Nonprofit News — It Is Not What You Think from the Title

Likely you have seen the same trend where you live. The newspapers are almost all gone, five columns wide on tabloid paper and they are thin as can be. The ads are all gone, along with most of the advertising inserts. The disappearing revenue stream has impacted the papers ability to have newsrooms and reporters. Most are skimpy skeletons of what was a robust reporting team. Even at the Los Angeles Times, a paper that has gone through numerous staff reductions — in the newsroom.

It is not surprising therefore that we see stories like this, NewsMatch Raises $7.6 Million for Nonprofit News Organizations in 2018.

I listen to POTUS on SiriusXM Radio (also a podcast) and I try to catch Julie Mason's Reporter's Roundtable, on Fridays.  It is the last hour of her three-hour show. This is reporters talking about the news of the week — from a reporter's perspective.

I'm still plowing through Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters by the former editor of the Guardian. He describes the initially slow demise of old-style journalism and the death throes of newsprint when they were trying to figure out the Internet and what it meant. Like today, I read where someone came into his office and said, "What if we didn't do stories anymore?" If not stories, then what? Have you noticed that print stories are being updated online as new information becomes available? Get the story out — as best you can and add more details later if you have to. 

We are still in the midst of significant change with charges of "fake media" being hurled at what I believe are still trusted media sources. The New York Times for instance, also called "the failing New York Times" by the president, has their subscription rate way up. So, there are bright spots.