In order for a news organization to succeed, its staff must be as passionate about business innovation as it is about quality journalism, Michelle Foster writes in her new report, Matching the Market and the Model: The Business of Independent News Media.

The report, released by the Center for International Media Assistance, stresses there is no one successful model that all independent media organizations should emulate. Instead, each news organization should take their customers and their environment into account to create sustainable business models.

Foster, an international media management and marketing consultant, has worked with media organizations throughout the United States as well as in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and East Timor. Her report draws on examples of independent media publications in Tanzania, Colombia, Burma, Malaysia and India, describing different successful models in detail.

 Foster interviewed a number of media experts for the report, including Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton. Her full interview with him can be found here..

The newest edition of “Empowering Independent Media,” a publication produced by the National Endowment for Democracy’s Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), will be available in the fall. Eric Newton is a member of CIMA’s Advisory Council.