The pillars and crossbeams of Knight’s journalism funding structure

How we determine what opportunities are the best fits for funding

The News @ Knight newsletter is now four-plus months old, and that felt like a good time to pull together some threads about how we make funding decisions. 

The glorious graphic above – designed by yours truly and showing off all the design skills I possess, meaning none  – may be cartoonishly simple, but it makes the point: We believe that legal support, First Amendment and the safety of journalists are required pillars if the rest of journalism’s structure is to stand, and that sustainability, scalability, talent/diversity and technology are the essential crossbeams that strengthen those pillars. 

The pillars of legal support, First Amendment and the safety of journalists have been Knight Foundation priorities for decades. We’ve supported the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press since 1978, the Committee to Protect Journalists since 1988 and the International Center for Journalists since 1987. We have also been longtime supporters of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, the Free Speech Project at Georgetown, the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale and many other programs advocating for free speech and open dialogue.

It’s the four crossbeams that I want to go deeper on, because most of the grant proposals we see are aiming at these areas. Here’s a summary of each, and why we believe they are vitally important.

Sustainability: As we wrote in this newsletter a few weeks back, “One could argue that it’s never been easier to become a publisher, and never been harder to remain one.” Journalism is suffering from a market failure right now. We’re now 25 years into the digital revolution, and there still is no clear financial path forward for local news. The rise of nonprofits has been encouraging, but they tend to serve only a portion of community news needs. And being nonprofit doesn’t automatically guarantee sustainability. Creating a more stable nonprofit ecosystem is important, but so is fostering a healthier for-profit ecosystem. If you have an idea that can generate new revenue for newsrooms – or smartly cut expenses – we’re interested. 

Scalability: Knight cannot be in the business of solving individual problems for individual publishers; there are too many publishers and too many problems. So when considering any grant, we ask the simple question: How will this help news organizations who won’t see a dime of the funds? What tool, service, technology or content might they get access to? What lessons might they able to apply to their own operations? The go-it-alone days are over; publishers must huddle for warmth and work together to solve local journalism’s problems at scale. 

Talent/Diversity: We must continue to deepen the well of skilled and diverse talent in local news, in both editorial and business operations. We’ve seen strong ideas fail because of poor execution; we’ve seen mediocre ideas succeed because of smart pivots. Journalism is more entrepreneurial now than ever and we need more leaders with those skills. But no matter how nimble and creative a newsroom is, it won’t be effective if it does not reflect its community. Whether we’re talking about race, gender, ethnicity, political persuasion, etc., we must continue to push for diversity in all forms and at all times. 

Technology: The smart implementation of technology remains crucial to every industry, and journalism is certainly no exception. Historically, journalism has not taken advantage of technology, tending to view it as a distraction or an impediment rather than a solution. This has changed – the importance of tech is not seriously debated any longer in newsrooms – and we need to take advantage of that openness. 

So if you’re thinking of pitching an idea that’s outside the three pillars, it’d be a good exercise to review the four criteria above and see how your idea matches. If you can’t tie your idea to most of them, odds are it’s not something we’d pursue. 

Using a few of Knight’s major grants in recent years as examples, you can see a connection to at least three of the criteria. NewsMatch is a scalable fundraising solution that aids sustainability and is managed by a talented and diverse team. The Sustainable Publishing Solutions program scales to financially support dozens of publishers as they move to or improve an existing technology platform. The Knight x LMA BloomLab is helping 26 Black publishers secure a more sustainable and diverse media future by focusing on editorial, business and technology transformation. I could go on, but you get the point.

We created this structure in order to help those thinking about approaching Knight for a grant. While one outcome may be that this convinces people not to pursue Knight funding, we actually hope the primary result is to spark new ideas that would be a fit for us. 

Semafor’s Trust and Polarization Event

Knight has been asked why it is sponsoring a Semafor pre-launch event on trust and polarization in news that includes Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Knight has a long history of  sponsoring our national dialogue and debate on journalism and its future, and Semafor is convening a program that also includes some of the most significant names in journalism today, including journalist and author Wesley Lowery, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, Politico’s John Harris, The Stream host Femi Oke and the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib. The Foundation believes deeply in editorial independence and as such does not influence the selection of -- nor endorse the views of -- speakers who participate in sponsored conversations. Journalists play an essential role in our democracy by holding powerful people to account, and we hope Ben Smith will challenge Carlson during this interview -- and that Semafor's team will do the same with the other influential voices they have convened.

