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We'll be live-tweeting a couple panels this morning about the local news crisis and local news innovation. If you're signed up, tune in to #FTFutureNews starting at 10:50am ET for those panels! And be sure to follow us as we tweet along with those discussions. https://twitter.com/newsalliance/status/1315992692657192962
Starting now on #FTFutureNews is "How Can Local News Survive?" featuring @cmdmarie, @jnpearce, Steve Waldman of @Report4America, Chris Jansen of @GoogleNewsInit and moderator @annaknicolaou
. @jnpearce says journalists tend to burn out, especially when working from home because there is no down time, so we have to really pay attention to our employees and colleagues #FTFutureNews
Digital traffic rose a lot for local news during the pandemic. Can digital subscriptions help save local news? @cmdmarie says that her team worked really hard to get to a 50/50 split between subs and ads, and that helped them avoid furloughs and layoffs this year
. @cmdmarie also notes that she's been able to have 30 @Report4America fellows jump in across all the newsrooms so that they had extra help that was partially supported by outside elements, which also helped
Chris Jansen of @GoogleNewsInit says that his role isn't in "news" so much as it is in "product" and in helping partners with tech and product so that publishers can focus on news while Google helps with the other things behind the scenes #FTFutureNews
"People love local news," Jansen says, but there is a gap between the love of news and the financial support needed; says the pandemic has helped people understand that they need to help financially to support their local publishers #FTFutureNews
. @annaknicolaou notes that there's a lot of work to be done to get people to really understand the challenges faced by local news publishers, and there's a lot of experimenting to be done to find a solution #FTFutureNews
. @jnpearce notes that her team recently switched to a nonprofit model, so there was a lot of structural changes that needed to be made, and a lot of ethical guidelines and transparency issues that need to be considered that weren't part of their for-profit model #FTFutureNews
At the Tribune, @jnpearce says there's a whole mindset/identity shift going from for-profit to nonprofit, but that the entire team was onboard because they were always about serving their community #FTFutureNews
. @jnpearce notes that in order to go the nonprofit route, you have to have a community that's able and willing to support you financially, and luckily the Tribune had that; also, as a small operation, it was a little easier than it would be for a larger publisher #FTFutureNews
Steve Waldman of @Report4America says every bit of external support helps; notes that the "benevolent billionaire" has helped immensely in several instances; however, there's something a bit askew that the fate of our democracy depends on the fancies of a few billionaires
Waldman notes that COVID-19 accelerated the loss of local newspapers across the country; the meta-point about the nonprofit sector is if we look at this 5 years from now, where do we want to be, and he thinks we need a bigger role for nonprofits in the news business #FTFutureNews
"Community journalism isn't going to survive without the support of the community, and that isn't only going to mean subscriptions and advertising now," Waldman says #FTFutureNews
. @annaknicolaou asks what the business case is for Google to be involved in news. Jensen says "we believe in building a better world," and quality information is important for creating that world; research shows when local news is strong, more people vote, malfeasance goes down
. @cmdmarie worked with @GoogleNewsInit so that @mcclatchy could launch new news outlets in communities that weren't being served; @MahoningMatters was one of those projects, and it just celebrated its first anniversary #FTFutureNews
Jensen says he's pleased to see the successes these @mcclatchy projects have had, and that he's thrilled that @GoogleNewsInit can help create these experiments; notes that not all will be as successful as these have been, but it's about seeing what works #FTFutureNews
. @jnpearce says local news is highly dependent on the tech platforms to get content out and to reach readers #FTFutureNews
. @annaknicolaou asks about the "financialization" of news, or the control of news by hedge funds, etc. Waldman says that these orgs didn't cause the original problems for news, but they are making it harder for local news to survive by focusing on the bottom line, not journalism
Waldman says it's "causing local newsrooms to take very self-destructive steps" in order to try to survive; says these companies aren't interested in the long-term success of these papers because that's not how they make money #FTFutureNews
Waldman compares these struggling hedge-fund-owned papers to plants growing in toxic soil; if you take them out of that soil and put them in healthy soil, they can grow and thrive #FTFutureNews
Waldman says he would couple new business models with some public policy changes to add more incentive on the "carrot" side, and on the "stick" side, the courts should apply the concept of "localism" to anti-trust law #FTFutureNews
Waldman also suggests that the govt. treat newspaper closures as old plant closures, where they have to give six-months' notice so the community has the opportunity to try to save their local news source #FTFutureNews
Waldman says this is a moment where we need to talk about public policy and government involvement in local news, even though there is a hesitance for local news to take money from the entity they're watchdog for; however, we need news to support our democracy #FTFutureNews
