Future of Nonprofit Journalism\nFriday, September 20, 2013\nPew Research Center<\/p>\n\n
Transcript follows below the video.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/iframe><\/div><\/p>\n\n<h3 data-is-section=\"true\" data-wp-context=\"{"id":"part-i-future-prospects-for-financial-sustainability"}\" data-wp-interactive=\"{"namespace":"prc-block\\\/table-of-contents"}\" id=\"part-i-future-prospects-for-financial-sustainability\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Part I: Future Prospects for Financial Sustainability<\/h3>\n\n<p>[about]<\/p>\n\n\n<figure><a href='https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?w=300\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium not-transparent\" alt=\"Attitudes toward online harassment vary by gender\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png 420w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=150,150 150w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=300,300 300w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=160,161 160w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=403,405 403w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=200,201 200w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=260,260 260w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=310,311 310w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=75,75 75w, https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2017\/07\/PI_2017.07.11_Online-Harassment_0-03.png?resize=140,140 140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" data-dominant-color=\"e4e8e6\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e4e8e6;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_37662\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37662\" style=\"width: 280px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-dominant-color=\"f1f0f1\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f1f0f1;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"not-transparent size-full wp-image-37662\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Dick-Tofel.jpg\" alt=\"Dick Tofel\" width=\"280\" height=\"201\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37662\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos by Emily Guskin<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dick Tofel, ProPublica:<\/strong>\nFor us, I think the answer is yes. The Sandlers started out at probably close to 95% of the funding. Last year we had them down to 38% of the funding and this year I hope we\u2019ll get under 30%. So that is very important diversification. I do think, as we talk about foundations as we go through this, I would distinguish – because I think it\u2019s a fundamentally important distinction between family foundations, which I think are analytically indistinguishable from wealthy individuals who give away their money through another vehicle, and institutional foundations, which is to say people whose job it is as the Knight Foundation and many others represented in the room, to give away money that was originally somebody else\u2019s. Those lead you to very different places.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray: <\/strong>In what sense?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Good. We should definitely come back to that, but let me go to John Thornton because Dick Tofel\u2019s comments made me wonder if you\u2019re prepared to support the Texas Tribune forever or you\u2019re trying to create a sustainable model so it doesn\u2019t have to depend on your contributions.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"5b5654\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #5b5654;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37643 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/John-Thorton.jpg\" alt=\"John Thorton\" width=\"280\" height=\"266\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John Thornton, Texas Tribune, Austin Ventures:\nWhen Captain Sullenberger flew the jet into the Hudson, there was a line that came after in the telling of the story and at some point he said to his co-pilot, \u201cMy airplane,\u201d and when I put my second million dollars in I said, \u201cEvan, your airplane. So you\u2019re it.\u201d So the answer is, \u201cI\u2019m done,\u201d but that\u2019s, I think, great news for the Tribune – in the sense that that has been the ideal all along, is that we would, over time, diversify to the point that major philanthropy, which we define as any gift over $5,000, would be sort of gravy and would be used for new initiatives rather than to keep the lights on. We\u2019re not there. We\u2019re still about a third reliant on major philanthropy.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> So you\u2019re distinguishing major philanthropy from member small donors\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Thornton:<\/strong> $5,000 and up. The accounts don\u2019t let us treat it that way but we think anything $5,000 and up we wish we could not run that through our income statement. We think of that as equity investment, and so we\u2019d like to just not think about that as anything but investment in the business. We don\u2019t think about it as sustainable revenue.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You\u2019re comfortable with that, Emily? You\u2019re going to get there?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Emily Ramshaw, Texas Tribune:<\/strong>\nI think the goal for us obviously is to move more toward earned revenue and it\u2019s what we\u2019ve been doing from the beginning. I think from an editorial standpoint – talking about foundations for a second, our goal is obviously to wean ourselves as much as we can off of major philanthropy and off of foundation money because it\u2019s – well to put it bluntly, there are strings attached often. When you think about foundation dollars, the foundation money that we get generally comes with some kind of editorial responsibility and that\u2019s either a responsibly for a deliverable, that\u2019s a responsibility to build a particular data interactive, it\u2019s a responsibility to write X number of stories on a particular subject policy vertical. So I think generally speaking, the goal for us is to move as much toward earned revenue as humanly possible because there are no strings attached.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You want out at some point?<\/p>\n\n<p>[PBS documentaries]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dan, you? Will you do 20 – 25 years?