Other News around the horn…

Impact

🐦Journalists’ obsession with Twitter. A Pew Research Center study of reporters, editors and others working in the news business compared social media sites used by journalists and consumers. It likely won’t come as a shock, but Twitter is where the gap between journalists and the public is most stark. While 69 percent of journalists said Twitter was one of the top two social services they use in their jobs, only 13 percent of the public said they regularly get news from Twitter. That 56 percent gap between news organizations and the public was, by far, the largest of all platforms. News organizations also relied on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn more than the public, while the public were heavier news consumers of YouTube, TikTok, Reddit and Snapchat.  

✨How collaboratives can shine. The Local Media Association is bullish on local news collaborations. So bullish they have started or managed nine different collaborations over the past two years. They were kind enough to share what they’ve learned so far in a new report. Some takeaways? Collaborations should focus on two things: producing great content and making sure the collaborative and participating news organizations are financially sustainable. And collaborations are hard but can work better when there’s trust among the participants and buy-in from top execs. One example for success has been the Word in Black collaborative among 10 of the nation’s leading Black publishers, which has raised more than $3 million with nearly $150,000 going back to each publisher. That money has helped these publishers cover new education and health beats, and hire seven full-time staffers. Check out the whole report.

Launches

👀Keeping a watchful eye on the states. There’s never been a better time to have reporters on the ground in state capitals shedding light on the work of state legislators and government. That’s why it’s exciting to see the Statewide News Collective, which includes 27 news organizations (mostly nonprofits) that cover 25 state governments. The Collective was started by the Lenfest Institute, the RevLab at the Texas Tribune and Spotlight PA. The collaborative had its first meeting in May with 75 people attending to share opportunities and challenges faced by statewide news orgs. Among the topics they will address in the coming months: audience, product, revenue, and people and culture. “The participating organizations are as diverse as the states they serve, but there are overlapping issues that they all face, most notably the expansiveness of covering an entire state and how that shows up in nearly every aspect of their work from reporting, to staffing, to audience development,” Lenfest Program Manager Allie Vanyur said.

🚀City Bureau expands Documenters into three cities. City Bureau’s Documenters program started in 2018 as an initiative in Chicago to train citizens to report on public meetings – and pay them. The success of the program has led to an expansion into six cities, with the recent additions of Atlanta, Omaha and Fresno to existing programs in Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis. What’s the secret to Documenters’ success? Creating newswires and a community of practice to support people working in the network. So far, the Documenters Network has covered more than 2,300 public meetings and paid out more than $300,000 to citizen Documenters. Each program is anchored in a local newsroom or collaborative. And the next step is a summer staff summit in Chicago, bringing together people in the program around the country. Want to launch a program in your community? Fill out this form at City Bureau’s website.

Funding

⛏️Digging into the data. We all know the power of data- and document-driven investigative reporting projects to dig into political and corporate corruption (e.g. the Panama Papers). Now, Google News Initiative and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University have teamed up to offer the Data-Driven Reporting Project, giving out nearly $1 million to 22 local news organizations in its first round of grants. Along with the funding, Medill will also provide training, support and resources to the grantee newsrooms. Winners include a diverse mix of publishers such as Black Voice News, Eye on Ohio and the Salt Lake Tribune. “With our support, these journalists will be able to do the types of investigative work that can bring about meaningful change in their communities,” said Jeremy Gilbert, Medill professor and Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy.

Tweet of the Week

The City University of New York @CUNY

.@gmochkofsky, who has played a key role in advancing @newmarkjschool's mission of training new journalists from diverse backgrounds for careers in a rapidly changing media world, will become the school’s third dean. ow.ly/lbi050JJ6r4

News @ Knight Credits

Written by Jim Brady, with Mark Glaser

Edited by Jessica Clark & Kenny Ma

A Knight + Dot Connector Joint