Independent journalism businesses need to focus on the business first — and then the journalism.
While product is the most important element in any business — particularly news-focused ones — oftentimes independent outlets are run by journalists who put most or all of their focus on what they love, the news.
But for the sector to survive, that will have to change. We’ll need to attract more entrepreneurs into the space who have a background in sales, businesses, and marketing. While journalists can be good businesspeople, sustainability will only come through a mix of skillsets at the owner and founder level. Finding ways for journalists to acquire better business skills can help too — including full-fledged MBA degrees, business accelerator programs, and more.
In recent years, we’ve seen a significant flow of dollars into the space from Facebook, Google, Report for America, and large foundations. These dollars, while helpful, can’t sustain community news outlets alone, and each has a significant risk of becoming a one-time or non-returning revenue source. News outlets — both nonprofit and for-profit — must find a diversity of revenue streams, including advertising, reader revenue, events, and other emerging ideas. To ensure that models are strong, that ads are sold, that reader revenue products work — we need folks who have many skills.
It’s my hope in 2021, we will see increased talent move toward local news that can help build strong, durable, sustainable products that serve audiences, readers, and communities.
Don Day is the founder and editor of BoiseDev.com.
Independent journalism businesses need to focus on the business first — and then the journalism.
While product is the most important element in any business — particularly news-focused ones — oftentimes independent outlets are run by journalists who put most or all of their focus on what they love, the news.
But for the sector to survive, that will have to change. We’ll need to attract more entrepreneurs into the space who have a background in sales, businesses, and marketing. While journalists can be good businesspeople, sustainability will only come through a mix of skillsets at the owner and founder level. Finding ways for journalists to acquire better business skills can help too — including full-fledged MBA degrees, business accelerator programs, and more.
In recent years, we’ve seen a significant flow of dollars into the space from Facebook, Google, Report for America, and large foundations. These dollars, while helpful, can’t sustain community news outlets alone, and each has a significant risk of becoming a one-time or non-returning revenue source. News outlets — both nonprofit and for-profit — must find a diversity of revenue streams, including advertising, reader revenue, events, and other emerging ideas. To ensure that models are strong, that ads are sold, that reader revenue products work — we need folks who have many skills.
It’s my hope in 2021, we will see increased talent move toward local news that can help build strong, durable, sustainable products that serve audiences, readers, and communities.
Don Day is the founder and editor of BoiseDev.com.
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism