Foundations and Healthcare Journalism

I'm sorry I missed it when it came out last month, but there's a really good new paper from Harvard's Shorenstein Center that examines the potential for conflict when foundations throw financial assistance behind reporting on health care.

The paper by Maralee Schwartz spends a lot of time on Kaiser Health News, which was launched in June by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Schwartz talks to many of the parties involved in the creation and oversight of KHN, as well as editors at its biggest partner, The Washington Post.

Written in a journalistic style, the paper allays potential concerns about the relationship between foundation and news service and documents the care that foundation leaders exercised in establishing the news service's independence and credibility. In an interview with Poynter Online, Schwartz said she began her study skeptical of the relationship. But by the time she had completed her work, she told Poynter, "I can't tell you how surprisingly comfortable I became with it in the end."

I have to say, I had a similar experience. Before I met foundation SVP Matt James in January, I thought the news service would be a weak substitute for real journalism. As James says in his elevator speech, they do mostly explanatory journalism - no "gotcha" - so I wondered if their work could have teeth. But I was persuaded that everything they do to cover news would be SOP in any major newspaper's newsroom.

This is not to say the job of avoiding conflict is a one-time proposition. Schwartz includes in her paper the opinions and observations from some of journalism's leading lights, and one in particular struck me. It came from Ted Gup, the incoming head of the journalism department at Emerson College. Gup worries not so much about the relationship between foundation and news service, but the relationship between news service and client. As Schwartz reports:

“The exigencies of circumstance can compromise standards,” said Ted Gup, a former journalist and recently named chair of the journalism department at Emerson College. “Part of my concern is not just that some of these sources have agendas, but that the mere availability of content may skew coverage.”

The deployment of declining resources reflects what people want to know versus what they need to know, Gup continued. “We can’t have what we cover defined by the charity or magnanimity of others. It has to be defined by all of society’s vulnerabilities.” Gup said he also worries that dependence on free content will lead to an erosion of reporting and a failure of journalists to keep abreast of what is happening, leaving the public at risk. He pointed to the Bernard Madoff scandal as an example. “Editing is not the same as generating — the system atrophies.”

Gup has a good point. But those are problems that also may be overcome. As Schwartz's paper notes, there is a great opportunity for foundations to support specialty journalism, and we're likely to see more. We should hope that others take the same care as the Kaiser Foundation.

A Second Great Age of Patronage

Clay Shirky, the NYU prof and journalism's Nostradamus, has a wonderful essay in the Cato Institute's online magazine that lays out the implications of how the subsidization of journalism is changing the craft in ways we won't fully understand for decades to come.

Some of his most tantalizing insight touches on the nonprofit model and the impact that nonprofits can have in the chaos that will follow the demise of newspapers. Please do read the entire essay. But here's a shortcut to the most salient bit, which follows his prediction of a "second great age of patronage":

In an age where the cost of making things public has fallen precipitously, patronage models suddenly look not just viable but eminently reproducible. The leverage to be gotten from motivations other than profit is now growing rather than shrinking; a poorly capitalized journalistic weblog is now likelier to reach a million readers than a well-funded but traditional journalistic outfit is.

Is this a good thing? A bad thing? Herein lies the Shirky genius. He doesn't tell us. And the difficult truth is that we have no way of knowing. Clearly, he sees a world in which the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Fords have an opportunity to preserve socially responsible journalism - or corrupt it into something that serves their own vision of truth, however worthy or not.

The lesson here, of course, is that the future of socially responsible journalism remains in the hands of those who care most about it. From the Medicis on down, patronage has had its pros and its cons. It's up to the practitioners to draw the ethical boundaries.

The Council on Foreign Relations Model

I had a chance recently to chat with Penny Abernathy, the UNC-Chapel Hill professor who recently presented a paper on four nonprofit models for The New York Times. The paper, for those who haven't read it, presents itself modestly, but is nothing short of a roadmap to survival for newspapers that take investigative and watchdog reporting seriously.

Abernathy spent her early career as a reporter, and it shows: Her paper, presented at a conference at Duke University, is scrupulously evenhanded, and it's nearly impossible to tell which if any of the four models she presents she likes or dislikes. But as we talked, it became clear she sees great promise in a nonprofit model for newspapers based on the Council on Foreign Relations, the venerable New York think tank.

