[MGP-Forum Announce] Sustaining, organizing news organizations of the future

[Lisa Williams]

In my previous message I spoke in support of community ownership models, 
but I do have reservations about them. One thing that makes me, 
personally, wary of some of the community participation/board member 
models is stuff like this:

http://www.greensboro101.com/feature/display/16617/index.php

Roch Smith, who runs Greensboro101.com, makes what I think is the right 
decision to publish a report detailing corruption and mismanagement in 
the police department -- a report paid for by public tax dollars -- and 
four of his "advisory board" members immediately resign.  Is the point 
of a board so that they can resign in protest the minute things get a 
little hot? 

Community organization may provide better chances for survival once the 
founder exits or dies, since unlike a for-profit business there may not 
be as much pressure to find (or fail to find) a new buyer.  But 
community sites (and newspapers) depend so much on the verve of an 
individual editorial voice.  We've all seen the lousy effects of 
blandification of local papers stemming from chain ownership and the 
management by committee disasters of nonprofits. At H2otown I have the 
luxury and the freedom to maneuver to keep the site interesting, without 
wasting precious time and resources worrying about whether it's going to 
be okay with a boss or a board -- which is fitting since I'm doing the 
work.

And work is got to be where the authority comes from:  we might like to 
think that community worthies of one sort or another will make good 
board members, but the sad fact is they may not.  The best people to 
assume more responsibility at a community news organization are the 
people who come out of the woodwork and start writing for it because 
they enjoy doing it -- they have the right motivations.   It's very 
infrequent that they're people who are well known in town. The future 
belongs to the Nobodies.

Lisa W.



Bill Densmore wrote:
> I'm picking up on the discussion to which Jeff Jarvis, Lisa Williams, Steve Anderson and others have contributed. It has morphed from "Is it Better to Build, Not Buy a Metro News Organization" and I have retitled it. 
>
> I agree with Jeff that advertising is one of the legs on which the future of news depends. For nine years my wife and I published two free-circulation weeklies in Berkshire County. We struggled -- and I think largely succeeded -- to do quality journalism without benefit of circulation revenue. It was tough. On the other hand, no single advertiser represented more than 3% of our revenues. And so there was really no single person or entity who had the ability to exert pressure on us, by threat of withdrawing advertising, over any single story. In a general sense we were dependent on the retail and business community and so our coverage had to be in the broadest sense supportive of free enterprise. But within that range there was lots of room for feisty, independent reporting -- and we did it. I think the great strength of America's newspapers in the late 20th century was that they had diversified revenues from both advertising and circulation. Where they got into trouble was relying too heavily on advertising and not enough on circulation. No less than Al Neuharth, (http://www.newshare.com/news/FCC_family_newspapers.html) the former CEO of Gannett and founder of USA Today, warned about this years ago in urging papers to raise the cover price of their products. 
>
> I think Lisa's point about ownership and incentives is also important. Some of the most enduring organizations in our culture are not-for-profits. She mentions some. Another example -- parent-teacher organizations. Leadership changes and morphs as your children grow. But in many communities these informal, "chaordic" (chaos-order) groups endure. 
>
> And so I'm drawn to notion that we want to find an OWNERSHIP model which, as Steve points out, isn't dependent on the "exit strategy" payoff for the owner, but rather upon a sustained relationship with members/owners/users that creates ongoing value -- and financial surplus whether from advertising, circulation, membership, donations, or service income -- and ideally all five. It should be chartered with a mission that has to do with fostering participatory democracy and community. The intent to make a surplus of revenue over expenses is merely a method to achieve the objective.
>
> As for REVENUE models, noted three sentences above, the more "legs" on this stool the better, and the more diversified the better. 
>
> For the last few years, I've wondered if the "co-op" model of organization might make sense for news organizations of the future. Many of us probably live in communities which support food co-operatives. In our small town, there's one that is running well enough now that it is building annual surpluses, and it is looking at other businesses to consider entering which might nuture and sustain and community just as does nutritional, locally grown food. Many parts of the nation have thriving credit unions, which are essentially member-owned banks. There are still active agriculture co-ops in the Midwest. Even TrueValue Hardware (http://www.truserv.com/home/) is a co-op. So are The Associated Press and, as to governance, Visa International Service Corp. (http://www.globalhome.com/news/chaordic/bookreview.html) I'd like to see exploration of this model for the future of news.
>
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-- 
Lisa Williams
lisa at cadence90.com
Google Talk: lisatmh

Places I blog:
Lisa Williams' Blog: 
http://www.cadence90.com/wp/

H2otown, a citizen journalism site for Watertown
http://h2otown.info

OPML Fan, a blog tracking developments in OPML and the OPML Community
http://blogs.opml.org/thisislisa/