Month: June 2016

A friend forwarded me the report first with a question: Where’s Technical.ly?

I’m a genuine fan of the Knight Foundation. It gets its knocks, but it’s one of the few consistent funders of journalistic change in the country. I’ve also spent more than a decade running Technical.ly, one of the few local news organizations that has gone all-in on using journalism to attract earned income—the very approach journalistic funders always talk about prioritizing. And I’ve been doing it from Philadelphia.

So when Knight published a report this month specifically highlighting bright spots in Philadelphia media, it felt a little strange to be overlooked entirely. [Report PDF]

To be clear, I understand why we’re not in there. Technical.ly looks different from most of the players in local journalism, even the smaller outlets cited in the report for their “ecosystem approach.” It even cites “nonprofit news” as its focus, which is mostly a way to discount TV stations. But for me, that’s exactly the point.

Years into this work, I keep encountering a pattern: Established leaders say they want more of a certain kind of innovation—let’s call it “XYZ”—but by their own definitions, anyone doing XYZ (serving a niche market to pursue independent sustainability) is dismissed as not “journalistic” enough to be part of the conversation. It’s a perfect recipe to ensure we never actually address the core problem these reports are meant to solve.

I do believe most large regions in the country will eventually end up with a philanthropically funded local news organization. In Philadelphia, thanks to Gerry Lenfest, that may well be the Inquirer. And other public-interest nonprofit news outlets will find their place too.

But I’ve bet my career on the idea that local news ecosystems need more than just legacy and nonprofit institutions. They need ethnic media, neighborhood weeklies, subject-matter-focused outlets like Technical.ly, and even individuals empowered by social platforms and new tech tools. (I like lessons from B2B publishing, though it’s different locally).

We’re not competing with the legacy players. We’re complementing them, filling gaps and addressing needs they can’t meet alone. I just hope more people in positions of influence and funding will recognize that role—and include it in conversations about the future of local journalism.