For groups examining alternative economic models for newspapers -- and the composition of non-profit boards with checks, balances and the courage of their convictions -- I suggest a look at The Day in New London, Conn., and maybe a meeting with its publisher or a board member or two.
I haven't lived in that area for a dozen years, but the paper has had a reputation for independently taking on serious local issues and major advertisers, even when threatened with six-figure losses in revenue. It has won plenty of "newspaper of the year" awards.
The Day started as a conventional newspaper. The owner who died in 1939 left it to a not-for-profit community-service trust. A governing board hires the publisher and names replacement board members. Traditional circulation and advertising revenue pay the bills, and remaining profits go into the trust fund for civic projects. (See the links below for details)
The board includes the publisher and another employee of the newspaper. I don't know whether other memberships are designated by charter, although I know the last two heads of the UConn journalism department have been members. Right now the others are the heads of two major non-profit organizations in the region (Mystic Seaport and the Eugene O'Neil Theatre), a retired executive of a major employer, a local banker, and a local psychologist. The last one intrigues me. I doubt that a seat is reserved for a "mental health professional," but that might not be a bad idea. Heh.
Details:
http://theday.com/theday/aboutus.aspx [1]
http://theday.com/theday/publisher.aspx?docN=2 [2]
(I've never worked for The Day, but Reid MacCluggage, the publisher doing the talking in that last article, was my boss when he was state editor of The Hartford Courant in the seventies.)
Other than The Day, the St. Petersburg Times is the only paper I know of with a somewhat similar setup. (Its foundation also runs the Poynter Institute, a journalism school. See poynter.org and newsu.org)
What would it take to start something like this from scratch? Probably a wacky billionaire. As soon as I fall into that category, I promise I'll give it a try. (I may have the "wacky" part down already, but that's about it.)
cheers,
Bob
-----Original Message-----
>From: Bill Densmore
>Sent: Oct 29, 2006 8:08 AM
>To: post@mgp-forum.org [3]
>Subject: [MGP-Forum Announce] Sustaining, organizing news organizations of the future
>
>
>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 r!
> elying too heavily on advertising and not enough on circulation. No less than Al Neuharth, (http://www.newshare.com/news/FCC_family_newspapers.html [4]) 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/ [5]) 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 [6]) I'd like to see exploration of this model for the future of news.
>