The nonprofit challenge: Most Americans think news orgs are commercial, not a public service

Gallup-Knight poll shows few will pay for news, but younger Americans are open to public funding

Oct 25, 2022

Like with most structures, the view from inside is far different than from outside. We are inside the media business, and we live and breathe the ups and downs of paywalls, micropayments, native advertising, memberships and every other business idea and trend. Those outside the media bubble mostly watch news on TV, perhaps listen to public radio and might run across an article while scrolling through Facebook.

So if you are a nonprofit newsroom, how do you bridge that gap and explain the public good, the public service, the democratic necessity of local news? While nonprofit news outlets are making great strides, they have a long way to go. That’s the main takeaway from a recent Gallup/Knight study about Americans’ attitudes toward the media business. Some top-line findings include:

Most Americans (76%) believe that news organizations prioritize their business over serving the public (12%).
Just 17% say they plan to pay for news in the future.
Many Americans, with younger generations taking a lead, are open to government funding and private donations helping to make news free.
As for what they might pay for, Americans cite in-person or online events, newsletters, and exclusive content – again, with younger people being more open to pay.

What does it all mean? We need to make the pitch very clear for supporting the news business as a public good. And, to do that, those in local news need to be more transparent about today’s difficult economic climate for news. The path to an effective democracy is based, as it always has been, on an informed citizenry. When the financial future of local news is unclear, it threatens the health of our democracy. But the goals of being civically focused and financially sustainable are not mutually exclusive – in fact, the study shows that they are absolutely connected.

We have already seen state support for local news growing, and in spectacular fashion in California with $25 million allocated to a fellowship program at University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. And the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium is showing promise as well. Can other states and the federal government join in? Absolutely. And looking at the runaway growth of NewsMatch and other donation programs shows that philanthropy and individual giving are becoming an important part of the revenue mix, although they can’t be the only revenue sources.

The next challenge on this topic will be communications: How do we tell the story of the public service of so many local news outlets? The best way is for them to tell that story, directly through outreach to their communities, especially during a year-end matching campaign like the upcoming NewsMatch. We’re not always good about telling our own story in journalism, but if not now, when?

Knight Center to expand

As we head to Austin this week for the Independent News Sustainability Summit (and LION Local Journalism Awards), we all know about the usual local institutions – the Capitol, Austin City Limits, bats flying out from under Congress Bridge. But there’s another one that’s crucial to global journalism: The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas. For 20 years, the Center has been at the forefront of training, convening and outreach for journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean. And it’s been led from the start to the present by Rosental Alves and supported by Knight Foundation.

So we are honored to continue that tradition with a $4 million investment over five years to help the Knight Center expand its staff of five and improve the impact of its three main programs:

Its online training programs, which started life known as MOOCs (massive online open courses), often free and bilingual. They’ve served more than 275,000 people in more than 200 countries.
The International Symposium for Online Journalism (ISOJ), a wonderful gathering of journalists, innovators and academics each spring in Austin.
The LatAm Journalism Review, a trilingual online publication that covers journalism and free speech issues in Latin America in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Here’s to another 20 years of the Knight Center being a beacon of journalism knowledge and camaraderie in the Western Hemisphere!

Other news around the horn…

Funding

🌱 News startups get a big seed round. One of the more difficult parts of starting a brand new news organization, especially for female founders and founders of color, is getting that initial seed funding. Indiegraf is trying to change that dynamic for community news startups around the country with the Indiegraf Startup Fund. It’s a $3.5 million pot of money, with support from Knight Foundation, Google News Initiative and McConnell Foundation, and it “favors underrepresented founders.” And it’s not just money. Indiegraf provides wrap-around support for growth, revenues and tech, doling out the money at various points in the development of the startups. Entrepreneurs can apply now!

🤑 How $10 billion a year could transform local news. So if we are going to replace failing newspapers with “something else,” what would the price tag be? Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon Jr. isn’t afraid to tally it up. He figures every Congressional district in America (435) should have a nonprofit or public media news organization with 200 staffers getting an average salary of $80,000 for a total of $7 billion, with administrative costs coming out to $10 billion. “This is not a fantasy. We aren’t as far away from it as you might think,” Bacon Jr. writes, noting it’s just $30 per person. While he might not consider the issue of one-district states such as Alaska and Wyoming, or existing programs such as American Journalism Project, it’s a nice thought experiment.

Cohorts

💐BloomLab adds second cohort of Black-owned publishers. It might be fall, but digital media innovation is in bloom again with the new cohort of eight publishers in the Knight x LMA BloomLab. They will join the existing 10 publishers in the program, receiving $50,000 in technology grants as well as one-on-one and peer support. The focus of BloomLab is on technology upgrades, business transformation and shared learning–all to promote long-term sustainability for Black-owned publishers. “Each publisher will bring unique attributes that will foster collaboration and new learnings not only for this cohort, but for Cohort 1 as well,” said John Celestand, program director of BloomLab.

Impact

✨More nonprofits are covering communities of color. While many challenges abound for local news outlets, one positive trend is the increase of nonprofit newsrooms serving BIPOC communities. According to a recent INN Index Fact Sheet from the Institute for Nonprofit News, the number of nonprofit newsrooms serving communities of color has doubled over the past five years, now making up a quarter of all nonprofit news outlets. These news organizations largely depend on foundation funding because they might not have as much wealth in their communities, and 80% say their staff is as diverse or more diverse than their communities. Many of them are startups, with four out of 10 nonprofit news startups serving communities of color.

⚖️Pennsylvania county agrees to improve access to records. As outlined in last week’s newsletter, legal support for news organizations is crucial to local reporting. One great example is the success that Spotlight PA and four other news organizations had in getting faster, more complete access to court records in York County, thanks to a lawsuit they brought with support from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). When the Clerk of Court’s office slowed and redacted important criminal documents, the news organizations sued and won a settlement providing access. “That’s important for both members of the media who are reporting on criminal cases in York County and also members of the public who are entitled to know what’s happening in their community,” said Sasha Dudding, a legal fellow for RCFP.