about the image above

March 28, 2024

Amid the Downturn, Sprouts of New City-Based Journalism Emerge

Important Details: MinnPost, the Twin Cities-based, non-profit online news site, recently celebrated its first anniversary, putting together, of course, a printed commemorative edition. Crosscut, a feisty Seattle start-up has captured an in-the-know local audience. The Voice of San Diego is actively reporting on the likelihood that the big paper in town (the for-sale San Diego Union-Tribune) will actually find a buyer, and breaking investigative stories.

These and other start-up city and regional news websites have been growing and developing largely under the radar, as daily newpapers and local broadcast outlets suffer painful cutbacks due to the harsh advertising downturn. All have benefited from readers’ intense election interests, proving deep, wide and analytic coverage — often written by those who formerly worked at dailies and took buyouts or were subject to layoffs.

MinnPost (see Insights 30 August 2007, Twin Cities News Start-Up Breaks New Ground), run by former Star Tribune Publisher and Editor Joel Kramer, has put together one of the most impressive, and establishment-oriented foundations. Kramer recently wrote in the commemorative edition, packed with the best articles from its web contributors, that:

  • The site had “thousands of regular readers, dozens of advertisers, 1000+ registered commenters, 5000+ daily and weekly e-mail subscribers, and a growing number of Community Voices contributor”
  • “1100 members who have decided to support high-quality journalism with an annual donation at the level of their choice.”
  • “Two major philanthropic partners to date: the Miami-based Knight Foundation and Minnesota-based Blandin Foundation.”

This community of start-up websites is starting to get more attention. In a New York Times Page One piece, such new websites’ watchdog reporting was highlighted, and lauded for filling a vacuum.

About the same time, David Westphal, former Washington editor of the McClatchy Washington Bureau and McClatchy Tribune Information Services and now Executive in Residence at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, rounded up the business model discussions around these city news website models, talking about the pros and cons of for-profit and non-profit sites and how quickly (or slowly) local online-only ad revenues are growing.

Implications: Outsell believes that struggling traditional local media companies are beginning to see themselves squeezed at both ends.

Certainly, the content aggregation and huge reach of national and global portals and news players has cut deeply into their business. Now, smaller operations are starting to chip away as well. These operations don’t take in much revenue yet, but they pose longer-term challenges, as they grow businesses without the burden of debt and legacy costs. While foundations and angels have mainly been responsible for their funding in the sites’ infancies, we can see new — and bigger — money willing to invest as both audiences and business models are proven. Perhaps most importantly, in starting out with between half a dozen and a couple of dozen staffers, these focused websites are reinventing and rediscovering both the journalistic and commerical values of local news enterprises. That’s a reminder to long-established news companies about why they developed many decades ago.

2008 of course has been the year in which daily newspaper companies have had to concentrate on growing online-only ad sales, moving away from reliance on bundled print/online. That is the target of these start-ups as well, reinforcing the point that building and monetizing of new, standalone businesses online is the name of the game for old and newer media alike.