New Nonprofit Newspaper in Puerto Rico

We've seen a lot of journalism nonprofits spring to life the past couple of years - all online-only, as far as I know - so this one may be the first of its era.

After the closing of the Puerto Rico Daily Star, the commonwealth's only English-language daily, a group of 85 employees chipped in $800 apiece to start their own nonprofit newspaper, the Puerto Rico Daily Sun. They don't even have a web site yet - unless you count the "coming soon" page at prdailysun.com. But they do have a Facebook page.

I am not making this up. I read it in Saturday's Miami Herald.

The best material is at the end of the story. Editor Rafael Matos admits the seven-reporter tabloid is heavy on wire copy. But the strategy of going print-only first was deliberate decision to build audience, he told the Herald. Otherwise, he said, "nobody would buy the thing."

Legally, Matos said, ownership is organized as a cooperative. He concludes:

It's the cheapest way to set up a media enterprise. I know in the U.S. it sounds like socialism, but in this part of the Caribbean, cooperatives are a lifesaver. If we can keep this paper alive, we are a success. ... All we need is to break even.

Fun and More in San Diego

I checked in with Andrew Donohue of voiceofsandiego.org to see how last night's event went. One of the goals was to build relationships with readers - a key to the success of the nonprofit model.

Rather than ramble on, I'll relay Andrew's email, which I think captures the essence of the nonprofit model and its potential as a platform for socially responsible journalism:

The event was great. We've done a number recently -- a forum on local economics, a post-election analysis panel, an open-house and a little gathering at a wine bar.

I'm not sure on final attendance numbers, but we had more than 100 people RSVP.

These events are crucial to what we're attempting to become. We're not just a website and no where in our mission does it say we're a website. So far, that's just been the primary portal for our information.

We see ourselves as membership-driven organization that not only provides news and investigations, but convenes the community together, gets them thinking and talking about ways to make San Diego better, and leads them to collective action.

Oftentimes when our donors talk about VOSD, they use "we." It's that sense of ownership that embodies the loyalty we seek and need. Events like last night's are key to both building that ownership and fulfilling our desire to get our members together, talking, in the same room.

A Sign of Things To Come

About an hour ago, washingtonpost.com posted a breaking story - "White House Drafts Order to Hold Some Detainees Indefinitely" - under two familiar bylines, Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn. But here's the hitch - Linzer, a former Post reporter, now works for nonprofit ProPublica, and is credited as such as the lead byline.

Under its partnership with the Post, ProPublica now shares some of its best, breaking stories - and in return, gets eyeballs routed to its site through a link to its own story that contains the deep reporting behind the breaking news (which, for the scoop-minded was posted about an hour earlier).

It's the kind of cooperation that was unthinkable - at least among newspaper types - just a few years ago. But make no mistake, it's a sign of things to come as newspapers look for ways to underwrite the cost of investigative reporting, and nonprofit startups work to build credibility, audience and, ultimately, institutional gravitas.

voiceofsandiego.org Event Tonight

For all the comparisons made between for-profit legacy media and those in the nonprofit sector, I think one of the most favorable is the nonprofit's outreach to its community or communities.

In their quest for a sustainable business model, several nonprofits I've learned about - all online-only startups, by the way - have incorporated social events as part of their ongoing fundraising and marketing campaigns.

Tonight, voiceofsandiego.org is hosting an event called "The People Who Make San Diego Work" - a celebration of interesting people that the site has written about in their People at Work and Virtual Convening series. Admission is free for donors and $20 for first-time donors. It's a small amount, but this is part of the business of developing relationships for the long haul.

For details, see the invitation here.

Opportunity in Ann Arbor

For those keeping track of such things, it appears that Ann Arbor, Mich., will become the first U.S. city without a daily newspaper when the Ann Arbor News closes its doors next month and sells its distinctive building.

The Newhouse family, which owns the News and newspapers in several major Michigan cities outside Detroit, is replacing the News with a new company and Web site called AnnArbor.com, which it is touting as "an innovative, community news and information service."

I'm sure the site will improve once it is formally launched. But for now, it serves as a timely, if painful, reminder that there are some things the nonprofit sector can do a lot better than a for-profit business.

Don't believe me? Toggle back and forth a couple of times between AnnArbor.com and MinnPost.com or voiceofsandiego.org.

The first thing you see on AnnArbor.com is a "poll" that asks readers, "What should we cover?"

I try hard to avoid snarkiness in this space. But are you kidding me? What should we cover? Where do you start with a gimme like that? "Lame" is the kindest word I can think to describe this lack of effort (though that's the Newhouse online tradition). They may be hiring veteran journalists from the News to staff this site - which is nice - but if this is their starting point, the end can't be too far in the distance. And that's made nauseatingly clear by reading Steve Newhouse's comments to Crain's Detroit Business. Again, "lame" is the best I can do.

