Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability

October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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By Mayur Patel and Michele McLellan on Knight Foundation

In the emerging landscape of non-profit news, good journalism is not enough. Even with generous foundation support, high-quality reporting alone will not create an organization that can sustain its ability to produce news in the public interest.

Instead, successful news organizations – even the nonprofit ones  - have to act like digital businesses, making revenue experimentation, entrepreneurship and community engagement important pieces of the mix. Understanding how to create social and economic value and how to adapt and innovate are just as important as good content.

The new study we just completed, “Getting Local,” offers a detailed look at some of the country’s leading online local nonprofit news ventures, providing data on how they are generating revenue, engaging users and cultivating donors.

It also offers a useful way for foundations and others interested in supporting nonprofit news to think about and assess the sustainability of these types of emerging organizations.

Read the full article and download the study on the Knight Foundation website

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The larger a newspaper’s local population, the broader its online market

October 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Research from the Newspaper Research Journal suggests that big city local news is interesting to people hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

In fact, the Los Angeles-based Daily News website attracts readers far away than within Los Angeles.

For readers of the online version of the Daily News, the reader’s average distance from Los Angeles was 422.5 miles.

The research conducted by Hsiang Iris Chyi, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, included reader surveys at 28 local newspapers that suggest newspapers based in locales with larger populations, as well as those with higher print circulations, tend to have a more geographically dispersed online readership.

Local news stories from Los Angeles top the list, which included a Staten Island paper, in a geographic ranking of reach.

The top-10 list for geographic reach of newspapers’ websites included:

1. Los Angeles – DailyNews.com
2. Denver – DenverPost.com
3. Denver – RockyMountainNews.com
4. Pocatello – JournalNet.com
5. Waterloo – WCFCourier.com
6. St. Paul – TwinCities.com
7. Erie – GoErie.com
8. El Paso – ElPasoTimes.com
9. Whittier – WhittierDailyNews.com
10. Dubuque – THOnline.com

The study was published in the summer 2011 issue of Newspaper Research Journal.

Contacts: Sandra H. Utt Cell: (901) 628-2553 e-mail: nrj@newspaperresearchjournal.org or Elinor Kelley Grusin e-mail: egrusin@memphis.edu

 

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Pew Internet & American Life Project: How people learn about their local community

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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From the Pew Internet Research site, Sept. 26, 2011 – Citizens’ media habits are surprisingly varied as newspapers, TV, the internet, newsletters, and old-fashioned word-of-mouth compete for attention. Different platforms serve different audience needs. A detailed and interactive chart spelling out which local information sources people rely on for different topics is available here.

About the Study
The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from January 12 to 25, 2011, among a sample of 2,251 adults, age 18 and older. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (1,501) and cell phone (750, including 332 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

Go to the Pew site to view the study or to download it

 

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FCC: Cross-ownership may increase some local news

July 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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By Julie Moos on Poytner, July 25 – New studies commissioned by the Federal Communications Commission suggest media consolidation has not harmed local news; in some cases, cross-ownership may help. The studies are part of the FCC’s mandate to review media ownership rules. There will be a total of 10 studies, seven of which have now been released. One of the newest studies finds:

“Individual television stations that are cross-owned with newspapers air more local news than comparable stations in the market. However, the television markets that contain these cross-ownership relationships do not air any more (or perhaps air even less) local news programming than comparable markets (presumably due to a reduction in news from the non-cross-owned stations).”

Read the full post on Poynter’s site

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2011 TV and Radio News Staffing and Profitability Survey

July 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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The latest staffing survey released by the Radio Television Digital News Association and Hofstra University shows that local news jobs increased last year and made up for job losses in 2009. The survey found that “anticipated hiring in 2011 could bring the industry back to its precrash peak by the start of 2012.”

You can read the first part of the survey here or visit the the RTDNA website.

 

 

 

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