In other words, I tend to think the tortoise in this race is journalism produced by individuals willing to endure extremely small budgets to build an audience and revenue streams over time, independent of agenda-driven charitable organizations and deep-pocketed vanity publishers. Some well-endowed nonprofits see things differently; there admittedly is a divide among nonprofit journalism organizations about scale.
But the nonprofit journalism outfits that spend big bucks can’t go on forever, can they? I don’t think the large nonprofit journalism entities coming into being these days are the future, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
In his conclusion, Zunz elevates the importance not of big donors, but of many small ones. “If there is a lesson from the history I have told,” Zunz concludes, “it is that philanthropy enlarges democracy when it is an activity in which the many participate.”
The same, I think, will be true of the journalism, whether for-profit or nonprofit, that emerges in the next half century. Lean operations of committed journalists, fiercely protective of their independence and eager for commercial success—but flexible in their planning and patient for growth—will create the next generation of quality journalism. You haven’t heard of very many of them yet, but you will.
Excellent analysis. You just made the case for what we now call "public media" which is essentially the emerging ecosystem built upon the public radio and television system.
What has made this system far more independent and trusted than is generally acknowledged in the civic debates is the wide funding base by individual contributors. Yet the firewalls between government and major philanthropies are also part of the system. All are constantly tested and so far have proven relatively secure. But one cost of such a dynamic tussle is the slow scaling of its journalistic effort.
News as a primary service to a mass audience has been demonstrated by public media for several decades but its consistent growth over that time (tripling the NPR audience in 20 years) is only now seen as a powerful, contributory force... yet it has a long way to go to serve the information needs of the greater society.
#1 Posted by Michael V Marcotte, CJR on Wed 16 Nov 2011 at 03:07 PM
Your analysis of the tea party groups and the OWS is fair. Still, it seems most people have trouble discerning "bad" wealthy from "good" wealthy. A simple distinction is in order. The REAL 1% are those entities that make their fortunes off the taxpayer via govt subsidy, license, monopoly, etc. They are centered at the Federal Reserve system and Treasury and expand outward therefrom, to Wall Street and beyond. They are more aptly called "the state." Billionaire Steve Jobs (R.I.P.), e.g., should not be considered a 1%er. He refused to lobby govt for favors and received no benefits; he won or lost his fortunes by his own feats or failures.
And on the press topic, the most important questions are quite simple. Independent of whom, what? What is true independence if it is not independence from the state, its influence, its compulsion, its tyrannical majority? In a free society, news that is owned or funded by private individuals or groups is preferable to news that is beholden to the govt. At least private entities (those not propped up nor monopolized by the govt) have to compete honestly in the marketplace of innumerable factions and ideas; governments, and govt-connected or govt-subsidized entities, do not.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 16 Nov 2011 at 04:39 PM