[MGP-Forum Announce] Is it better to build, not buy, metro news organization?

[steve at coanews.org]

Jeff, thanks for pointing out the article.  However, my worry is not  
that for-profit interactive media can't be successful (I think they  
can), but rather that our platforms for citizen journalism SHOULD not  
be operated for profit.  I generally do not think a corporate for  
profit ownership is a good model for any type of journalism. It  
creates to many conflicts of interests and structural biases.

As you might be able to tell, I'm a big advocate of non-profit online  
participatory journalism.

Steve

Quoting Jeff Jarvis <jeffjarvis at gmail.com>:

> Allow me to point you to a story I wrote about a net-only newspaper in
> Germany, Netzeitung, that is profitable.
> http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/netzeitung/
>
> On 10/27/06, steve at coanews.org <steve at coanews.org> wrote:
>> I think building new community news organizations is usually the way
>> to go, but it
>> depends on the situation.  But I think it is important that they be  
>>  non-profit
>> incorporated, as we have seen what has happened to for-profit
>> alternative daily
>> newspapers - they have been bought up by one corporation, and in many
>> cases that
>> corporation has removed the unprofitable local content that was once
>> available.
>>
>> Being non-profit also means that one person or group of people won't
>> be creating a
>> community website in order to create a golden egg for later in life =
>> selling out when
>> the time is right.
>>
>> Sustainable long term community media should be non-profit and independent.
>>
>> -I do still respect community media projects that are for-profit (I
>> think coastsider.com
>> falls in this category), but I do not think it is the long term
>> solution to our
>> privatized media system.
>>
>> Just my two cents,
>> Steve
>>
>> Quoting Bill Densmore <densmore at densmoreassociates.com>:
>>
>>>
>>> Doing some catching up, we just came across MGP2006 alum Barry
>>> Parr's Oct. 12, 2006, blog posting about the future of the Los
>>> Angeles times. Parr, the Jupiter Research analyst who also is a
>>> pioneer local online news community operator with Coastsider.com,
>>> suggests it is now better to build, not buy, a metropolitan news
>>> organization. Is he right?
>>>
>>> See:
>>>
>> http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/parr/archives/2006/10/dismantling_the.html
>>>
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>>
>>
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