• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • 5 DOUBLE-U’S
    • MASTHEAD
    • DISTRIBUTION
    • ADVERTISE
    • SUBMISSIONS
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

READ CURRENT STREET ISSUE

DIG Year End 2020

NONPROFIT MODEL NOT A PANACEA FOR AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA

Written by JASON PRAMAS Posted April 10, 2019 Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS

 

Would-be reformers need to keep that in mind

 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about a bill (S. 80) filed with the Mass legislature by Rep. Lori Ehrlich (D – Marblehead) and Sen. Brendan Crighton (D – Lynn) that aims to start a volunteer commission to assess the state of local journalism in the Bay State. While agreeing that it was a thoughtful step in the right direction, I was critical that the composition of the proposed body was not diverse enough—as the first version of the bill failed to include journalist unions and representatives of news organizations that were in the trenches doing journalism at the local level.

 

This week, Ehrlich and Crighton released an op-ed on their bill in CommonWealth magazine that doesn’t yet remedy the problems I named, but does state that they intend to change the number and types of stakeholders that may get seats on the commission: “We are looking forward to further discussion not only about who wants to be at the table, but also about the many ideas being considered in the journalism industry. The commission that will look at those ideas is still subject to change, potentially adding those who can help us see the full picture, or relieving disinterested parties of any obligation.”

 

That’s probably a positive development. Especially since I previously stated that my organization, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), fully intends to attend hearings on the bill (with friends) and push for commission seats for organizations comprised of working journalists: labor unions like NewsGuild-CWA, the Society of Professional Journalists, and BINJ itself. And why do my colleagues and I think our group should have a seat at that particular table? Because we’re not only working local journalists, but we’re a nonprofit organization that’s experimenting with ways to reverse the rolling collapse of American journalism … and then expand it.

 

Ehrlich and Crighton specifically name the nonprofit news model as one worthy of consideration by the proposed commission among a number of possible solutions to the crisis in journalism: “As with the start of any conversation, and as happens with every bill, we have already learned much about the state of local journalism from many interested parties. Some creative models already in practice include local stakeholder rescues, buybacks from national conglomerates, and experimental philanthropic nonprofits. These models and others emerging are all worthy of study and evaluation by academics, policymakers, and especially those in the field.”

 

A sentiment I have some agreement with. And I note the nod to “those in the field” like my co-workers and I with approval. But I’d also like to see more discussion of the difficulties with running news organizations as nonprofits. Because it’s hardly a new economic model. And it often doesn’t work well for funding news production. Something I can say from long experience.

 

Historically, nonprofit news outlets were started by organizations that were already nonprofits—notably churches and charities. Perhaps the most famous of these, the Christian Science Monitor, was founded in 1908 here in Boston. Just as nonprofits as we now understand them were first forming. And it continues to publish to this day. But few church or charity news outlets insist on the journalistic standards the Monitor is justifiably famous for. Most are essentially PR mouthpieces for their respective organizations. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not journalism.

 

Over time, independent news outlets also began organizing as nonprofits. Particularly after the political upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s damaged many Americans’ trust in mainstream commercial newsmedia. And the Tax Reform Act of 1969 created the IRS 501(c)3 nonprofit status that allows qualified charitable organizations to offer their donors a tax break. Mother Jones magazine, for example, was launched as a nonprofit in San Francisco with a staff of 17 in 1976. Such publications absolutely produced journalism as it’s commonly understood. And being nonprofit was a way to distance themselves from the problems inherent in the traditional advertising-based commercial news model.

 

However, there’s nothing preventing a nonprofit news organization from selling advertising. Not all nonprofit news outlets do so, but it can be done. Where nonprofits differ from for-profit companies is in how they are run and the fact that they are not organized to turn a profit. Which is not to say that they can’t make money. They very much can. The difference is that the federal government expects them to use surplus funds they raise to further the mission of their organization. Rather than disbursing it to shareholders or partners.

