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October 15, 2007

New Media

This plan to create a large, self-funded, independent outfit conducting deep, investigative journalism that will be sold to high-profile outlets seems like a good one. Indeed, amidst all this talk of newspaper dying and closing bureaus and generally going straight to hell, I think folks forget that there's something of an opportunity here.

The newspaper business model never made a whole lot of sense. Putting aside reliance on wire services for a second, single, regional news outlets trying to self-fund coverage of the whole world through advertising and classified sections was always a bit un-economical. But there's really no reason that the distribution and content production arms can't splinter apart. Independent bureaus could sprout up in all areas, for all kinds of topics, and survive off selling their journalism to the distributors. Having these semi-self-funded bureaus might actually produce better content, through various efficiencies of scale, aggregations of expertise, reporter collaboration, and so forth. And they'd also offer the possibility of new business models, from direct subscriptions to the bureau's content to straight foundation funding to small donor journalism. Given the press's huge importance, a certain amount of status quo bias makes sense. But given the fairly sorry state of the press, it's a bit weird to spend so much time worrying about the preservation of a dying business model and so little hying the development of alternatives.

October 15, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

"Independent bureaus could sprout up in all areas, for all kinds of topics, and survive off selling their journalism to the distributors."

Indeed. We're already witnessing the rise of the goat blowing beat.

Posted by: Petey | Oct 15, 2007 10:46:18 AM

"Independent bureaus could sprout up in all areas, for all kinds of topics, and survive off selling their journalism to the distributors. Having these semi-self-funded bureaus might actually produce better content, through various efficiencies of scale, aggregations of expertise, reporter collaboration, and so forth. "

The funny thing is that while I do think this is more or less the future of investigative journalism, Pro Publica seems to be a very different (though superficially similar) idea. It's very explicitly about public service (loosely defined) - non-profit, foundation funded, giving stories free to outlets etc. That's certainly better than no investigative journalism, but it's not a model on which to build an entire industry either.

The success of TPM shows that there's a market for investigative journalism done well - I wonder how they would fare if they tried to sell their stories to news outlets rather than having the press steal them instead.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Oct 15, 2007 11:03:11 AM

Am I the only one that sees this as probably legitimizing Swiftboating and Whitewater type "investigations?" Just reading about the sources of the "independent" funds makes me cringe. Josh Marshall has achieved a minor triumph in monetary terms. (I'm guessing. He may be making a good living but I think Judith Miller made more and probably still does.) He's done that on the basis of demonstrated and verified quality work. Has any news outlet offered him a "Jack Anderson" type of syndication? Remember, in our current news climate, "facts have a liberal bias."

Posted by: Amos Anan | Oct 15, 2007 11:22:26 AM

Isn't the right-wing just going to discredit the investigations based on the funders?

The best thing newspapers could do is run important stories every day for a week or once a week for a month or something like that. (See NYT on torture or Stripes on Sanchez)

Posted by: bob | Oct 15, 2007 5:45:12 PM

This has got to be one of the sadder things I've read about lately. Out-sourcing investigative journalism! Has it come to this?

The kind of reporting which will come out of this effort prompts considerable skepticism. Despite Steiger's Puliizers, he does come from the Wall Street Journal, which has always operated within a particular framework. In addition, as the New York Times says in its story, Pro Publica's plan "is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations." That government is mentioned first is telling.

Does this mean the government of George W. Bush and company, or the government which may or may not be able to provide health insurance to people who need it?

Mary

Posted by: Mary Soderstrom | Oct 16, 2007 8:11:01 PM

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Posted by: peterwei | Oct 21, 2007 11:41:40 PM

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