About the New Business Models for News Project
We at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism believe that the discussion about the future of journalism — as newspapers and other news organizations find their business rapidly eroding around them — needs to be informed by facts, figures, and business specifics. That is why we created the New Business Models for News Project.
The project is researching best practices in the business of journalism online, gathering new ideas and experiments in revenue for news. We will build complete business models to share with the industry and with the journalists, communities, entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors who will create the future of news.
The project is funded by the Knight and McCormick Foundations. Two earlier conferences leading up to the work of the project were funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The work of the project’s first phase will be presented at the Aspen Institute in August and will be shared, publicly and in progress, on this site.
Our work begins with the assumption that there will be a market demand for quality journalism, watchdogging those in power, and that the market will find a way to meet that demand. The question so many are asking is how. We will attempt to answer that by projecting the future of news in a metropolitan area, concentrating on four perspectives — hyperlocal, the new news organization, publicly supported journalism, and the framework to support this new news economy as a whole.
We will use as our model market a hypothetical top 25 metro area in the U.S. where the sole daily newspaper has ceased publication. In short: We are asking what will fill the void. We posit that no single company or product will do that. Instead, an ecosystem made up of many players operating under many models and motives will emerge. In all cases, we are agnostic as to who owns and operates these entities: legacy or new companies, large or small. In that context, we will examine:
* The optimal hyperlocal (town or neighborhood) blog or site. We will look at how to maximize revenue to such sites, whether they are run by sole proprietors, larger startups, or established media companies. This will include helping sites provide the best and most valuable service to local advertisers; establishing local networks of fellow hyperlocal sites to increase sales and revenue opportunities; larger metro-wide networks; and exploring other revenue opportunities, such as paid models and commerce. We will look at what these sites need to succeed, such as networks, promotion by aggregators, and technology.
* The new news organization. Even after a market loses its daily paper, we believe there is an opportunity for a new news organization to be reconstituted around key journalistic roles serving the metro-area. We will project the scale of such an enterprise: its audience and revenue yielding its resources and functions: reporting, aggregation/curation, perhaps organizing the broader community and its news efforts. How many employees can a profitable, journalism-centered business support and what can and should they do? What is its relationship with other players in the ecosystem?
* Publicly supported journalism. We do not believe that any single savior– foundation, government, device, or massive public contribution — will rescue an existing news organization as it operates today from the crush of the market. But we do believe that publicly supported journalism — that is, from individuals, foundations, and perhaps companies — can play a role in this model city’s news ecosystem. This could take the form of a local Pro Publica or of crowdsourced funding through a platform such as Spot.US or of an expansion of public broadcasting’s role. The key question we will answer is what level of support will likely be available — projecting from current efforts locally — and what those resources could provide.
* The ecosystem’s framework. We will examine the supporting infrastructure this ecosystem will likely need, bringing together independent players to reach critical mass so they can recognize greater market value (in, for example, advertising networks and in mutual promotion) and greater efficiency (in, for example, technology platforms, the ability to create collaborative projects, training in journalism and sales, search-engine optimization…). Once again, we are agnostic to ownership: These functions could come from a single company (which is how we will present the model); they also could be provided by a legacy player or they could be offered by various players. To quote Mark Potts at one of our CUNY conferences, “You may want to be small, but to succeed at being small, you probably have to be part of something big.”
In addition, the project will gather and also propose a catalog of revenue models, working with those who are building systems to support paid content; interviewing local advertisers to learn more about their needs; talking with sites in the U.S. and elsewhere to learn what is working and not working for them; examining the possibilities for more unusual revenue streams such as e-commerce.
Help us by taking our survey.
After this work is well underway and after the Aspen report in August, we plan to extend the project’s work to examine more business models, such as national and international content exchanges; interest-based sites and networks;
The project is headed at CUNY by Prof. Jeff Jarvis, head of the interactive program. Peter Hauck is project director, working with Jennifer McFadden, business analyst; business researchers Kate Albert, Gary Frangipane, Noah Xifr, Darshan Dedhia, Frank DiBartolo, and Senem Coskun of Baruch’s Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at the Zicklin School of Business; and reporters Matthew Sollars and Damian Ghigliotty, both graduates of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. We are grateful to the Field Center’s Edward Rogoff and Monica Dean for their support.
* * * * *
About the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism opened in August, 2006, the first publicly supported graduate school of journalism in the Northeastern U.S. Its three-semester program leading to the M.A. degree in journalism stresses the convergence of media formats, offers subject concentrations in five specialties, and provides all students with paid summer internships, thanks to a generous grant from the Knight Foundation. The new Class of 2010 has 85 students, a smart, motivated, and diverse group. Please see: www.journalism.cuny.edu.