 

Virtually all nonprofits have some kind of board of directors in charge of their enterprise. The board can be elected—if there are members to do so—or self-selecting. And it will generally have hire/fire power over paid staff.

 

Where nonprofits don’t differ from for-profit companies is that their money has to come from somewhere.

 

Therein lies the rub. Said money can come from smaller donations from many individuals—which for a news nonprofit is pretty close to the ideal sources of funds with which to produce journalism in the public interest.

 

But it can also come from fee-for-service activities, like when BINJ charges money for certain events we run. Or from selling merchandise.

 

Most questionably, however, the biggest money donated to nonprofits comes from rich people, the foundations usually created by wealthy families to keep their money away from tax collectors, and from the corporations owned by those families.

 

How exactly is that different from a commercial news outlet taking ads from major corporations—which, as I’ve mentioned, nonprofits can also do? The answer is that, at the end of the proverbial day, it’s not different at all.

 

For many nonprofit news outlets, rich people have as much control over what they publish as they do with any commercial outlet. Not direct control (unless they bankroll a news organization outright), but the control that comes with the implicit threat that money that has been donated one year can always not be donated the next.

 

Nonprofits of all kinds seek to avoid that unhappy fate by trying hard to keep rich donors happy. And nonprofit news organizations are no different in that regard. Their boards can find themselves under tremendous pressure to avoid rocking any boats containing key funders at times. When they succumb to that pressure—off the record and merely implied as it normally is—they sacrifice their outlets’ independence. As surely as any for-profit news outlet does when its editors refuse to cover certain subjects that would discomfit their largest advertisers.

 

Which assumes that typical nonprofit news operations manage to get major donations from rich funders. But most nonprofit news outlets, like most nonprofits in general, do not get such donations. Nor do they have enough paid staff to get large numbers of small donations to compensate and thus struggle to survive for relatively brief periods before calling it quits. Or devolving into purely volunteer outlets—a nearly certain prescription for irrelevance and failure.

 

Fundraising for nonprofits is extremely competitive in the US—a dilemma made even more dire by the rise of crowdfunding in our society. People are constantly being asked for charitable donations. Day in, day out. Leading to the phenomenon known as “compassion fatigue.” In response, facing an economy that never really allowed working families to recover from the last recession, many people will tend to restrict their limited donations to the organizations that hold the commanding heights in their area of interest. To get more “bang for their buck,” so to speak. But also because —in the “journalism space”—they just can’t keep track of all the smaller news outlets that are trying to get donations. Outlets they hear little about anyway, and therefore don’t trust.

 

Hence the spectacle of a few well-funded news nonprofits like ProPublica (that is now, it must be said, funding some local work on its own terms) continuing to grow even as smaller nonprofit news outlets with more diverse voices crash to earth. And millions upon millions of dollars are ceaselessly getting dumped on academic institutions by larger foundations to “study” the crisis in journalism rather using that money to fund smaller nonprofit news outlets to help ameliorate that crisis at the local level where it is most intractable.

 

Given all that, running news outlets as nonprofits is no panacea for the many problems besetting American journalism. It’s actually a difficult option that isn’t necessarily morally superior to running a for-profit news outlet. And how could it be otherwise? Having a board and a membership does not automatically result in more independence for news nonprofits in our capitalist political economic system. Especially if their members are inactive and their boards are more interested in placating donors than doing the kind of take-no-prisoners journalism that their staff journalists often want to do.

 

Which is one important reason my partners and I have gradually built a loose hybrid operation over the last four years featuring a nonprofit (BINJ) and a for-profit (the alternative newsweekly DigBoston). Both fully independent of each other, but able to work in tandem in many situations. In hopes that our news enterprise can achieve stability in ways that continue to elude most news outlets today, and then grow. Through a mix of small and large donations funding investigative journalism and educational activities on the BINJ side, and ads from small and large businesses funding general news production on the DigBoston side. In that fashion, we believe we can prevent monied interests from having undue influence over the news we produce.

