Knight Foundation

With 15,000 journalism jobs cut in recent years, hurting the in-depth local news that helps sustain our democracy, more funders are making journalism and media grants.  And many of them attended a Monday morning session on the topic at the Council on Foundations conference in Philadelphia for a robust discussion on the opportunities and challenges of media grant making. The session, “Informed and Engaged Communities through Journalism and Media Grant Making,” was designed to provoke questions from the foundations thinking about making such work and answers from the foundations making media grants. Here’s a sample of the conversation: How does media grant making fit into overall foundation strategy? Media funding can help reach any strategic goal. Good urban planning is important to The William Penn Foundation, so it funds an informative site called Plan Philly; another funder interested in homelessness supports coverage of the topic area on a Connecticut news site. How do you go about producing content that is relevant to your audience? Stay close to your audience, said Knight Foundation’s Paula Ellis. They will guide you so that you don’t overbuild a site that solves a problem nobody has. How do you sustain news sites once foundation funding ends? Diversify funding sources, between ad sales and public radio type funding models and others. Also, make sure the people who run the site have business sense, and that slices of the budget are spent on marketing and other business areas. Said one audience member:  We had two experiences with fine journalists, one of them after three years barely knows he has to hire someone to work on sustainability. In the other case the person transformed himself into a fabulous entrepreneur. You have to build it in to how you think about the project. How do you go about making partnerships with traditional media: The California Endowment, which promotes community health, works with local newspapers to create and fund community health beats. Mary Lou Fulton said while the Endowment respects journalists’ independence, they do negotiate the scope of coverage so that it goes far beyond the typical coverage of health care reform, weight loss and yoga. Read through the entire conversation on the session’s liveblog here. <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=9f05f49acb" href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=9f05f49acb" >Journalism and Media Grant Making</a> For more tips on funding in this area, download the booklet “Journalism and Media Grant Making, Five Things You Need to Know, Five Ways to Get Started.”  

Source: CaliforniaWatch.org A comprehensive investigative reporting series on earthquake regulations in California’s public school system is rocking the state’s foundations. Over the past few days, California Watch, the collaborative multimedia news project backed by the Center for Investigative Reporting, has been breaking a myriad of stories about the faulty certification, unqualified inspectors and budget blockades affecting seismic safety in California’s K-12 public schools. Dubbed On Shaky Grounds, the series offers everything from a smart phone app that maps the nearest fault line relative to your location, an earthquake safety coloring book for kids called “Ready to Rumble,” some fantastic maps and interactive info-graphics, a score of audio, videos and other interesting images – all in the public interest. Cherilyn Parsons, Director of Development, California Watch / Center for Investigative Reporting, commented in an e-mail, “This is the most ambitious investigation we have done thus far.  It may be the most complex story release that any journalism nonprofit has done: a 19-month original investigation, multiple stories, every possible format, dozens of outlets, a database, interactives, timelines, a grassroots engagement campaign, and an app...” Knight Foundation awarded the Center for Investigative Reporting more than $1,250,000 in 2009 to focus its considerable investigative expertise on California and create a new model for a collaborative multimedia newsroom. Read more about Knight’s Investigative Reporting Initiative here, or see how Knight invests in journalism to promote informed and engaged communities at www.knightfoundation.org/programs/journalism/.

Benoit Wirz, Director of Business Consulting at Knight Foundation Recently, a colleague circulated a request for good fact-and-research-based sources examining the business model of traditional newspapers in comparison to 21st century digital alternatives. With the pace of change in media being as formidable as it is, there is no single source for this kind of information.  But as people increasingly look online for information and newspaper print revenues continue to decline (-8% in 2010), the question remains open and vital. What follows are some of the sources which Knight staff and University of North Carolina Knight Journalism Chair Penelope Abernathy look to in thinking about this topic. Professor Abernathy’s 2009 paper on the rise and fall of mass media is appended here and an update is expected shortly. Media Focused Books: Media Ownership and Concentration in America (2009, Eli M. Noam) is a classic economist's look at 10 industry segments.  Chapter 1, 8 and 20 all deal with historic and changing newspaper economics. Managing Media Companies 2nd Ed. (2009, Annet Aris & Jacques Bughin) has great global case studies of media companies making the transition to digital. The Welt Group and Schibsted cases are most relevant. All the News That's Fit to Sell (2006, James Hamilton) is one of the few books to look at supply and demand for news that has historically been covered by newspapers.  Chapters 5 and 7 are most relevant. Penelope Abernathy, University of North Carolina Knight Journalism Chair The Curse of the Media Mogul (2009, Jonathan Knee) gives a Wall Street view of newspapers (tucked inside a long missive on the perils of media conglomerates).  Chapters 4, 5 and 10 are worth reading. Media Economics: Applying Economics to New and Traditional Media (2004, Colin Hoskins, Stuart M. McFadyen, Adam Finn) is somewhat outdated and dense.  But Chapter 10, on pricing and market segmentation, is still relevant -- especially as newspapers look to new pricing models.     C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today (2010, Larry Kramer) is written by a journalist turned entrepreneur about how to deal with change in the media landscape and beyond. The Elements of Journalism (2001, Bill Kovach) offers a look at the fundamentals of  journalism. Business Books: Seven Strategy Questions, (2010, Robert Simons) poses...