This research started when our colleague told us he was worried about the future of quality media. He saw traditional media organizations failing as businesses because they were not responding effectively to the challenge from digital media.
This discussion occurred at one of our weekly coffee sessions two years ago in the Faculty of Communication at the University of Navarra. Two of us — Mercedes Medina Laveron and I — decided to take up the challenge from our worried colleague, Alfonso Sanchez Tabernero, the rector of the university. We wanted to see if we could identify some solutions for the industry and some promising paths forward.
As happens at universities, the result was a paper.
The three of us ultimately identified 20 examples of sustainable quality journalism from four regions: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. Then we examined the elements of their business models to see if there were promising paths forward.
You can see a summary of some of our research here, with a detailed graphic of the 20 news media organizations. We concluded that there were five elements that all of these organizations exhibited.
[Read more: Media sustainability during a pandemic]
(1) Independence and credibility
All 20 news organizations described themselves as independent of the political and commercial powers that be, and they tied that to a claim to credibility and trustworthiness. Their value proposition was based on this independence, their highly differentiated content and a stated commitment to public service.
They backed up their claim to credibility with an unusual level of transparency: They identified their owners, investors, shareholders, donors, or sponsors. Most revealed detailed financials, with revenue and expenses. They all gave profiles of their executives and staff in editorial, business and technology functions.
Fourteen of the 20 identified accountability journalism, or investigative journalism, as a key part of their offering. And often they described how they went about gathering the information for their investigative reports and how they made the decisions about how to present it.
(2) They focus on users
All have made the needs and problems of their users the primary focus of their work. Advertisers and sponsors come second or not at all. Half of the group doesn't accept advertising.
They focus on creating value for the users, enough that they would be willing to pay for a digital subscription, and half of the organizations have some sort of paywall. But the value is critical, since you can’t ask people to pay for information that is irrelevant to them.
[Read more: COVID-19 spurs digital revolution in Zimbabwe's newsrooms]
(3) They are digital first
They have embraced the power of digital communication and its differences from traditional media. They use hyperlinks to connect users to original source documents to provide evidence and context. They tell stories in multimedia formats. They make their work social and shareable through the channels where users prefer to consume news and information.
(4) Their founders are veteran journalists
Nearly all were founded by veteran journalists, often from traditional media, who used their experience, reputation and credibility — that is, their social capital — to attract investors, contributors and employees. One exception was Perspective-Daily of Germany, which was founded by two scientists and focuses on solutions journalism.
(5) They engage their audience and encourage participation
The best evidence of engagement is that users are willing to pay for a digital subscription or membership. They encourage their audiences to participate in information gathering–crowdsourcing. They use two-way communication or interactivity with the public to get story suggestions and news tips, and to do collective investigations.
All of these organizations ensure that all parts of the team understand their role in the financial success of the company. Seven of the 20 are nonprofits, but 13 have a for-profit business model.
These five keys to sustainability are just some of those that could be mentioned. They fit within 10 new paradigms of quality journalism that I have written about elsewhere.
This post originally appeared on James Breiner's blog and is republished on IJNet with permission.
James Breiner is a former ICFJ Knight Fellow who launched and directed the Center for Digital Journalism at the University of Guadalajara. Visit his websites News Entrepreneurs and Periodismo Emprendedor en Iberoamérica.
Main image CC-licensed by Unsplash via Markus Spiske.