The way Abernathy sees it, a CFR-type nonprofit could be set up by a handful of major newspapers as a home for topic-expert reporters who would share their work across media. Rather than limiting them to one venue - the newspaper - the nonprofit could continue to employ them as they move from breaking news to magazine-style story to published book - collecting revenue all along the way. And like CFR, the nonprofit could host conferences and pull in corporate sponsorships as well.

To be clear, Abernathy did not single out this as a solution to the challenges faced by the Times. The hardest part about getting newspapers on board is getting their editors to stop thinking in terms of scoops and exclusives, she said. "They're still thinking the old way," she said.

Investigate West Launches

A group of former Seattle Post-Intelligencer editors and reporters today launched Investigate West, a nonprofit that plans to do investigative stories from the environmental, social justice and health beats. To be sure, there is a lot of overlap, especially in the western states they plan to cover.

The new outfit plans to fund itself through a mix of foundation support, content sales and memberships, according to an article on Poynter Online. In the first year, $850,000 of the $1.35 million budget would come from foundations.

So far, Poynter reports, only a $3,000 grant is in hand. "We're not laboring under the illusion that all we have to do is set up shop, start doing great stories and everything will be all right," says Rita Hibbard, the executive director and editor.

DinnerGate and the Nonprofit Fallout

It may be easy enough to blow off the recent controversy surrounding the Washington Post's "salons" as the work of a marketing department run amok. But the narrative of the past week or so should strike fear into the heart of every budding nonprofit publisher and journalist.

Why? Look at any journalism nonprofit's business plan - at least those who are willing to share - and you're almost certain to see a plan to host member events, idea-fests or corporate sponsorships of some sort. The only difference between those events and what Post publisher Katharine Weymouth had in mind is the amount that attendees expect to spend and the quality of the hors d'ouvres.

I'm not saying that journalism nonprofits should drop the idea of hosting events as a pillar of their development plans. And I don't mean to be a scold. But given the potential for the appearance of conflict, journalism nonprofits need to be extra careful in how they market such events and, in doing so, not underestimate the clout they wield in their communities.

There are no bright lines here. And if you don't believe me, read David Bradley, publisher of The Atlantic, trying to create one in his recent column about the magazine's mover-and-shaker dinners. I'm sure his line of argument sells in D.C., but in Peoria, forget it.

This is an amazing, promising time for nonprofit journalism. If this kind of controversy surrounded a nonprofit publisher - which it easily might have - it could easily undermine a movement.

Westphal Report: Role of Foundations

David Westhpal, USC fellow and former D.C. bureau chief for McClatchy, has issued a tinely report on foundations' role in supporting journalism.

No surprises here: Saving journalism, he finds, is a bigger task than all of U.S. philanthropy is able to take on. And we learn that we may be entering a "gray age" of information in which newspapers and other legacy media cut budgets faster than other sources can fill the void.

But the parts that may be most interesting are those in which Westphal explores some possible new models in interviews with leaders of the St. Petersburg Times and Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization that is stepping into a new role as content producer. He also dives deeper into the notion of specialty nonprofits a la Kaiser Health News.

In any case, it's a well written, informative narrative, and it shines some light on what the field of journalism looks like from the point of view of foundations at the national and community levels.

For more info, here's the official press release on Westphal's report.

Pocantico Declaration

Another big step in the process of scaling up: After meeting for the past three days at the Rockefeller Foundation's Pocantico Conference Center, about three dozen editors and publishers of nonprofit news organizations today issued a declaration of their intent to build a first-ever Investigative News Network.

I'll let the Pocantico Declaration speak for itself, but the upshot is that there is a lot of room for collaboration among journalism nonprofits - everything from sharing news and information to combining back office functions such as benefits. There's even a mention of doing joint fundraising. It's an ambitious agenda.

The next big goal is to create a new, nonprofit corporation to coordinate this work. Until then, the Center for Public Integrity will act as the network's agent.

For more on the conference, David Westphal has a post on his site at USC-Annenberg. Hashtag for Twitter is #inewsnet.

(Hat tip to Andrew Donohue at voiceofsandiego.org for his Twitter tip on this.)