Waldman notes the idea being floated of a $250 tax credit to Americans to be able to subscribe to or donate to local news to help support their local sources #FTFutureNews
. @jnpearce says that a lot of local papers have suffered conflicts when trying to cover their communities and governments because they are friends with, neighbors with the people they need to cover and investigate #FTFutureNews
. @jnpearce says it's hard to support government involvement for local news because it's already so difficult for those papers to be watchdogs; says it would need lots of transparency #FTFutureNews
Q for @jnpearce on how to explain to subscribers why a paper is nonprofit and ow that affects them; @jnpearce says that you explain that the subscription is a commodity, yes, and the donation is a step beyond to show how much the paper matters and how important news is
Q: How can local news compete with national news sources? @cmdmarie says, "I don't think we can. I think what we offer is very different... We're investing in our local communities" and those national organizations are not going to dive-in to your local community #FTFutureNews
. @cmdmarie says local publishers let their communities know regularly how invested they really are in the community; they're able to have conversations on a local level that national outlets just aren't going to do #FTFutureNews
. @cmdmarie says that local news can't compete with national news, but what they can do is make it very clear to their communities that they are supporting them and offering them information they can't get from the national outlets #FTFutureNews
Jansen of @GoogleNewsInit notes that so many stories start at the local level, and then national outlets come in and offer different angles, and the local reporters/publishers get lost when they really should remain in the spotlight #FTFutureNews
Waldman says that one thing the tech companies can do is have their algorithms reward the original sources; says Google may have already tried to do this or started working on this project #FTFutureNews
Q for Jansen: Can we trust Google really wants to help news? First, Jansen calls out the Google News Showcase, which he says is not about Google getting into the news business, but about curating the news #FTFutureNews
Jansen says Google isn't necessarily trying to be a "friend," but is trying to be a "great partner" to news; "we believe we have a role in this ecosystem" he says #FTFutureNews
And... that's a wrap on this panel. Thank you, @annaknicolaou and @ftlive for hosting a great session! #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston says the pandemic has accelerated a lot of the downward trends in local news, such as loss of advertising and subscribers; local newspapers around the country have also attracted the wrong type of capital #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston says the hedge funds are not providing the kind of investment needed to help save local news #FTFutureNews
. @alexebarker notes that @craignewmark in some ways helped cost newspapers revenue with Craig's List, which took away a lot of classified revenue; Newmark says he'd always wanted to support journalism and was always afraid of his company's negative impact #FTFutureNews
. @craignewmark also says that his desire to help journalism stems from his high-school civics teacher (in 1970) taught him about the importance of journalism on democracy; says researchers have since told him Craig's List wasn't as bad for news as he feared #FTFutureNews
. @craignewmark says he works with a lot of people who have given up so much more to protect the country, and his fight to protect journalism is the least he can do #FTFutureNews
"I'm helping people smarter than me protect the country by strengthening the immune system of democracy" says @craignewmark #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston says @knightfdn is working to invest in reporting that fills the critical gaps; notes the work of @businessofnews in finding these gaps with her News Deserts study #FTFutureNews
. @craignewmark says he relies on "people smarter than me" like @JenniferPreston to tell him how he can help support local news and whether he's spending his money the right way to do that #FTFutureNews
. @craignewmark says something he wants to think about going forward is focusing on hyperlocal solutions journalism, an idea he got after a conversation earlier with @alexebarker and @JenniferPreston #FTFutureNews
Q for @JenniferPreston on innovative ways journalists are getting back into their communities. Preston mentions @media_outlier answering reader questions to help the community, and going from answering a few questions to answering hundreds a week #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston also calls out @freep helping answer community questions; @KPCC and @wearehearken helping answer questions; as well as the @soljourno helping journalists learn how to report on solutions, not just problems #FTFutureNews
Q: How can we use trust to build a more sustainable business model? @JenniferPreston says a great example of how they're building trust is by not seeking subscribers, but seeking "members"; calls out @NewsMatch as helping support this model #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston says this was started in 2016 by @knightfdn when they saw the spikes in subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ, and ProPublica and saw an opportunity to support nonprofit news; last year, they raised $43M for nonprofit news orgs #FTFutureNews
. @JenniferPreston says it's one thing when cable news are driving political divide, but "there's nothing political about a pothole, people just want it fixed," and that's really how local, nonprofit news stands out and shows it's trustworthy #FTFutureNews
