Spelling out a formula for success is one thing; actually following it in a sustainable way is a bigger challenge, of course. The report concludes: “That is why, at this stage, survival in itself must be recognized as a form of success, a precondition for whatever else new journalistic initiatives want to achieve.”
The News Frontier
07:04 PM - April 19, 2012
Online News Startups Struggle to Break Even in Western Europe
A viable business model remains as elusive overseas as it is in the U.S.
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
What was James Rosen thinking?
How much of Rosen’s trouble is of his own making?
Cat Fall: A modern tragedy
Max Fisher and the problem with foreign-affairs blogging
“I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you. We’re completely committed to openness here”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Just to elaborate on the editor's note in the lede re: news startup profitability in the U.S...
Most of the profitable startups we've profiled for the Guide to Online News Startups are small organizations with extremely low overhead. Assessing profitability is inherently complicated since these are privately owned companies under no obligation to turn over their books, but we encourage sites to quote us annual revenue figures and publish them whenever we can.
It's safe to say that no one has yet figured out how to sustain even a five or ten person full-time newsroom on purely digital revenue on the local level.
That said, we've also profiled a number of organizations that have that size of full-time staff thanks to investment capital and are working to achieve profitability. Whether they will or not can't be said at this point, but profitability is not the only short-term metric of success for a young organization.
I agree with the Scandinavian study that survival should be thought of as "a form of success." The quote Lauren cites in the kicker is well put.
#1 Posted by Michael Meyer, CJR on Thu 19 Apr 2012 at 10:21 PM
..and by "Scandanavian study" I mean Western European study.
#2 Posted by Michael Meyer, CJR on Thu 19 Apr 2012 at 10:34 PM