It is not about just refashioning journalism, it’s about reinventing the business proposition for news. Janet Coats of the Patterson Foundation wrote yesterday:
Instead of looking to the past, to the old buckets for ad revenue, we’d better focus on those three themes — mobility, Internet dominance in all content areas and improving user experience — as places where we might get ahead of the money.
…
For journalism to work, it has to prove its value to the community it serves, and proving that value means attracting business revenue – whether through advertising, subscription, or underwriting by an audience committed to the coverage your provide. Likely, it will be a combination of all those things, and more.
Coats, manager of the Patterson Foundation’s New Media Journalism initiative, is seeing a lot of ideas around journalism projects funded by foundation support, the Public TV/radio telethon model and just plain contributions. But doesn’t see those as sustainable models. And neither do I.
Related articles by Zemanta