 

Which is why we need to have a representative on the proposed Mass journalism commission. To be there to say that neither the for-profit nor non-profit models alone can fix what ails journalism. And as I said in my first column on this topic, there also has to be public investment in news production to offset the lock currently held on news outlets by the rich and powerful. Not state-run news outlets, and not just more federal money for quasi-public media like PBS and NPR, but pots of local, state, and federal government funds that can be drawn from in a democratic manner to help make sure that every city and town in the nation has at least one independent news outlet dedicated to covering happenings within its borders.

 

It’s certainly worth experimenting with such reforms in the Bay State, and BINJ is committed to doing our part to figure out what works. Naturally, we would prefer to be admitted to any virtuous journalism circle that state government creates toward that end. But if we have to create our own policy network, we will do so.

JASON PRAMAS

Executive editor and associate publisher, DigBoston. Executive director of Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Former founder and editor/publisher of Open Media Boston. 2018 & 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Political Column Award Winner.

More from author
  • JASON PRAMAS
    https://digboston.com/author/jason-pramas/
    Hard right wingers casually tour the Capitol during last week's attack. Via C-SPAN.
    HOW TO DEFEAT THE HARD RIGHT
  • JASON PRAMAS
    https://digboston.com/author/jason-pramas/
    Image CC-BY Salva Barbera 2010
    DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS IN THIS TIME OF GREAT CRISIS
  • JASON PRAMAS
    https://digboston.com/author/jason-pramas/
    BETTER BOSTON ARTS: MICHAEL LEWY
  • JASON PRAMAS
    https://digboston.com/author/jason-pramas/
    Maria Servellón. Photo courtesy of the artist.
    BETTER BOSTON ARTS: MARIA SERVELLÓN

Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: bad jobs, capitalism, commission, contingent work, Democracy, economy, Jason Pramas, Journalism, labor, Massachusetts, neoliberal, news, news desert, NewsGuild-Communication Workers of America, newspaper, Politics, Rep. Lori Ehrlich, Sen. Brendan Crighton, state government

WHAT’S NEW

SOULDIER STORY: JOEL MASSICOT ON MIXING MARTIAL ARTS, DANCE, AND MILITARY INFLUENCES

SOULDIER STORY: JOEL MASSICOT ON MIXING MARTIAL ARTS, DANCE, AND MILITARY INFLUENCES

THE END OF THE WORLD IN AN AIRBNB

THE END OF THE WORLD IN AN AIRBNB

MEETING THREATS WITH HOPE AND COURAGE

MEETING THREATS WITH HOPE AND COURAGE

TITANIC SHIFTS: DEMS SWAP DECK CHAIRS AMIDST GOP-PROVOKED TSUNAMI

TITANIC SHIFTS: DEMS SWAP DECK CHAIRS AMIDST GOP-PROVOKED TSUNAMI

NEARLY A YEAR INTO PANDEMIC, MASS CATS ARE STILL SHORT ON FOOD

NEARLY A YEAR INTO PANDEMIC, MASS CATS ARE STILL SHORT ON FOOD

STATE WIRE: PEACE ADVOCATES PRESENT HOPES FOR FUTURE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY

STATE WIRE: PEACE ADVOCATES PRESENT HOPES FOR FUTURE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY

Primary Sidebar

HEMPIRE FREEDOM PACK 25% OFF

FEATURED EVENT

Most Popular

  • APPOINTED SOMERVILLE OFFICIAL SPURS OUTRAGE WITH TWEETS FROM DC MOB SCENE by MARC LEVY
  • Aerial View Parkman Bandstand at Boston Common. CC BY-SA 4.0 2017 by AbhiSuryawanshi. NO HONEYMOON FOR BIDEN: 1/20 PROTEST ON BOSTON COMMON, 4 PM by MATTHEW ANDREWS
  • VIDEO: COP WHO BRAGGED THAT HE HIT PROTESTERS SHOWS HOW BAD APPLES THRIVE IN BOSTON by CHRIS FARAONE
  • PRISON HORRORS BY THE NUMBERS by SARAH BETANCOURT
  • IT’S HARDER THAN EVER TO FIND A BATHROOM IN BOSTON. WHAT’S THE CITY DOING ABOUT IT? by ZACK HUFFMAN

