In January 2016, The Philadelphia Inquirer became the largest American newspaper to placed under nonprofit ownership, an endowed institute operated for the public benefit. The goal of this structure is to sustain great metropolitan journalism for years to come through new investment, new entrepreneurship, new journalistic resources and new technology.
While the structure is philanthropic, the organizing mindset is highly entrepreneurial, that of a venture investment. These efforts have been lead by, among others, Josh Kopelman, the cofounder of First Round Capital, a leading seed and early-stage venture capitalist, and Gerry Lenfest, a cable entrepreneur and early disruptor of broadcast television. In September, I took over as CEO of the Institute for Journalism in New Media; we have since surrounded ourselves by women and men with a startup mentality unusual for a 187-year-old media property. Tony Haile, Kim Fox, Hong Qu, Vijay Ravindran, Burt Herman, Martin Nisenholtz, and Sara Lomax-Reese have each joined the Institute or Philadelphia Media Network team or board in the last few months.
In November and December, post-election, we and several other public-interest media groups have been witness to meaningful new support from engaged, concerned, and generous individuals. Our colleagues at ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, WNYC, the Texas Tribune, the Marshall Project and others report the same. This surge of philanthropic support was encouraging in several respects: First, it has been bipartisan, coming from both conservatives and progressives who share concern about the advent of fake news and the need for objective coverage. Second, there is a growing view of journalism as a critical investment in our democracy and our society. A kind of venture investment mindset has emerged that views the reinvention and revitalization of news from the same perspective as the revitalization of other areas of communications, software or information technology.
In 2017, in addition to continued individual giving, we will see more serious institutional philanthropic commitment to journalism. In particular, we will see much more interest and action at the intersection of journalism and venture philanthropy. I say venture philanthropy because smart money is approaching investment in public-interest journalism with the mindset of venture investors. The Democracy Fund, the Gates Foundation, the Emerson Collective, and other philanthropies with financial roots in software and technology view their investments much as do venture capitalists, with rigor and expectation for meaningful returns. In distinction to classic venture investing, the currency of venture philanthropy in journalism is not cash but deep, fact-based reporting, measurable audience engagement, meaningful policy and social impact, and the development of new business models that sustain great journalism and civic engagement. These returns on civic investment will be more valued and more valuable in 2017 than ever before. When the value of investment returns increase, so too does invested capital.
2017 will be a banner year for smart, disciplined and entrepreneurial new investment in the future of news, both for-profit and philanthropic. As John Oliver said, “You get what you pay for.”
Jim Friedlich is CEO of the Institute for Journalism in New Media.
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Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
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Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
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Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
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Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Emily Goligoski Incorporating audience feedback at scale
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
An Xiao Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Juan Luis Sánchez Your predictions are our present
David Weigel A test for online speech
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides