The Washington News Council has just been named “Organization of the Year” by the Municipal  League of King County. Here is their press release, sent out today to news media statewide.

This is a great honor for our little non-profit organization. We would like to thank all of our friends, supporters and donors who helped make our important work possible over the past 12 months — and over the past 12 years — to encourage high-quality journalism and media ethics.

Other Civic Award winners this year include King County Sheriff Sue Rahr (Public Official of the Year), BECU – Boeing Employees Credit Union (Business of the Year), and Susannah Frame of KING5 (Government News Reporting). So we’re in really good company!

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The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute
Let’s make a difference … together

What’s your BIG idea?
• Do you have a BIG idea, but not enough bandwidth in your day job to tease it out of your head and onto the table?
• Are you missing the right bright people around that table to help your idea take shape?
• Does your current situation lack the development and research capabilities to test and measure your idea?

Bring your BIG idea to the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

RJI is now accepting applications for the 2011-2012 class of Donald W. Reynolds Fellows.

“RJI is looking for solutions for the future of journalism. If you have an idea that you think can transform journalism’s role in society, we want to hear about it.” — Pam Johnson, RJI executive director

In a time of tumultuous and exhilarating change in journalism, what would you do with eight months, a generous living stipend and a chance to collaborate with some of the brightest minds in media today?

Our Fellows program has created a network of journalists and scholars who have led the way in journalism. Check out the past classes of Fellows and their success: http://www.rjionline.org/fellows-program/index.php.

“Having a year at the Reynolds Journalism Institute is an incredible gift,” says Michael Skoler, a member of the 2009-2010 Fellows class.

How do I apply?

1. Take the best idea that you’d like to develop. Make sure it has the potential to sustain the values, principles and purposes of journalism. Proposals that link technology and journalism are especially sought. Boil it down to three pages.

2. Make sure your idea will benefit from the research and experimentation opportunities at the nation’s oldest—and one of the largest—journalism schools. You’ll be backed by one of the nation’s newest journalism research centers.

3. Be prepared to spend Sept. 1 through April 30 largely in residence in Columbia, Mo., home of the University of Missouri. Columbia is a thriving, mid-Missouri city of 100,000 people, focused on education and health care, reached easily from the St. Louis and Kansas City airports. Columbia Regional Airport has regional jet service via Memphis.

Do it today—proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis. The earlier you apply, the more opportunity there will be to review, collaborate and strengthen your proposal. Finalists will be asked to provide additional information regarding the expected outcomes of the proposed work.

Send your proposal and resume to Executive Director Pam Johnson:
pam@rjionline.org
or mail to:
Pam Johnson, Executive Director
Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute

Administrative Offices 
Suite 300

Columbia, MO 65211

The Washington News Council met the Gates Foundation’s Challenge Grant target by raising $100,000 in total donations by the deadline of Jan. 15, 2011. We received the Foundation’s matching check for $100,000 in the mail this week. We are extremely grateful to the Foundation for its continued generous support of the WNC and our important work.

This news is especially welcome because we recently learned that the Minnesota News Council, which was the model for the Washington News Council when we were founded in 1998, is closing its doors after 40 years. The MNC’s president, Tony Carideo, told the National Newspaper Association’s paper (January 2011 issue) that an inability to secure adequate funding and a decline in the number of complaints were primary factors. The council’s former executive director, Sarah Bauer, told me that she would move into the offices of the Minnesota Newspaper Association, which founded the MNC, as its program director.

Over the past 40 years, much of the MNC’s support came from that state’s newspapers and other media outlets, including local television stations. However, their funding declined severely in recent years due to the financial problems of the news industry in Minnesota.

In contrast, the Washington News Council was not founded by or significantly funded by news organizations when we began. We invited news outlets to join us and help shape our council, but nearly all declined. Instead, we sought and received funding and support from foundations, corporations, associations and many individuals — and thus did not rely on media donors (which some might consider a conflict of interest in any case).

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Since the Seattle P-I closed, I’ve been searching for a way to make money doing what I love best: multimedia story telling. So I jumped at the chance to attend the Washington CASH business program last quarter through support from Journalism That Matters.  I came into the program with a pitch to develop a business model titled “Just One Story”.

I believed a journalist could make money producing one story at a time, and that with the right formula the story could be a business in and of itself.  With it’s own website, unique content, and custom marketing plan,  “Just One Story” could be the backbone for any journalist with a passion to tell stories and even develop an community

But it turned out my idea was not as great as I thought.

“Unsustainable,” Washington CASH instructor, James Dunn, said after I gave my 30 second elevator pitch on the first day of class. He then turned to my 50 or so classmates, and asked, “Does anyone think this business will be profitable?” The class of entrepreneurial students, spanning all ages and holding dreams ranging from deejaying to landscaping, was just the intelligent, civic-minded audience I’d hoped to target with my website. But they all sat silent. Not a single nod, nor a raise of a hand.

“You have to have something to sell,” James explained. He explained that no one expects to pay for news anymore.  There seems to be no distinction between social media, blogs, email, and expensively produced, thoroughly researched news stories.

It was a shot of reality for me – and just one of many lessons I learned during my eight weeks in this nuts-and-bolts business class. I’d come there hoping to learn something about the business of journalism or publishing a news site. The class didn’t teach this, nor address non-profit or social enterprise business models. However, it did offer lessons for former journalists and other people looking to start a business.  Some of the lessons I learned:

• Find mentors.  The individual help we received from marketing and accounting  professionals in the field was invaluable.
• Crunch the numbers.  It’s surprising how much more you actually need to earn as a freelancer to enjoy the same lifestyle you did as a newspaper employee (where expenses were covered)
• Say it. Don’t just write, or think about, your elevator pitch.  Defining our business strategies and mission statements aloud constantly throughout the course helped solidify our goals.
• Think like an entrepreneur.  Unlike the job coaching classes at the unemployment office, in the Washington CASH program we are encouraged to never work for someone else again.  Imagine!
• No Walmarts welcome. Not a single person in the room had dreams of making a low quality product in the hopes of selling a lot of them to make money.  Everyone placed themselves as selling high quality goods or services with higher prices.
• The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life you Want, and Change the World by Chris Guillebeau was a book suggested by one of the mentors which was a good, quick read.

In my case, I developed a plan for a pet photography business knowing that it could be the bread and butter for a larger dream of publishing an animal welfare site: Rescue News Northwest. The irony is that the animal welfare news site had the potential of gaining more money than the pet photography business in the long run.  After all, Google Ad word searches found twice as many people were searching for animal rescue stories than pet portraits. But the initial funding of my journalism goals through a related “for-profit” business may be the hybrid business model I need to succeed.

Karen Ducey/ KarenDucey.com