With new grantees announced earlier this year, I’m thrilled by the success of nonprofit local newsrooms, well represented by the American Journalism Project, rolling across the country. It seems clear that each U.S. state, and many regions around the country, will, and should, have some version of this model, sustained by local philanthropy and individual donors. This is a necessary, and exciting, layer to the future of local news ecosyinstems — it is also incomplete. As the founder of decade-plus-old, bootstrapped, niche multi-local newsroom, let me share why.
Back in 2009, I used two plastic containers as a couch and supplemented my meager freelance income by doing odd jobs in landscaping and plumbing. It was clear a true global economic crisis was hastening the decline of my trade. I was living in a crumbling, mouse-infested apartment in the Frankford section of Philadelphia. I scared, lonely and very sad.
Two friends I knew from my college newspaper days were also feeling quite stuck, falling through the cracks of a yawning fissure in how our economy worked and information gathering needs were met
From the start, we agreed that every local news organization still structured as an advertising model was on an irreversible path of decline. The web’s power was scale, anything that unnecessarily drew geographic boundaries was unnatural. None of us came from families with any business background but we were curious and frustrated. We felt very abandoned by those who should have been our mentors and advisors. If I’m being honest I still harbor a chip on my shoulder from those days, and likely will for the rest of my career.
Since then, I’ve become fixated on understanding how journalism creates value for communities. I’ve learned that journalism’s value—curating and verifying information to help people understand their world—remains immense. But too often, the ways we attempt to sustain journalism misalign with this value.
Nonprofit models are one such approach. They freeze the core principles of 20th-century accountability journalism and fund it with philanthropy and reader donations. This is a promising trend, and I believe these newsrooms will endure as a key part of the ecosystem. But they aren’t enough.
For one, nonprofit newsrooms must compete with other critical community needs—food banks, job training, and the arts. During times of crisis, it’s unclear whether journalism can consistently win that competition. More importantly, there are simply too many communities for nonprofit models to serve alone.
Instead, we need a broader range of experiments. Journalism shouldn’t limit itself to replicating legacy models under new funding structures. We should explore new business models that align journalism’s value with sustainable revenue. That means embracing entrepreneurship, commercializing ideas, and rethinking how we engage with audiences.
For-profit newsrooms have the potential to play a critical role here. Charging a lot of people a little—or a few people a lot—remains the foundation of any sustainable business. Yet, too often, journalists are uncomfortable or even dismissive of revenue generation. That mindset is dangerous if we want journalism to endure.
I don’t mean to suggest that my own company, Technical.ly, has cracked the code. If anything, my experience has taught me there is no “code.” There are only the slow, messy steps of experimentation. But I remain convinced that local news needs more than one model to survive.