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"eaeae7\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #eaeae7;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37661 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Dan-Green.jpg\" alt=\"Dan Green\" width=\"280\" height=\"402\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan Green, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:\nIt\u2019s possible. Particularly because with certain foundations like ours that have specific objectives that are well beyond journalism but are about informing, engaging even much more for knowledge building on certain issues.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>D. Green:<\/strong> Yes, there are strings. So the strings are which is why funding organizations that actually embrace the notion that they\u2019re responsible for informing and engaging certain audiences on certain issues, those are things where if that\u2019s the best alternative for a certain foundation with certain goals, you\u2019ll keep doing it.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> All right. Joel, how many employees do you have now?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Joel Kramer, MinnPost:<\/strong>\nI always find that a hard question because we have so many different types of part time contract\/freelance, but I\u2019d say it\u2019s in the range of 20 – 22 full time equivalents.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes, and are you getting towards sustainable business model?<\/p>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> But you think it\u2019s not realistic?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> No. It may not be unrealistic for the Texas Tribune\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> What I\u2019m saying is that the definitions matter because that is a kind of sustainability that almost resembles being in a for- profit, whereas what Dick was talking about, diversification within philanthropy, we get half our donations from people who give $1,000 or more, but we get half from smaller gifts. Well, is that philanthropy? Some people call it philanthropy, some people call it membership, but we\u2019re not really giving a lot back. I think of it as just smaller version of philanthropy, smaller donors. So I think the question of what kind of sustainability you\u2019re after matters. What MinnPost is after and aspires to and is making progress on, but is not there is to not be dependent on foundations for more than say, 10% or 15% of our budget but within the rest, we are agnostic as to whether we make the money from \u201ctrue earned income\u201d by nonprofit standards like advertising versus whether we get it from donors.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Do you have a goal for donations versus earning?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Right now we get about 25% of our money from advertising and sponsorship, but we would like to get that higher, but we are comfortable with the fact that most of our money is philanthropy – most of our money comes from individuals.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Let\u2019s hear from some of the small guys, and for purposes of this discussion, big is anybody with a double digit number of full time employees but we\u2019ve got three people right here at the end of the table who are well below that standard. Which of you would like to talk about how it\u2019s going? Susan?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Susan Mernit, Oakland Local:<\/strong>\nSo we spend about 30% of our income from ads as well and that kind of earned income is super important to us because part of our mission is to help local small business but the place where we don\u2019t have the resources to really do everything we\u2019d like to is really in individual philanthropy and family foundations. So we\u2019ve done well with national grants to support journalism projects but the kind of team – we have two people who basically are full time and a lot of freelancers, it\u2019s been really hard too\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Two people total at Oakland\u2026?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mernit:<\/strong> Yes. A lot of freelancers and volunteers and it’s been really hard to find the resources both to build up a really competent ad team and then to really work on the board development and the kind of giving that I think some of you have really excelled at.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Based on our survey, that\u2019s not just a problem for those small organizations, that\u2019s a problem for the big organizations. I think the majority of people said that they didn\u2019t have either the time or the resources to build up the business side of the business. Brian, how many employees?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"cbd7d4\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #cbd7d4;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37659 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Brian-Wheeler.jpg\" alt=\"Brian Wheeler\" width=\"280\" height=\"244\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Somebody here can help you with that.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> You know, the two grants in our budget this year haven\u2019t come through yet, so most of our support comes from individual donors. For us, the threshold is $1,000. So $1,000 up is a major donor and that\u2019s more than 50% of our revenue. We also have underwriting on the website and that\u2019s about 14%.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> You call it underwriting, not advertising?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dylan?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37665\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Dylan-Smith.jpg\" alt=\"Dylan Smith\" width=\"280\" height=\"242\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dylan Smith, LION, TucsonSentinel.com:\nCall it what you want – advertising, sponsorship, just as long as there\u2019s exchange for a check on something on the website, that terminology doesn\u2019t matter so much. We have one full time employee, essentially me, and the rest a team of freelancers just to ensure that we remain as flexible as possible as our income ebbs and flows. I certainly like to have more people dedicated full-time and just depends on the\u2026 On election night, we\u2019ve got the biggest news team in town and other times it\u2019s me plugging away all by myself.