READ CURRENT MEMBER EDITION

DIG Member 1.9 – 11/26/20

READ CURRENT STREET ISSUE

DIG Year End 2020

Footer

digbos

“We were all caught pretty off guard when the pa “We were all caught pretty off guard when the pandemic hit, but I think that using the resources that we have available to us we have been able to meet the demand at every step.” https://digboston.com/handling-the-herd-how-boston-built-its-massive-covid-testing-apparatus/ #politics #Boston #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker started the new year Republican Gov. Charlie Baker started the new year by vetoing a sweeping #climate change bill. https://digboston.com/titanic-shifts-dems-swap-deck-chairs-amidst-gop-provoked-tsunami/ #politics #news #Democrats #GOP #Boston #Massachusetts #USA #veto
“Trump was voted out. However, this is not a man “Trump was voted out. However, this is not a mandate for #Biden and #Harris.” https://digboston.com/photos-recap-no-honeymoon-for-biden-rally-in-boston/ #photo #rally #march #left #protest #inauguration #Boston #Massachusetts
OPINION: IS DISSENT ANTI-NATIONALISM OR PATRIOTISM OPINION: IS DISSENT ANTI-NATIONALISM OR PATRIOTISM? #Boston #protest for Indian farmers, Saturday 1/23/21, 12-1 pm at the #Massachusetts State House https://digboston.com/opinion-is-dissent-anti-nationalism-or-patriotism/ #India #politics #food #farmer #protest #justice #solidarity @monica_gill1
HOW ONE MASS TOWN TOOK EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES TO A HOW ONE MASS TOWN TOOK EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES TO APPEASE A CONTROVERSIAL COP https://digboston.com/no-justice-how-officials-in-one-mass-town-took-extraordinary-measures-to-appease-a-controversial-cop/ #ArlingtonMA #police #reform #cop #racism #controversy #BlackLivesMatter #Massachusetts
Ghost kitchens simply don’t have a need for host Ghost kitchens simply don’t have a need for hosts, servers, bartenders, bussers … What happens to those #jobs if virtual kitchens continue to flourish? https://digboston.com/ghost-story-virtual-kitchens-appear-to-be-the-next-big-thing-but-at-what-cost/ #restaurant #labor #work #Boston #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
“I don’t think we’re going to wake up on Jan “I don’t think we’re going to wake up on Jan. 7 in the same country we went to bed in on the 6th.” https://digboston.com/former-mass-gubernatorial-candidate-predicted-violence-before-assault-on-capitol/ #politics #Massachusetts #national #Capitol #WashingtonDC #MAGA
RADICAL AND RELEVANT: THE LIFE OF HARRY BRILL http RADICAL AND RELEVANT: THE LIFE OF HARRY BRILL https://digboston.com/radical-and-relevant-the-life-of-harry-brill/ #obituary #organizer #radical #sociologist #democracy #politics @UMassBoston @BklynCollege411 @UCBerkeley #Boston #Massachusetts #NewYorkCity #Berkeley #California
NO HONEYMOON FOR BIDEN: 1/20 #PROTEST ON BOSTON CO NO HONEYMOON FOR BIDEN: 1/20 #PROTEST ON BOSTON COMMON, 4 PM https://digboston.com/no-honeymoon-for-biden-1-20-protest-on-boston-common-4-pm/ #opinion #progressive #left #action #inauguration #Boston #Massachusetts
Light and sweet and hoppy, we’re loving this lat Light and sweet and hoppy, we’re loving this latest incarnation of a #beer that’s been in the making for months. https://digboston.com/video-jacks-abby-x-boston-celtics-pride-and-parquet-hoppy-lager-unboxing-tasting/ #fun #video #review #Boston #Massachusetts
Load More... Follow on Instagram
Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Submissions

Advertise

Privacy Policy

Customer Service

Distribution

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]