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Media Innovation + Leadership | Strategic Partnerships + Revenue Growth | Yale MBA

This is so important! So much nuance gets lost in this conversation. An example: Editor gets hired for a topic because the company sees an opportunity in audience development, subscriptions and commercial dollars. By virtue of the first two, it’s something of interest to readers. Is this particular topic the newsroom’s first choice for a new hire? That editor was me in 2015, and I’ll never know! So is this economics influencing coverage? Absolutely — and it’s been happening in news and publishing for a long time. Entire publications get started because someone saw a business opportunity, and they can still produce incredible journalism that serves readers. To your point, it’s not a bad thing and we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist. When we clutch our pearls and say “blasphemy!” instead, we are denying reality to our readers and ourselves. We should talk about it.

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If you asked a journalist if money or ownership swayed their coverage, the response would likely be an automatic: No! But is that accurate? There are many pretty common ways that funding and ownership may actually be influencing your coverage. ✔️You might be covering fewer topics or stories due to layoffs and dwindling staff sizes. ✔️You might be choosing to prioritize content valued by the members of the public who contribute financially. ✔️Maybe you have to publish certain editorials or segments each week from a corporate team, or sponsored content on social platforms that’s part of a company-wide strategy.   ✔️A newsroom or individual reporter might receive grants that help fund a specific type of reporting or allow staff to focus more on investigations or other beats. While none of these are necessarily bad, the impact of not talking about it can negatively reflect on your reputation as a news source. That’s why it’s so important for newsrooms to get on the record and be transparent about their funding and ownership. Here are some strategies for how you can. >> https://lnkd.in/g98Sj9Jy

  • Funders don't control out coverage. Usually, this is true. But sometimes outside funding does influence coverage decisions (and that’s not always a bad thing!).  

That’s why it’s so important for journalists to get clear about this with their 
audience.
Joy Mayer

Executive director, Trusting News

5mo

Great example!

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