The School is headed by founding Dean Stephen B. Shepard, who was editor-In-chief of BusinessWeek for more than 20 years. Dean Shepard was also a senior editor at Newsweek, editor of Saturday Review, and president of the American Society of Magazine Editors.
Center for Citizen Media: Blog » Blog Archive » Networked Journalism Conference Next Month in NYC
15. Sep, 2007
[...] Jeff Jarvis and CUNY are hosting and organizing it. [...]
Le Phare » Blog Archive » New York : journalisme et mélange pros + internautes
16. Sep, 2007
[...] Networked Journalism Summit le 10 octobre, le nom est un peu pompeux, mais pendant une courte journée, voici un endroit où l’on parlera sans doute, entre autres, de ce mélange pros et amateurs, à la mode en France en ce moment (Rue89, LePost uniquement en ligne), ou aux Etats Unis (Boston Now , site et version papier gratuite. On peut télécharger le pdf ici , cela ressemble à Metro). On ne s’étonnera pas d’y rencontrer aussi des gens de grands réseaux d’agence de relations publiques, qui suivent ces expérimentations, en espérant peut-être glisser plus facilement leurs clients dans ces sites via les non-journalistes, que via les pros blasés et noyés sous les communiqués de presse. if (GetCookie(‘wordpressuser’) == ‘gklein’) { document.write(‘16 septembre 2007 Publié Médias | Modifier | Lien permanent ‘); } else { document.write(‘16 septembre 2007 Publié Médias | Lien permanent ‘); } [...]
Every story should be a Web site, and a Web site should be a network hub - newsroomnext
25. Sep, 2007
[...] The Networked Journalism Summit; this sentence gets me drooling: “The last third of the day will be devoted to what’s next, with participants meeting to come up with new collaborations.” Share [...]
Spontaneous Orders » Blog Archive » Networked Journalism Summit
25. Sep, 2007
[...] be attending the Networked Journalism Summit in NYC on October 10. Pretty impressive list of attendees; I’m looking forward to seeing [...]
Invisible Inkling » A career move
27. Sep, 2007
[...] enough, I’ll be in New York for a couple weeks, so I’ll be at the Networked Journalism Summit in NYC on October 10th. See you there, or in Fairport, or around town in Santa [...]
BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » In the company of innovators
01. Oct, 2007
[...] occurred to me that maybe we ended up putting together the beginnings of such as collection at our Networked News Summit at CUNY next week, though only focused on one of many, many spheres of innovation we need to [...]
rexblog.com: Rex Hammock’s weblog » Blog Archive » Networked Journalism Summit
06. Oct, 2007
[...] Jeff Jarvis (see previous post), I am looking forward to participating in Wednesday’s “Networked Journalism Summit” that Jeff and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (Jeff heads its interactive journalism [...]
Conferência novos modelos de negócio | New business models summit « O Lago | The Lake
24. Oct, 2008
[...] About The New Business Models for News Summit [...]
L’Observatoire des médias » Blog Archive » Trouver les nouveaux modèles économiques du web
25. Oct, 2008
[...] thèmes [...]
hackademic.net — journalism • learning • teaching = journalism education » How the numbers (don’t) add up for newspapers if they axe print
26. Oct, 2008
[...] Mutter (aka Newsosaur) picks up on a point from the ‘New Business Models for News’ summit at City University of New York, arguing that scrapping print isn’t a solution, given that 90% [...]
Om du skulle bygge opp en redaksjon fra null i dag, hvordan ville den sett ut? | Nedrelid.com
06. Nov, 2008
[...] på City University of New York ledet en gruppe som gjorde en tilsvarende øvelse under konferansen New Business Models for News nylig. Han stillte gruppa overfor følgende problemstilling: What if a city, say Philadelphia, [...]
State coverage as a worthy charity | News Innovation
22. Jun, 2009
[...] is one of the areas we are investigating at the New Business Models for News Project. The question we are asking is how much potential charitable giving we can project for news in a [...]
Help us help hyperlocal news « BuzzMachine
29. Jun, 2009
[...] CUNY’s New Business Models for News Project, we would be very grateful if local blogs and sites filled out a survey to give us data in our [...]
Hyperlocal: So What’s Going On In Your Backyard? « Jon Bernstein
30. Jun, 2009
[...] initiative forms part of the School’s wider New Business Models for News project. We want to bring facts, figures, and business analysis to the debate over the future of [...]
Hyperlocal: Five steps to kick start the local news revolution | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
01. Jul, 2009
[...] City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism has invited ‘bloggers, independent journalists, website publishers and entrepreneurs’ [...]
Talking Fantasy Newsroom | News Innovation
09. Jul, 2009
[...] Mr. Crosbie suggests perfectly describes the mission of the CUNY New Business Models for News project. We’re working on developing a number of business models that can support the work of [...]