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So how does that work on election night? Do you have volunteers?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Smith:<\/strong> Volunteers and some really good freelancers and we just could go out and kick some ass.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So who wants to talk about this balance between resources devoted to content and resources devoted to developing the business, which was a consistent theme in the surveys that we did? Yes, Kevin.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Investigative News Network]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> It is what it is.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Now some of that, in our survey – Chris, let me put you on the spot – some of that in our survey they said came from the donors, that the donors wanted most of the money to go to the mission as Kevin put it and not to overhead or\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chris Daggett, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation:<\/strong>\nUnfortunately, some of the statistics that people rely on for good philanthropy is the least amount of money as possible going into administration or to the organization itself. We try adage to frankly, give most of our money to general operating support because we\u2019re trying to give people as much flexibility as possible. To me, the organizational side and what we call the technical assistance side, helping organizations develop whether it\u2019s fund raising capability or organizational development or whatever it happens to be is as or more important than the other things that they\u2019re doing, to be honest with you.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So how do we change that here today? That\u2019s a consistent theme. It seems to be pretty general agreement. If someone ran the table once and argued with the notion, but pretty general agreement that all of you need to be spending a greater share of your funding on developing the business. Yes? Feather.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Feather Houstoun, Wyncote Foundation:<\/strong>\nI just want to draw a distinction here because this is a very – has a bit of a clinical feel to it. I\u2019ve now been sort of up close and personal with about five of these and they all seem to start with people who come out of legacy journalism of one kind or another where no matter where they are, the community they\u2019re in, and I suspect some of these are that way too – in legacy journalism, everybody had classifieds, groceries, and car dealers and so the business model was fairly simple. When you get into the kind of work that people are doing now, you\u2019re dealing with different funder communities and donor communities, different expectations in the constituencies that you\u2019re aiming at, but I think the thing that\u2019s been the most striking to me across the ones we\u2019ve seen is how hugely different the entrepreneurial impulses of the leadership is. So when you talk sort of clinically about what proportion of your business should be here versus there\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> They\u2019re doing what their passion is.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Houstoun:<\/strong> They\u2019re following or they just don\u2019t have the entrepreneurial bone in their body. It\u2019s a big part I think of why we\u2019re having this conversation, but without it in the DNA of the organization, they\u2019re never going to make it. So I just think it\u2019s a little bit more idiosyncratic to the organization. If we see an organization that is doing all the right things about figuring out how to diversify revenue, we wouldn\u2019t be looking at what that proportion is because we can see them doing it. If they can\u2019t produce even a plan to think about it after three or four years, you know you\u2019ve got a problem.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"696e76\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #696e76;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37650 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Ruth-McCambridge.jpg\" alt=\"Ruth McCambridge\" width=\"280\" height=\"283\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ruth McCambridge, Nonprofit Quarterly:\nYou know, I think this is interesting because I think that the categorizations of things get mixed up here. We want to talk about business, but we are in a nonprofit setting and therefore the definitions of things are a little bit different. So I think that when people look at this level of donor issue, it really has to do with independence. So in our shop, what we do is we categorize all individual donors without strings attached as payments. It\u2019s earned revenue. Somebody\u2019s paying because they like what we\u2019re producing. We\u2019re not charging anything because that doesn\u2019t work in this environment, but we consider these to be voluntary payments. It\u2019s earned revenue. We consider the same of any underwriting or sponsorship we have because we have to earn that by the quality of our work. What we don\u2019t want to do is to exchange editorial, our editorial judgment for the money. That\u2019s essentially what it is. We don\u2019t want to exchange the focus of our content or the quality of our content for money.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> How about the quantity?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> And the quantity. We don\u2019t want to have to do that, but I think the question is we want the quantity because we want the impact. The quantity, once we get it and we have the impact, it produces income in voluntary payments if we work it right but getting to where it works right and where people have the expectation to pay for it actually takes capital. I don\u2019t think that we\u2019ve gotten to the place yet in this field where we understand how much capital it takes to build up a good, strong set of individual donors and how much capital it takes to build up sponsorships, but I feel like our business model has to include – these are our strategic advantages as nonprofits. We can use volunteers as part of our structures and we can take volunteering money.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Jeff and then Margaret.