Notes by Tracy Record, posted June 14th:
EXCERPTED AUDIO PODCAST FROM THIS SESSION
Foreword – this session segued immediately into a similar session for the next hour; I only took notes for the first hour as I was moving on to something else. These are the notes as I took them – transcribing as the conversation evolved.
P.S. No real conclusions here – my headline for how the discussion evolved is, there are two models right now if you are looking for investment and NOT for being advertiser-supported – citizen owners/subscribers, or big foundations/investors — so far it is proving tough to motivate the former group to step up – legacy media with experience in that area, like public radio, devotes employee time to rustling up the donations, and it’s a never-ending process, you can’t just put up a “donate now” button and hope people will respond
convener: Len Witt
president at Kennesaw St University
journalist for many years
got a grant from Harnisch family foundation $50K
for representative journalism experiment
(if your community wants a journalist, we’ll provide one … they’re
starting experiment in northfield)
$30K fellowship to a reporter for a year
ask community to chip in
if they don’t the person goes away
(Griff – Northfield is an established site, three-person group
blog/podcast … expanding with this … they all have fulltime jobs
elsewhere – they can’t do indepth – lot of voices in town never come
to The Blog – issues that don’t get dealt with at the level we would
like)
“the artifact of a produced article can have so much clout”
(being transparent about the piece you’re work on … hang around for
feedback after it’s published)
create more public trust in the journalistic production
so his question:
does news itself have enough value that people will pay for it?
will enough of them be willing to pay … that the journalist is the
glue to help keep that community together?
membership?
Minnesota Public radio 94K people … they give average $100 …
Jeremy says a San Diego site built only a few hundred members (and
they had VC …)
“a small percentage of donors donate the vast majority of money”
Jeremy thinks maybe a small town will react differently
they envisioned grant would include “community builder” out working in
community, getting people to contribute …
couple thousand people in a town willing to pay for a newspaper …
public radio guy says average cost of raising a buck in public radio is 34 cents
he also says most important research ever done … in mid 80s …
essential features that drove:
–frequency of use
–sense of personal importance, “my life would be diminished if this went away”those two things are a powerful combination’ …
model tends to respond to URGENCY …
easier to get first gift when earthquake hits than to keep the red
cross going …
Phil Wilson from Minnesota radio … cost of producing content
convener says guy from Martha’s vineyard gets an idea then they
promote the heck out of it …
reelchanges.com – you can go contribute to documentary films
spot.us is developing fundraising online micropayment model for
journalists with an individual story they want to do
kiva.org – micropayments for third world people to better their lives
Jean Dallas from Hometown Focus — community website and weekly
newspaper in Virginia, MN — started project in August … site went
live in January … getting 1,000 unique visitors a week … 570
registered users … submit stories, calendar events, comment on
stories … four months later published first newspaper and
distributed 15000 copies …. cmmunity is 7,000 ppl who live in the
town we’re located in, but we cover a large geographic area
calling for subscriptions right now … rotating areas we distribute it to …
130 subscriptions per week … $30 each … going up to $40 … that’s
for a year …
(this is a somewhat geographically isolated area … the “quad cities”
area is where Jean lives) … “iron range” families moved there many
generations ago for iron mining …
economically depressed area …
(NOTE, A LOT OF PEOPLE HERE FROM RURAL OR SMALL AREAS … NOT SO
MANY FROM BIG CITIES)
Jim Shaffer, was business side media exec in newspapers and tv’s now
reincarnated of college school of biz dean
portland maine
(he used to run the blethen newspapers in maine)
wanted to put together civic ownership group
maybe abandon print, web only news service
came up with multipart financing plan, part of which was public financing
had some direct hits with another model … suggested meeting with
foundations ..
Institute for Civic Leadership
they said maybe convene nonprofits … to see who might fund what
they started identifying target organizations
it would be a two-part model …
-sell permanent ownership shares
-annual or semiannual appeal for $
project stalled right now … 20% apart on price
consortium would be multiparty dialogue … would look like Maine
Public Broadcasting eventually …
kind of a coop “I own part of the Southern Maine Information Network”
or whatever
donors would get name on plaque
no decisionmaking authority but would have advisory committee
appeal to people “need this kind of journalism”
st. louis beacon has conversations, here’s what’s hap with journalism
nationally …
somebody didn’t want to contribute to Maine thing because they didn’t
want to see part of paper cutting down and down and down
survival would involve some restructuring of the
real estate developer would put in $20 million if he eventually got to
extract real estate from downtown and printing r/e
alternative is to let it die and hire the best and brightest … to
start something new
shaffer says you hate to lose brand identity and prestige etc.
having a newsroom only …
margaret says “advantage to starting something new is that eveything
you do is an ADDITION to people”
maine has built-in allegiance, says convener
‘people feel fiercely protective of civic environment’
joel raised $1.2 million
shaffer has $50 millon on table … but presumption is, gonna be
cashproducing newspaper for a while
journalist becomes more coach
Shaffer talking about taking over three papers, spin off two, keep
the Portland one
I asked the question … why are you talking about SOOOOOO MUCH … on our site (West Seattle Blog) two of us (and really only one doing the writing) produce a huge amount of coverage, newspaper reporters sometimes seem so inefficient (and I’ve been one … afternote, this took place BEFORE the Tribune Company, my former employer, announced it had been auditing newspaper reporters to see how much volume they produced)
we have a discussion about how much efficiency can be doing quality work … I am asked, what about the stories that take two weeks to put together? I say, we do some indepth coverage, but it’s multitasking – while doing daily coverage, we do bits of work here and there on stories that are longer-term
participant says, i want journalists to make a living …
shaffer says what if she is coaching 10 stringers and doing a couple
of her own stories
Sara is researching for Media Giraffe
Megan from Northern Community Network
Becky from Blandin
(they were mostly listening)
pjnet.org is the convener’s blog
knight foundation going to convene community foundations more …
asking them, should you be a player in this field if it’s vital to democracy
(there’s no real 100 percent model)
engage in the conversation …
Becky says they do community leadership training for rural publishers
… now housed with Minnesota Newspaper Foundation … whole purpose
in light of everything that’s happening in industry, how do you still
tell the stories of the communities …
(Harriet from Breckenridge joins the group)
keeping the stringers going …
convener is former magazine editor … depended a lot on freelancers …
studied people to figure out what they coud do
shaffer, sometimes a passionate stringer is a gadfly with an ax to grind …
two posts a week and get $100/post is what is paid by minnpost.com if you post twice a week