Le journalisme au secours des médias at SÉRENDIPITÉ
28. Jul, 2009
[...] de nouvelles DayLife, et soutenu par les fondations Knight et McCormick, le projet New Business Models for news rend compte des initiatives des journaux [...]
FOCAS: Live from Aspen | News Innovation
17. Aug, 2009
[...] news will supported by a new framework of local businesses and advertisers. You can read about it in detail here. As Jeff Jarvis has often said, we believe that the discussion about the future of journalism — as [...]
The Models: New News Organization | News Innovation
17. Aug, 2009
[...] This model envisions a new, metro-wide news organization serving a market of five million people that operates on a smaller scale and performs a wide variety of tasks. It will produce original unique beat and investigative reporting and it will also work collaboratively with the other members of the ecosystem and its readers to add value. Advertising will remain the key business driver, but to maximize profits the new organization will diversify its revenues. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away. [...]
The Models: Hyperlocals & the Framework | News Innovation
17. Aug, 2009
[...] This set of spreadsheets incorporates two models: hyperlocal and the sales, support, and technology framework that we believe is necessary to optimize businesses in the ecosystem. We believe an organization that enables advertising networks and other services to support the local news ecosystem is both a sustainable business and will make individual hyperlocal news organizations more profitable. We divided a sample metro market of 5 million people into many smaller markets (20k, 35k, and 60k) to reflect the towns and neighborhoods that comprise a large metropolitan market. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away. [...]
The Models: Not-for-Profit News | News Innovation
17. Aug, 2009
[...] A number of promising not-for-profit news organizations, providing both national and local coverage, have launched recently. We want to show the level of resources that might be available in a given market to augment local news gathering efforts. Researching the available charitable money in a market, we picked a hypothetical bottom line of $3 million and built one possible organization to augment journalism in the market. Note: all models assume the local daily newspaper has gone away. [...]
CUNY New Business Models for News, as seen in Aspen | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
19. Aug, 2009
[...] of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism is one of its key collaborators and the New Business Models for News project presentation can be found here at this [...]
Warren Hannon
17. Sep, 2009
The VALUE of Print Newspapers in our daily lives.
The main purpose of the print newspaper as a “PILLAR OF FREEDOM” is to provide all citizens of all ages, slowness or quickness of mind whether they are looking for the information or not to use their gift of understanding from their point of view in life to choose a path to proceed in their Life’s quest for peace, happiness & security from all harm.
Newspapers can help to bring people of diverse cultures into a more homogeneous neighborhood by highlighting the cultures of each group
Television News provides sound bites and for some it is too quick to see the truth beyond the veil of neglect, greed or indifference of possible biased reporting.
Internet News? Is it a blessing or a curse? We thought nuclear energy was going to be a blessing until it was acquired by nations with questionable motives. Knowledge it seems always gives us a good side and a bad side that is sometimes worse than the good side.
Internet News instead of providing a smorgasbord or variety of news for some of us to ponder over with a cup of coffee for its meaning, it gives us items of interest that we can bring up to suit our taste. Some of us do not like bad or terrible news where people suffer and will not take time to search for it.
To understand the gift of “Free Will” one must at least know the extreme limits that some will pursue whether it is going to the moon or stealing from a bank.
Newspaper investigating reporting helps to discern the truth about change in the good or bad aspects of our community life.
In our quest in life, trial and tribulations will happen. I remember back in the 50’s when DDT was sprayed over our area, what a blessing to get rid of the flies until the book “Silent Spring” made us realize the truth. Birds were vanishing.
The herbicides farmers applied to crops to prevent weeds damaged shrimp beds for seven miles at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the gulf.
I did not go looking for the above but I happen to see it in a newspaper.
Warren Hannon
Paid Content : Running The Numbers On Charging For News Online
03. Oct, 2009
[...] New Business Models for News Project runs through two pay models for a metro news organization that decides to charge for content [...]
Media Channel 2.0 — Blog — The Future For Journalism Will Always Embrace Change
02. Nov, 2009
[...] that will grow into a new ecosystem of news is a cause for concern. One such project is the New Business Models for News project I’m directing at the City University of New York, which is designed to help journalists start [...]
Next Steps: What We heard, What We Need | News Innovation
19. Nov, 2009
[...] want to see programs for bringing business students into media management (much as we tried to do last summer). A few more suggestions: – Future conferences organized around specific revenue opportunities – [...]
Le Medialab de Cécile » Veni, Vedi, VC
03. Dec, 2009
[...] d’un récent panel tenu par Jeff Jarvis dans le cadre de son projet «New Business Models for News», un membre du public a demandé si l’hyperlocal intéresserait les venture capitalists. [...]
Every story should be a Web site, and a Web site should be a network hub
17. Dec, 2009
[...] The Networked Journalism Summit; this sentence gets me drooling: “The last third of the day will be devoted to what’s next, with participants meeting to come up with new collaborations.” [...]