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff Jarvis, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism (CUNY):<\/strong>\nQuick question first to Amy. Do we have any sense of the 172 sites what their total reach is?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center:<\/strong>\nTotal reach in terms of audience?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jarvis:<\/strong> Total reach. People. Audience.<\/p>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jarvis:<\/strong> Just people. Unique.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mitchell:<\/strong> In terms of unique? Well, because one – and hopefully we\u2019ll talk about our content partnerships where the work that these organizations are doing, it\u2019s being carried in the daily newspaper or in others that have a wider audience reach.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37641\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Jeff-Jarvis.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Jarvis\" width=\"280\" height=\"153\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Presumably these issues are no less pressing for the ones that are organized as for-profits?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jarvis:<\/strong> I get in trouble with my granola colleagues when I refused to allow my students to do not for profit but that\u2019s because the discipline of learning the business is higher at the forefront. At the end of the day it\u2019s a tax decision.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> I do think it\u2019s a bit of a journalist blind spot. I remember after 911 when I went to South Brunswick for the first time where all the business people and the Wall Street Journal works. Who the hell are these people? We thought we were The Wall Street Journal and there were these thousands of people making phone calls and taking orders and doing all these things but Elizabeth, you\u2019ve got such a big buildup there, I feel like I should give you the opportunity to say something if you like and then we\u2019ll come over to Margaret.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Elizabeth Green, Education News Network:<\/strong>\nOkay. Well, I was going to say that I actually – so we\u2019re an organization now. We merged to nonprofit education news sites and local communities and now we have – I just calculated – we will have 12.5 full time employees by the end of the year. So I guess we\u2019re big but I feel pretty small.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes. By our criteria, you\u2019re big.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37667\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Elizabeth-Green.jpg\" alt=\"Elizabeth Green\" width=\"280\" height=\"294\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You mean what are the different ways that you can monetize your site?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>E. Green:<\/strong> No. I mean what are the specific functions and roles? So I think we have a pretty good idea of how we should be monetizing and we\u2019re doing it and we can invest in that going forward, but beyond just investing in earned revenue creation, there are other elements that constitute business that are important, that get that done, that I didn\u2019t count in that column. So, marketing and distribution and engagement and operations. These are all things that, pretty much, we need to build from scratch.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Is there a model that would be applicable to the organization sitting around this table? Are you all so different that there is no model that would apply to each? Margaret, speaking of mergers, you\u2019re merging with the local public station aren\u2019t you \u2026?<\/p>\n\n<p>[with]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[into]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Eric, you\u2019ve been making grants in this area for how long?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37636\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Eric-Newton.jpg\" alt=\"Eric Newton\" width=\"280\" height=\"244\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[nonprofit news outlets]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> That\u2019s one more thing you don\u2019t have the money to spend on, right?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Female]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> And technology. Technology is another issue that maybe we\u2019ll talk about a little bit after the break, but Steve, let me get you in here.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"dfded2\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #dfded2;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37651 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Steve-Beatty.jpg\" alt=\"Steve Beatty\" width=\"280\" height=\"441\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Penny?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e1dfcd\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e1dfcd;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37648 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Penny-Abernathy.jpg\" alt=\"Penny Abernathy\" width=\"280\" height=\"317\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[speak]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Rose, you wanted to say something about that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37649\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Rose-Hoban.jpg\" alt=\"Rose Hoban\" width=\"280\" height=\"297\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[Unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> But is there a serious scale problem here? \u2026 Maybe what you really need to be doing is go out there and look for partners, either in other locales or within your market, that you can reach the kind of scale that lets you do what you need to do to build up these business skills? \u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[a]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Patch is not the answer.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e2e1d7\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e2e1d7;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37664 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Dylan-Smith-2.jpg\" alt=\"Dylan Smith 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"210\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Smith: Well, we\u2019ve seen the answer to whether Patch is the answer. The bloom is off that rose.