As legislation allowing U.S. news publishers to collectively bargain with social media platforms for publishing fees moved from the House to the Senate in December, lobbyists representing the nation’s largest news and broadcast conglomerates took the opportunity to make changes, rewriting the bill to disqualify nonprofit news organizations from its benefits and to free corporate media from strict requirements that new earnings keep workers employed.
Pairing down the already disconnected, exclusionary legislation to limit its public benefit is another recent example of how corporate media prioritizes profit over the public interest.
But the challenge isn’t profit — it’s who gets a say in how it’s used and what’s produced to make it.
That’s why Gannett’s board authorized a $100 million stock buyback in the first quarter of 2022, only to report a loss of $54 million in the second quarter and the elimination of 800 positions later that year.
It’s why newspaper unions from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to The New York Times are striking or considering it over low pay and unfair working conditions. Because corporations are accountable to their investors and advertisers — not their workers and the communities they serve.
For years, philanthropy has been subsidizing these journalism profiteers for the lack of alternatives. But today, that’s no longer the case.
More than 1,000 nonprofit or local independent news organizations now serve hundreds of communities nationwide. Lists of them are easy to find at the Institute for Nonprofit News and LION Publishers.
Among them are organizations weaving together a new, participatory local journalism ecosystem that will become the dominant model of local news production in the next decade.
It’s time for journalism philanthropy to ditch corporate media sellouts and double-down on supporting and expanding the non-commercial journalism sector.
The Community Info Coop is just one organization helping grow that sector. Through our Info Districts program, we envision a new layer of engaged, hyperlocal public media created through local tax districts. We’re developing the service model for info districts in our local news lab, the Bloomfield Info Project. And our Just Transition program is where we host organizational democracy workshops, support union- and cooperative-led campaigns, and work to hold journalism stakeholders accountable to the pro-democratic and anti-racist values they espouse.
Organizations like mine and others are all-in on the transition to a more restorative, just media system. It’s time journalism funders got on board.
Simon Galperin is director of the Community Info Coop and a 2022 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow.
As legislation allowing U.S. news publishers to collectively bargain with social media platforms for publishing fees moved from the House to the Senate in December, lobbyists representing the nation’s largest news and broadcast conglomerates took the opportunity to make changes, rewriting the bill to disqualify nonprofit news organizations from its benefits and to free corporate media from strict requirements that new earnings keep workers employed.
Pairing down the already disconnected, exclusionary legislation to limit its public benefit is another recent example of how corporate media prioritizes profit over the public interest.
But the challenge isn’t profit — it’s who gets a say in how it’s used and what’s produced to make it.
That’s why Gannett’s board authorized a $100 million stock buyback in the first quarter of 2022, only to report a loss of $54 million in the second quarter and the elimination of 800 positions later that year.
It’s why newspaper unions from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to The New York Times are striking or considering it over low pay and unfair working conditions. Because corporations are accountable to their investors and advertisers — not their workers and the communities they serve.
For years, philanthropy has been subsidizing these journalism profiteers for the lack of alternatives. But today, that’s no longer the case.
More than 1,000 nonprofit or local independent news organizations now serve hundreds of communities nationwide. Lists of them are easy to find at the Institute for Nonprofit News and LION Publishers.
Among them are organizations weaving together a new, participatory local journalism ecosystem that will become the dominant model of local news production in the next decade.
It’s time for journalism philanthropy to ditch corporate media sellouts and double-down on supporting and expanding the non-commercial journalism sector.
The Community Info Coop is just one organization helping grow that sector. Through our Info Districts program, we envision a new layer of engaged, hyperlocal public media created through local tax districts. We’re developing the service model for info districts in our local news lab, the Bloomfield Info Project. And our Just Transition program is where we host organizational democracy workshops, support union- and cooperative-led campaigns, and work to hold journalism stakeholders accountable to the pro-democratic and anti-racist values they espouse.
Organizations like mine and others are all-in on the transition to a more restorative, just media system. It’s time journalism funders got on board.
Simon Galperin is director of the Community Info Coop and a 2022 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow.
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
AX Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale