Why paywalls for nonprofit news, though rare, are not going away anytime soon

The Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The city is served by The Salt Lake Tribune, the first nonprofit legacy newspaper in the U.S. Photo (cc) 2006 by Ken Lund.

Should nonprofit news organizations place their journalism behind a paywall?

There is considerable precedent that suggests they should not. Public television and radio are free, though they depend on grant money and donations from, you know, viewers (and listeners) like you. There’s also an educational mission and significant tax advantages that come with nonprofit status, and you could argue that they should make their journalism free in return for those benefits.

The Institute for Nonprofit News, for instance, begins its mission statement this way:

Nonprofit news is created for, supported by, and committed to the communities it serves. Through reporters who have deep community ties and topical expertise, nonprofit news elevates untold stories, exposes wrongdoing, and provides the facts we need to make informed decisions. And because most of this content is available without paywalls or subscription fees, nonprofit news makes essential information available to everyone — not just those who can afford it.

That falls short of an explicit statement of disapproval when it comes to nonprofits and paywalls, but it comes kind of close.

Yet Ellen Clegg and I found in our reporting for “What Works in Community News” that a few nonprofit news outlets do charge for their journalism, though most do not. Among those with paywalls are two digital-only sites: the Daily Memphian, which is part of our book, and The Baltimore Banner.

Both of these employ large staffs and aim to serve as complete replacements for the shrunken legacy papers they compete against. Such projects are expensive, and their leaders can hardly be faulted for concluding they need to charge for their journalism just as most for-profits do. Both find ways to make their journalism affordable for folks who may not be as well-heeled as their regular subscribers.

Another nonprofit with a paywall is The Salt Lake Tribune, the first legacy daily newspaper to embrace that model. Writing at Nieman Lab, Sarah Scire reports that the Tribune would like to end its dependence on a paywall at some point and is even now making much of its journalism free. She quotes from the Tribune’s annual report:

We’ve raised $340,000 and counting to fully remove the paywall on all of our election coverage ahead of the critical 2024 races. We’re not there yet from an income point of view to make our website free, but we hope to grow our donor base and income to the point that we’ll be able to open everything up to everyone.

Yet she also observes that even though the Tribune is growing, it remains dependent on paid subscriptions. Last year, for instance, subscribers were responsible for $5 million of the Tribune’s $15 million in revenues. Much of the rest comes from donors and advertising.

The bottom line is that even nonprofit news outlets need to bring in enough money to fulfill their mission. In the end, readers don’t really care whether their local news is owned by a nonprofit for a for-profit; Scire reports that only about a third of residents even know that the paper is nonprofit. What they want is a news source that’s comprehensive and reliable.

The looming competition between Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy is also a test for free versus paid

Brian Stelter. Photo (cc) 2017 by Ståle Grut / NRKbeta.

This is going to be interesting. Last month, CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy announced he was leaving in order to start his own subscription-based newsletter called “Status.” CNN said it would replace Darcy as the lead writer on its “Reliable Sources” newsletter, but it wasn’t clear who that person would be or when it might happen.

On Tuesday, it was announced that Brian Stelter — Darcy’s predecessor at CNN — would be returning as the network’s chief media analyst, and that he’ll be back at the helm of the “Reliable Sources” newsletter next Monday. His old television show, also called “Reliable Sources,” will not be back, but Stelter said he expects to pop up on a number of CNN programs to talk about media topics.

Oliver Darcy

This is very good news for people who care about the media, as Stelter and Darcy are both outstanding. But let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Darcy is charging $14.95 a month — triple what solo newsletter writers normally charge, but no doubt what he calculated he needs to make ends meet. Stelter’s newsletter presumably will be free, although that caveat is important given that CNN chief executive Mark Thompson is reportedly developing some paid products.

Here’s what Stelter had to say about the looming competition:

All the while I remained an avid reader of “Reliable Sources,” and especially admired Oliver Darcy’s fearless reportage, as well as his decision to launch Status last month. I’m rooting for Oliver and, as I have told him personally, I think we’re going to complement each other wonderfully.

And here’s Darcy’s take:

It goes without saying, but I am very much looking forward to Stelter’s second act at CNN. As I’ve said before, he has been a first-class mentor to me. Now, I look forward to him being a first-class competitor!

Darcy’s challenge is that though Stelter’s newsletter may be the most similar to what he does, there are also a number of other media newsletters, and most of them are free. Indeed, the author of one of them, Tom Jones of the Poynter Institute, devoted the top of his morning round-up today to Stelter’s return.

As you may recall, Stelter was one of a handful of high-profile people who were fired by Chris Licht during Licht’s brief stint as CNN’s top executive. Stelter had emerged as an important voice in speaking out against then-President Donald Trump’s war on journalists, who he called “enemies of the people,” and the new owners of CNN apparently believed Stelter was too hot for them.

The ownership hasn’t changed, but fears that CNN was going to turn into Fox Lite proved unfounded, and Stelter — who’s been busy as a freelancer — has popped up frequently on CNN’s air in recent months. Darcy, meanwhile, established a reputation for independence right from the start and wrote a number of newsletter items that must have made Licht extremely unhappy before Licht himself was finally shown the door.

I hope there’s room in the burgeoning media newsletter universe for both Darcy and Stelter. But, as I said, I have to wonder how paid can compete with free if they are both mining essentially the same ore. Best wishes to both of them.

Speaking of free versus paid, Media Nation is a free source of news and commentary — but you can become a paid supporter, and receive a weekly supporters-only newsletter, for $5 a month. Just click here.

Gannett to lay off 74 employees in Mass. as it prepares to shut down its consumer site

Gannett and USA Today headquarters in McLean, Va. Photo (cc) 2008 by Patrickneil.

Gannett is laying off 74 employees in Massachusetts — but, for once, they are not people who were producing local journalism. The layoffs, which take effect Nov. 14, are related to the company’s decision to close Cambridge-based Reviewed, a website that combines consumer advice and commerce in a manner similar to Wirecutter, which is part of The New York Times.

The pending closure and layoffs were reported Aug. 26 by Mia Sato at The Verge and came amid accusations that Reviewed published articles produced by artificial intelligence and attributed to non-existent writers. Sato wrote: “As The Verge reported last fall, the marketing firm behind the Reviewed content is the same company that was responsible for a similar dust-up at Sports Illustrated, in which remarkably similar product reviews were published and attributed to freelancers.”

Gannett denied the allegations and said the decision to shut down Reviewed was based on changes in Google’s algorithms.

Aidan Ryan of The Boston Globe quotes NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava in a statement:

We are deeply troubled by Gannett’s decision to shutter Reviewed. We are concerned for the future of dozens of workers represented by The NewsGuild of New York working at Reviewed, and about the broader impact of this announcement on the media industry at large.

The layoffs were announced in advance, reports Ray Schultz of Publishers Daily, because of a Massachusetts law mandating that companies provide 60 days’ notice ahead of a mass layoff.

Earlier:

 

Lookout Local advances plans for Oregon launch and announces a national buildout

Eugene, Oregon. Photo (cc) 2012 by Visitor7.

Lookout Local founder Ken Doctor is about to take the next step in launching his second community news site. Today he’s announcing that Lookout Eugene-Springfield, in Oregon, will debut in early 2025 and that he’s assembled a national team with the aim of moving into “at least five markets” in 2025-’26. I wrote about initial plans for Lookout Eugene-Springfield back in May.

Doctor, a well-known journalist who covers the media business, began Lookout Local in 2020 with a site in Santa Cruz, California. Lookout Santa Cruz won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year for its reporting on a January 2023 flood and its aftermath. Santa Cruz is also the home of another high-quality hyperlocal news site, Santa Cruz Local; both Doctor and Santa Cruz Local CEO Kara Meyberg Guzman are featured in our book, “What Works in Community News,” and have been guests on our podcast.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield will compete with Gannett’s Register-Guard as well as Eugene Weekly, an alternative publication saved by its readers earlier this year after an ex-employee was charged with embezzlement.

Unlike many nonprofit local news startups, Lookout Local is a for-profit public benefit corporation. Doctor’s goal is to establish digital sites that are as comprehensive as legacy newspapers, covering arts, culture and sports as well as offering accountability journalism. Continue reading “Lookout Local advances plans for Oregon launch and announces a national buildout”

Margaret Sullivan calls out a looney example of false equivalence in The New York Times

Photo (cc) 2009 by Dan Kennedy

One of our most prominent media critics has dissected a particularly looney example of the so-called liberal media twisting itself into knots in order to appear fair. Writing in her newsletter, Margaret Sullivan has identified what she calls “an ugly case of ‘false balance’ in The New York Times.” Her example: a recent story headlined “Harris and Trump Have Housing Ideas. Economists Have Doubts.”

Now, on many occasions the Times will publish a headline or social media tease that makes you think they’re engaging in both-sides-ism — then, when you read the story, you see that it’s actually not that bad. In this case, though, reporters Jeanna Smialek and Linda Qiu literally compare Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposal to provide government assistance in order to boost housing with Donald Trump’s threat to deport undocumented immigrants, thus opening up their homes to native-born Americans. Both ideas have problems! Or as Smialek and Qiu write:

Their two visions of how to solve America’s affordable housing shortage have little in common, and Ms. Harris’s plan is far more detailed. But they do share one quality: Both have drawn skepticism from outside economists.

Good Lord. Here’s how Sullivan puts it:

Stories like this run rampant in the Times, and far beyond. It matters more in the Times because — even in this supposed “post-media era” — the country’s biggest newspaper still sets the tone and wields tremendous influence. And, of course, the Times has tremendous resources, a huge newsroom and the ability to hire the best in the business. Undeniably, it does a lot of excellent work.

But its politics coverage often seems broken and clueless — or even blatantly pro-Trump. There’s so much of this false-balance nonsense in the Times that there’s a Twitter (X) account devoted to mocking it, called New York Times Pitchbot.

Sullivan, as you may know, is a former public editor for the Times and a former media columnist for The Washington Post. She currently writes a media column for The Guardian as well as her newsletter, “American Crisis.” (Disclosure: She also provided a kind blurb for our book, “What Works in Community News,” which graces the front cover.)

Sullivan’s lament about the Times’ very strange comparison of Harris and Trump on housing comes at a moment of rising anger on social media from the left about the paper’s coverage of politics, with a number of people either angrily threatening to cancel their subscriptions or claiming they’ve already done so.

Like Sullivan, I value the Times’ coverage in many areas. Its investigative reporting, including deep dives into Trump’s corruption and worse, has been invaluable. But, too often, its day-to-day political coverage does indeed lapse into both-sides-ism and false equivalence, as I often complained about when I was at The Boston Phoenix in the 1990s and early ’2000s. In 2009, when I was writing a media column for The Guardian, I concluded that the Times and other mainstream media were so cowed by the extreme right that they often pulled their punches:

Major elements of the media, terrified of accusations that they’re in the tank with Democrats and liberals, would rather deny reality than tell the simple truth. This abject spinelessness is a significant factor in how the lies of the right infect public discourse.

I later took my column to GBH News and wrote a piece in 2018 about “the timid Times.” You get the idea. I’m citing all this to assert that my Times-bashing credentials are in order, because all too often I see way too much silly criticism along the lines of Let’s start a boycott because the Times published an op-ed I don’t like. These days I often find myself actually defending the Times. We should reserve our outrage for the truly outrageous.

Still, as Sullivan astutely observes, there’s enough to that criticism that we need to take notice. The Times is our largest and most influential daily newspaper, and much of the press continues to take its cues from them. That includes the Big Three evening newscasts, still the closest thing we have to a mass medium.

No, I’m not going to cancel my subscription, and you shouldn’t, either. But foolishness like pretending to take Trump’s “housing” “plan” seriously serves no one — least of all democracy.

Muzzle Award follow-up: MIT denounces the antisemitic Mapping Project

MIT campus. Photo (cc) 2009 by Wagner T. Cassimiro “Aranha”

The Mapping Project, an anti-Israel effort that singles out Jewish organizations, is back in the news — this time for publishing a flier, headlined “Welcome to MIT!,” listing “hundreds of institutions in the Boston area such as synagogues, museums, businesses, and police departments,” according to Janet Lorin of Bloomberg News.

MIT president Sally Kornbluth has denounced the Mapping Project for antisemitism, saying in a statement: “Like every other form of racial and religious prejudice and hate, antisemitism is totally unacceptable in our community. It cannot be justified, and it is antithetical to MIT’s values.” Lorin quotes from the flier: “Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them.”

The Bloomberg article was republished by The Boston Globe, which so far does not appear to have covered the story itself. In case you don’t have a subscription to either Bloomberg or the Globe, here’s a free link to a story in The Jerusalem Post by Michael Starr.

In 2022, I gave the Mapping Project a New England Muzzle Award, then in its final year of being hosted by GBH News. Here is the item in full, published June 29, 2022:

The BDS Mapping Project

An anonymous group created a website to intimidate, harass and silence supporters of Israel.

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss earlier this month called out a chilling example of intimidation and harassment: the Mapping Project, which identified Jewish and pro-Israel organizations on a map of Massachusetts. The map’s makers have remained anonymous, but the website has been promoted by members of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to name and shame supporters of Israel because of that country’s continued occupation of land claimed by the Palestinians.

The map, Auchincloss tweeted, is “tapping into millennia-old antisemitic tropes. To name names & keep lists, which has a sinister resonance to the targeting of Jews throughout history, is irresponsible. They need to take down the map and apologize.” Auchincloss is a Newton Democrat who is also Jewish.

The Muzzle goes to the BDS Mapping Project, whoever its members may be. Their foul activism is designed to frighten and silence supporters of Israel rather than allow for open discussion and debate.

The existence of the Mapping Project was reported by a website called Jewish Insider, which noted that its organizers explained their hateful project by writing: “Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them.” The map includes colleges and universities, medical institutions, financial groups, police departments and numerous other agencies.

The action comes at a time of skyrocketing incidents of antisemitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League — which, naturally, occupies a prominent place on the map. In 2021, the ADL found that reports of assaults, harassment and vandalism against Jews were up 42% in New England compared to 34% nationally. Moreover, 108 of the 155 incidents in New England occurred in Massachusetts.

As ADL regional director Robert Trestan wrote in The Boston Globe:“Whatever one’s views on Israeli policy and actions — and we recognize that opinions vary widely — this should be an occasion for all to stand up against this kind of intimidation and targeting.”

A predictably uneventful interview; plus, media links and observations for your weekend

Dana Bash interviews Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

Labor Day weekend is upon us, and we’re getting away for a few days. Before we do, though, here are a few links and observations.

• In Thursday night’s CNN interview, Dana Bash’s questions were predictable, Vice President Kamala Harris’ and Gov. Tim Walz’s answers were fine, and that was that. I don’t know why anyone thought two experienced politicians were going to have any trouble in such a setting. Here’s a theory I haven’t heard from anyone else: Donald Trump invariably runs off the rails, and President Biden has an increasingly difficult time expressing himself. We’d forgotten what these things normally look like.

• A New Hampshire man named Taylor Cockerline has been sentenced to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised probation for his role in harassing and intimidating New Hampshire Public Radio journalist Lauren Chooljian, her parents and her editor, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston. Co-defendants Eric Labarage and Michael Waselchuck have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, while a fourth defendant, Keenan Saniatan (identified only as “Saniatan” in the news release), will reportedly plead guilty on Sept. 5. Earlier, more in-depth coverage of this bizarre case is here.

• In other New Hampshire media news, The News and Sentinel, a weekly paper in Colebrook, is shutting down after the Harrigan family, which owns the 154-year-old paper, was unable to find a buyer. The InDepthNH story on the closure contains a lot of fascinating details about the paper, especially a 1997 incident when a gunman killed four people, including the editor. The late publisher, John Harrigan, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the shooting. The News and Sentinel’s slogan, by the way, should be a model for other news outlets: “Independent but Not Neutral.”

• Barnes & Noble is opening 58 new stores in 2024, and media newsletter writer Bo Sacks says that’s good news for the ailing magazine business: “B&N has a terrific well curated newsstand for magazines. 54 [sic] new newsstands may not sound like much, but it will be a big national help in magazine sales.” By the way, Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio died earlier this week at 83.

• Veteran tech writer Mathew Ingram is leaving the staff of the Columbia Journalism Review, where he’s been working since 2017 after earlier stints at the late, lamented Gigaom and, before that, The Globe and Mail of Toronto. Ingram is a calm, sometimes contrarian voice at moments when everyone else’s hair is on fire, and he is well worth paying attention to. No word on what’s next, though he says he’ll continue to write for CJR from time to time. Best wishes to him.

Report: Former Globe reporter Andrea Estes wins her arbitration case

Former Boston Globe investigative reporter Andrea Estes, who was fired in the spring of 2023 after the paper published a botched report about top MBTA managers who were working from remote locations, has won a grievance that she filed through the Globe’s union, according to Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston.

