowerPoint, throwing a celeb-studded party.) If someone’s got a great idea for a financially viable journalism business, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to go for the gusto and seek VC funding for the idea on its own merits?

    Or are you thinking some influential organization should be soliciting civic-minded VCs to fund projects that might have less of a profit horizon but more of a social impact?

  • Chris

    Beware of conflating “good” journalism with “successful” journalism.

    The hallmarks of a great journalist are much different than the makings of a well-off businessman. They can also be at cross-purposes.

    A great journalist is not only a person who can often break the most compelling story, but is also someone who is consistently unique: finding singular sources, covering angles no other journalists touch, and having a distinct style of presentation (either written or oral).

    A great businessman has one basic metric: make money, and always make more money tomorrow than you did yesterday.

    Journalism’s basic problem is that it’s not one that is conducive to automatic profit. Media outlets were always profitable because the advertising account executives were on the revenue side. Journalists never had to worry about how much revenue their bylines were bringing in. Journalists are also a proud sort, and see themselves as more of artists who think that their product is above vulgar commerce.

    If journalists wish to still think of themselves as above commerce, they must enter a “space race” to find a way to sustain their vision without having to worry about finding or alienating advertisers.

    A nonprofit model would work, but it requires an ongoing commitment from a major funding source. The Knight Challenge is what is called “seed money” in the realm of philanthropic funding — a one-time grant to see if a project can be self-sustaining. Grantmakers don’t necessarily mind if all the money they gave out results in failure: the IRS compels them to give away money in the first place, and they can refocus efforts until something is viable.

    Good business is a whole other kettle of fish. A good businessman has the same characteristics as a good warrior: make a gut decision that results in being a war hero if you win, and a war criminal if you lose.

    Capitalism rewards sociopaths. Handsomely.

    So, journalists, how far are you willing to embrace your inner sociopath to become successful? The question is open ended — how — not whether.

  • http://sellingprint.blogspot.com Michael Josefowicz

    The other side is that it’s possible to do well by doing good. Easier said than done, but models are out there. The best example I sort of know about is micro lending in Bangledesh. And now moving around the world. What about NPR with 22 million listeners around the US?

    My own take is that what scales is do well and do no harm, as in Google. The point is still to make money. But the vision is to screw up as little as possible in the bargain.

    Meanwhile, the marketplace does drive innovation. Always has. Probably will for a long time to come. Maybe it is not the warrior, but the farmer. Given how our warriors of Wall Street have fared, it’s not implausible to think it might turn out to be the farmer that runs the future.

    From what I can see lots of journalists think they are doing God’s work. That’s good and sort of true. But they do seem to suffer from the “If only everybody would listen to me…” syndrome.
    While it is true that capitalism sometimes rewards sociopaths, it doesn’t follow that you have get in touch with you sociopathic self to make a good living.

    I’m sure the phrase was written in the spirit of screed and don’t take issue with the words. But one of the reasons, IMHO, that stupid people hate smart people is that smart people are sometimes blinded by the light,

  • Chris

    @Michael

    Meanwhile, the marketplace does drive innovation. Always has. Probably will for a long time to come. Maybe it is not the warrior, but the farmer. Given how our warriors of Wall Street have fared, it’s not implausible to think it might turn out to be the farmer that runs the future.

    Two words: commodities exchanges.

    This is a market mechanism that dictates the behavior of buyers, sellers … and speculators. We have some idea of what it is, and how it works in principle, but there’s a disagreement over the why? of it. None of the stakeholders wants to answer the contradiction that if “the” market is supposed to referee conduct through pricing, how come the whole point of the market is to find arbitrage in prices?

    So, we must first understand why a market exists. Then, we must see whether it is a system agreed to by buyers and sellers alike. A market could be imposed by key players who make the market.

    You mention Google as a company that can do good by doing no harm. I say, “Never say never.” What happens if Google’s free software to the public, no doubt a good, wipes out a major tech company like Microsoft? Well, there are thousands of employees looking for work. Google can then leverage this unemployment over its own employees and can coast on growth by undercompensating its work force. And that’s if capitalism is working properly. What if all of a sudden Google loses its stock momentum? Same result, but different cause.

  • http://sellingprint.blogspot.com Michael Josefowicz

    @ Chris,
    Points well taken. Especially the “never say never “stuff. What I said in my post was
    “My own take is that what scales is do well and do no harm, as in Google. The point is still to make money. But the vision is to screw up as little as possible in the bargain.”

    The driver is business. The hope is to screw up as little as possible. A good government’s job is to set the rules that allow that happen. Actually over the last few months of speculators betting furiously on the “market” Google stock has lost it’s stock momentum.

    As for Microsoft, those folks had a great run on the way up. I think they will find their niches going forward. If i were working there, or actually anywhere except for yourself, I would hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Never forget the investment bankers..(10,000 got booted from Bank of America today.)

    Re the market and arbitrage. Once you get into the money market the betting can get out of control. It’s a perfect example of the stupidity of crowds that lives alongside the wisdom of crowds.

    But, in real world markets, then it’s: Produce stuff that is easy for you, hard for them. Then find people who want what you produce. Then make it easy for them to give you money.

    It’s all about who is the “them”. For much too long the “them ” for newspapers were advertisers. Advertisers don’t care about the product. They care about the eyeballs. Now that there are better, faster, cheaper ways to deliver eyeballs, newspapers have to figure out who is going to value the stuff they can do easier than other people.

    That’s why I think for newspapers, it’s a “back to the reader” problem. Start with that, and bring it to the marketplace. If it can find buyers, the business model will grow around it. And I bet there are lots of ways to find new uses for the Print product and the logistics networks that is part of many newspapers.