How about if companies that have flourished in the new economy — think Apple, Google, Verizon — stepped up to the plate and subsidized some of these valuable but financially struggling upstarts, the journalist and Web entrepreneur asks.
"If the winners of the new economy put a tiny bit of their wealth into this (area), this whole space would be transformed," says Waldman, the principal author of the FCC's major 2011 study of the state of the American news media.
Waldman issued the challenge at a recent conference at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., on the future of non-profit journalism. In recent years, as traditional news organizations have cut back deeply in the face of the digital tsunami, non-profits large and small, generally online operations, have arisen to help fill the gap. While their total workforce is a mere fraction of the journalism jobs that have vanished, many of the new players are doing important work, ranging from powerful investigative reporting to granular, street-level local coverage. They are an exciting addition to the media mix.
But most if not all are supported by philanthropy, and major foundations generally don't like to fund their beneficiaries forever. As my friend Ed Wasserman, now dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, has pointed out, "Going to rich people periodically asking for money isn't a real business model."
So the key question is: Can non-profit journalism go the distance?
Moderator Alan Murray, president of the Pew Research Center, kicked things off on a positive note. "The fact that we're having such a forum means there is a future," he said.
And there was some tangible good news to emerge at the conclave. Michael Maness, head of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's Journalism & Media Innovation program, disclosed that Knight was on the verge of making "a pre! tty sizable amount of money" available to the non-profits. While the pot of gold still needs approval by the foundation's board, it sounded like the largess will soon be a done deal.
Often, the non-profits are launched with support from a single angel. One of the keys to staying afloat is diversifying the revenue base. And that means two different things: diversifying the lineup of donors and finding new money streams — from advertising, from staging events, from memberships.
The big daddy in the field is ProPublica, an investigative powerhouse with 41 staffers in its New York City newsroom, 23 of them reporters. But many of the start-ups are lean and mean, with one- and two-person staffs, fueled by passion and commitment.
Launched in 2008 with money from the wealthy, liberal-leaning Sandler family, ProPublica reduced the Sandler share of its budget to 38% last year and hopes to shrink it to 30% this year, according to President Dick Tofel.
Tofel stresses that it's important to distinguish between family foundations like the Sandlers' and institutional foundations, which tend to act more like venture capitalists and don't plan on doling out the dollars indefinitely.
In order to attract and retain philanthropic support, the non-profits need to show that they are having an impact. But how do you measure that? Foundations like "metrics." But what are the right ones? Simply counting how many people visit the websites doesn't really cut it.
In fact, tallying the number of unique visitors "is worth zero," says Joel Kramer, co-founder and CEO of MinnPost, a non-profit news site in the Twin Cities. That stat, he says, is irrelevant unless you're in the business of selling national advertising.
What really matters is what the journalism accomplishes. Did it sweep out corrupt politicians or lead to important reforms? The key is "what happens because of what you do," says Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. "You can't simply look at h! ow many e! yeballs are coming to the site."
One piece of good news: The Knight Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are underwriting a study at the University of Southern California to find better ways to measure engagement and impact. "What funders really care about are outcomes," says Daniel Green, who manages media and information grants at the Gates Foundation. "It's not helpful to say you need metrics if we don't help you figure out what the right ones are."
Foundations often want to see their charges wean themselves from charity and stand on their own. But that's an unrealistic expectation for many non-profit news operations, cautions Kevin Davis, CEO and executive director of the Investigative News Network, a consortium of more than 80 non-profit newsrooms.
As in the case of symphony orchestras, "Philanthropy needs to remain in the mix," he says. "Certain content will need to be subsidized. Not all will be self-sustaining."
And it's just not good enough if only the big boys like ProPublica and the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Investigative Reporting survive while smaller but worthy outfits succumb. If that turns out to be the case, Davis says, "We will have failed."
It would be great if the Googles and the Apples of the world listen to the wisdom of Waldman and reach for their checkbooks. The non-profit news movement is well worth the investment.
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