Estes, who is now a reporter with the Plymouth Independent, is eligible to receive back pay and could return to the Globe, Van Voorhis writes, although he observes, “We wouldn’t bank on it.” The Independent is one of the larger, better-funded nonprofits, and its editor-founder, Mark Pothier, is himself a Globe alumnus.

There’s no question that the story Estes helped report had significant problems. But the breakdown had all the appearances of a group effort, and it’s never been clear exactly why Estes, who had compiled an admirable record during her years at the Globe, was singled out.

Van Voorhis also published a statement from the Globe he received that reads:

The trust of our readers and our community is our greatest asset, and we will always strive to ensure that our journalism is worthy of them.  If it falls short, we will continue to take necessary action to maintain this trust.

We are disappointed by the arbitrator’s decision which deprived the company of our rights under our collective bargaining agreement with the Guild.  We of course will nonetheless respect the decision.

Among other things, Estes and her colleagues reported that nine MBTA managers were living in remote locations across the country and working virtually. The actual number turned out to be six.

In November 2023, Bruce Mohl reported in CommonWealth Beacon that Estes may have been the victim of stonewalling state bureaucrats who did not give her the information she needed to get the story right.

Earlier coverage.

A thoughtful, nuanced take on how the press is (and isn’t) performing in covering the campaign

Donald Trump and President Biden at the June 27 debate

In Nieman Reports, John Harwood offers a nuanced assessment of how the media are performing in covering the presidential campaign. If I may summarize, Harwood’s take is that the press has neither been as awful as Democratic partisans would have you believe nor as good as it ought to be in holding Donald Trump to account. He writes:

Elevating democracy raises the question: Should a reporter actively promote the candidate committed to preserving it? But elevating neutrality, and passively watching an authoritarian gain power, could unravel the press freedoms woven into the fabric of the U.S. since its founding. Different journalists, sometimes gingerly, walk different paths….

In fact, neither the [New York] Times nor other major outlets have ignored the threat to democracy. Trump’s vow to be a “dictator for a day,” the criminal prosecutions of his allies in the scheme to count “fake electors,” and his plan to seize greater personal control of the government bureaucracy have all drawn significant attention. In the case of Project 2025, the radical right-wing agenda prepared in part by some of his close advisors, news stories later amplified by Democrats produced a storm intense enough that Trump disavowed the blueprint.

Harwood devotes some attention to the media’s obsession with President Biden’s age, observing that Trump received nowhere near the same level of scrutiny despite being nearly as old as Biden and showing clear signs of mental decline.

Yet it has seemed clear to me from the start, especially since the June 27 debate, that the press — led by the Times — became obsessed with driving Biden out of the race because they were so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump presidency. And, sure enough, once Biden was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, the Democrats moved into a small but consistent lead in the polls.

Harwood, by the way, was one of several journalists who were let go by CNN during the brief reign of Chris Licht, allegedly for his staunch anti-Trumpism. Given Harwood’s measured, thoughtful tone in his Nieman piece, that says more about Licht than it does about Harwood.

Tiziana Dearing to anchor ‘Morning Edition’ on WBUR Radio

Tiziana Dearing. Photo via WBUR.

WBUR Radio has announced a new local host for “Morning Edition” — Tiziana Dearing, currently the host of “Radio Boston.” She replaces Rupa Shenoy, who stepped aside in May.

In her new role, Dearing will compete with GBH, the city’s other news-focused public radio station. Both operations have been hit by cutbacks this year, but they remain among the most important news outlets in Greater Boston and beyond. According to WBUR’s announcement:

We’re thrilled that WBUR listeners will soon begin their days with Tiziana. She’s one of a kind. A natural leader, a brilliant mind, rigorous journalist, virtuoso interviewer and career-spanning public servant of Greater Boston. She treats each interview guest honestly and honorably, revealing insights and connections through sharp conversation.

Dearing and I served together for several years as members of the board of advisers at the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Harvard Kennedy School, which conducts research on urban quality-of-life issues and sponsors graduate students who wish to spend their summers working in state and local government. She was a professor of social work at Boston College at the time.

Then, several years ago, she had me on “Radio Boston” to discuss the state of local news. It was a memorable appearance: there was another segment on local beer, and I was invited to take part in the tasting.

Here is WBUR’s full announcement.