Public Patrons of Journalism – Is There Another Business Model?
I’m in New York this week for the second Networked Journalism Summit, something I’ve now organized twice. This year’s conference is focused on “New Business Models for News” something that is obviously very close to my heart.
While here in New York I thought I’d go to my old stomping ground of Columbia’s J-school (where I’m typing right now). I visited with an old professor of mine whom I greatly respect. His vision of hard news’ business model is very simpatico with my own – public patronage.
His analogy was to that of the arts. High art is not sustainable. Arguably it never has been. But societies need art to act as a reflection and comment, raise questions, etc. Perhaps journalism is reaching a similar state. In the past civic journalism was sustainable because the means of distribution were controlled and we could package it with pop-journalism that could sell newspapers. With that control gone we find it difficult to monetize civic-minded content. Perhaps we should stop trying and look to the public?
Of course some journalism will always be popular and therefore easy to monetize. Just as pop-art can be a huge business so can pop-journalism. But in most fields like art, science, literature, etc – there is a level of public participation in terms of finances that keeps these crafts moving forward every generation. Even pure science relies on public support and grants.
But this requires a completely different approach to thinking about our journalism. Journalists have to make a case for why their content is of value to society and regular citizens have to agree that producing content is hard work and it can’t be produced for free. We need underwriters, patrons and groups of people to come together and commission the content. That’s a cultural shift on both ends. I’ve always said the technology behind Spot.Us is nothing new – it’s the approach.
Interestingly enough I think Jeff Jarvis, an adviser to Spot.us – who hired me to help organize the Networked Journalism Summit, would actually disagree with me on this. Or at least he would be critical that there is enough public support to maintain a robust news staff. And yes, he is right. I don’t think Spot.Us or any variation of it is enough to support a newsroom. That would require Pro-Publica type giving (and perhaps that’s where we are headed). There will be no return from Pro-Publica other than the content that is produced. But I assume the Sandler family recognizes that and is okay with funding quality journalism for the sake of journalism.
Jarvis believes that public support is part of the answer, but he is skeptical. “It’s not a white knight” is his response. I agree that neither Spot.Us, Pro-Publica or any other publicly supported model is enough to replace the old institutions, but with a cultural shift it can add drops to the drying bucket. And right now every drop helps. As we tap into the well deeper and add to the cultural shift that needs to occur, perhaps we will find that the well is richer than we originally thought. Journalism, like art is a craft. Now we need to find people willing to commission our artisanship.
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