Ryan and I have read about and interviewed participants in dozens of non-mainstream news publications. While all of their experiences make for great narratives, as journalists we’re most interested in those publications that succeed as news organizations.
But what does that mean? Here are three criteria I think need to be filled for something to be considered a successful news outlet:
- Stories need to be independent of contributors’ interests. This is where community-run media organizations often fall apart. While there can be value to articles written by the organizer of this year’s Pasta Festival, these articles do not fit the definition of objective news. So they can have a place in a newspaper, but a publication made up entirely or largely of such articles is a newsletter, not a newspaper.
- Employees need to earn a living wage. This is connected to the question of independence. Volunteers work for free because they get something other than money out of the experience. In the case of community news, that something is often publicity for an event or organization they’re involved with. Paying employees is one way to encourage their independence. Furthermore, a publication is unlikely to be sustainable if it does not pay its employees.
Clarification When I spoke to media economist Stuart McFayden, he said it’s important to him that journalists writing what he reads earn more than a living wage, to encourage them to do a good job and draw good people to the job. I didn’t mean here that journalists shouldn’t earn more than a living wage, merely that they must earn at least a living wage.
- The publication needs, at the very least, to break even. A publication that doesn’t pay for itself — through advertising, foundation funding, contributions from readers or anything else — is unlikely to be around for long.
Our project examines many publications that don’t fulfill one or any of these criteria. The Crier of Port Hope, for instance, did not pay its employees a living wage and, in the end, failed to break even — though it might have had they kept at it for longer. That doesn’t necessarily mean their not-for-profit model was faulty, though — it merely means their particular iteration didn’t succeed. We’ll include their story and stories of publications like theirs in our analysis but will especially seek out publications that satisfy all three criteria.