Okay, here's the upside. I can't imagine a better place than Ann Arbor for somebody to launch a successful nonprofit newsroom. It's a big university town with a great journalism tradition, and despite the auto industry's woes, there's lots of wealth stashed away just looking for the right opportunity to make an impact. And thanks to the Newhouses, there's now a huge online banner that screams "underserved community."

(Full disclosure: I worked for The Oregonian, a Newhouse paper, and tried in 2005 to pitch the idea of spinning off the Newhouse D.C. bureau as a nonprofit. I didn't get far. The Newhouses closed the bureau this past November.)

Salvation, Sustenance and Sustainability

One of the truths I'm beginning to recognize from this perch is that the world of nonprofit journalism can be divided into many dichotomies - haves v. have-nots, national v. regional, specialty v. general interest, for examples.

Here's another that might sound like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but I think speaks to the long-term prospects and viability of the nonprofit model: The divide between those who seek salvation and those who merely want sustenance.

Among the former are those who regard newspapers as institutions that should be saved for their value as institutions - their gravitas and unique ability to call out elected leaders, industries and other institutions that on occasion might behave badly. For them, there is the "conversion" model in which a switch to nonprofit status is regarded as an end in itself - a new status in which losses can be tolerated because owners will not expect profits.

In my mind, this is a short-term approach that ignores the enormous pressures weighing on newspapers and other "legacy" media. It might get a troubled company through a few more years, but it doesn't solve the core problem - which, as Phil Meyer noted in 2004, is not how to save newspapers, but how to save the socially responsible journalism that they produce. This is not to say that the conversion model - as touted by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and others - won't work, but it needs to be a means, not an end.

The latter group - those seeking sustenance - sees nonprofit status as a means. Their plan is to get established, build a brand and an audience, and then do some focused experimentation with tools that can lead them to long-term sustainability, either as nonprofits or as nonprofits with for-profit subsidiaries. Generally, these are people who embrace new technology and its power to build communities. For them, nonprofit status is a means to expand the definition of socially responsible journalism.

As John Thornton, creator of the soon-to-be Texas Tribune, put it in his blog (and forgive me for quoting a post that quotes me):

Furthermore, I’ve learned this lesson more than once in my day job: it’s generally easier to start from scratch than it is to convince an existing organization to adopt a new strategy (and some new management). ... Glomming such an effort onto something else just wouldn’t work.

As for newspapers, it may be that the best path is toward a hybrid model - where for-profit newspaper channel resources provided by foundations and other nonprofits. For a clear picture of how this model might play out in a newsroom, I recommend a column written last month by John Drescher, executive editor of my alma mater, The News & Observer.

John strikes the right note for newspapers when he conclude: "The more reporters on the street (or in the lab, the courts or the classroom), the better."

Scaling Up: Chuck Lewis and WIRE

For those looking to the future of philanthropy and journalism, Chuck Lewis offers an intriguing guidepost - and a full-blown hybrid business model - in a recent Columbia Journalism Review article entitled "A Social Network Solution."

Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity and the Investigative Reporting Workshop, writes the article from the point of view CJR calls "voices from an imagined future," looking back on current events from 2014. It's an artifice for sure, but it does help set the imagination free from the bleak reality of the news business today.

In the article, Lewis notes the emergence in 2008 of "dozens of new nonprofit muckraking organizations at the local, state, and national level." But the missing elements, he says, were "a global, online, social-utility platform" and "a new financial support system to make that possible."

Lewis, a prolific fundraiser, then reveals that he has big plans for later this year. He writes:

With all of this in mind, in late 2009, I began World Investigative Reporting Enterprises (WIRE), a global gateway to investigative journalism - a multimedia platform for the best original stories by some of the best journalists in the world, commissioned by, reported, written, edited, and published or produced for WIRE. The privately owned company includes investors who are socially committed to this work and who don't expect 20-plus percent annual profits - people I know personally and trust.

Then comes the business model, which relies both on payment for content and donations from readers and "associates":

(B)y the end of 2013 profits were at 5 percent. By then, we had accumulated one thousand media partners throughout the world, using a syndication model in which content is exchanged for online page views, which WIRE then uses to sell advertising - with a share of that advertising income paid back to the partner site. Revenue is derived from advertising and reader donations. The latter has vastly exceeded our expectations. Thousands of civic-minded individuals became so excited by the historic nature of WIRE and the public service it provides that they became reader-contributors, what we call WIRE Associates - crowd-funding by credit card, not for an individual project or subject area, but for the entire operation.

Will it work? Looks like we'll soon find out.