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Brian, do you agree with that?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Local Independent Online News]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dick, you\u2019ve had that nametag up for a while.<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> That\u2019s a good point. We\u2019re going to go to Elspeth, Kevin, Ruth, and Joel\u2026Then we\u2019re going to take a break. So I urge you to be very quick and then we\u2019re going to get some coffee and then we\u2019re going to come back and talk about – we\u2019ll leave the business behind because we\u2019ve solved it and we\u2019ll talk about engagement. Elspeth?<\/p>\n\n<p>[with]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Good. I got the timing wrong. We have more time\u2026I\u2019m not going to let you take a break as quickly\u2026.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Kevin?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f2f1ee\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f2f1ee;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37644 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Kevin-Davis-2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Davis 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"227\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Which happens to be what you\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> We\u2019re trying. So when we look at this and we say, \u201cWhich business models fit?\u201d it really does depend on the market – we\u2019ve said this many different ways – it does depend on the market. And frankly, sometimes a journalist – an example would be Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation \u2013 does six reports a year. And when they do their reports, their traffic spikes for about a week and it\u2019s great stuff \u2013 in-depth stuff, business stuff \u2013 but they\u2019re not equipped to have ongoing conversations with their communities. So they have to, by necessity, distribute their content out, and the value proposition for what they produce is very, very different than when you\u2019re producing content in ongoing basis. So it\u2019s very important, I think, that we don\u2019t lose sight that not every type of nonprofit has the same market opportunity or the same commercial opportunity or the same revenue opportunity.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> The result of that, how do you address that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> We have to convince more people that, frankly, I still think the philanthropy needs to be in the mix and we need to understand it. To Jeff\u2019s point, there is an ecosystem here, and \u2026 certain content will need to be subsidized if we believe it’s important. And it is unrealistic and frankly, not necessarily \u2013 I wouldn’t say it\u2019s disingenuous \u2013 but not every nonprofit\u2019s going to be self-sustainable.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> How many of the organizations – and I\u2019ll come back to you, Rose – but how many of the organizations represented here in the room \u2013 just a quick show of hands – believe that the majority of the journalism you do is investigative journalism. Raise your hand. So it\u2019s close to half, maybe a little over half. I think our survey showed of the 93 of us, twenty-something?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mitchell:<\/strong> A little less than half, yes.[1. Note: The Pew Research report found that 21% of nonprofit news outlets focused on investigative reporting.]<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes. Ruth?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> I actually had a very similar thought to Kevin. One of the things that I thought was really fascinating about the Knight report is that it begins to actually set up visual patterns of revenue models for particular kinds of journalism groups. I think that is it gets to Kevin\u2019s point, that we\u2019re not all going to look the same. Some of us are going to be very attractive to advertisers and some of us will not be at all attractive to advertisers. Some of us are going to be great at attracting corporate sponsors and others of us won\u2019t. So the question is, what types of organizations can attract what kind of revenue and with what kind of effort and tools? Actually, one of the things that excited me about coming to this meeting today was looking at these two reports and beginning to see these patterns of business models. That\u2019s in fact what we need as nonprofit news sites to be able to move forward. I do think that we have some extra tools to work with, which is what I was trying to say before. We have some extra tools because we are nonprofits and we should make\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Such as?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> Particularly, we have the ability to ask for and receive tax deductible donations and to say to people, \u201cWe\u2019re dependent on you because we are a nonprofit. We\u2019re not enriching ourselves through that.\u201d That\u2019s a very powerful tool. Secondly, that we can – we\u2019re attractive to volunteers because we\u2019re not enriching ourselves through volunteer activity either. So it looks like a common project for a volunteer. These two things also are somewhat connected because they are civic benefits that we get from being nonprofits. In fact, Wikipedia found – recently, they did a very, very big fundraising project \u2013 and they found that the rates of giving amongst the people who actually put their hands to the editing was much higher than the rates of giving among people who just consumed a product. That says something about engagement that I think we really need to listen to. So for us smaller people who are likely to use volunteers and maybe are not going to get as much big donor money, this is in fact an incredibly important piece of information. A realm that we need to work.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Because donors become consumers, committed consumers?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> Well, active volunteers can become donors, and they also will attract a bunch of consumers because they themselves are networked. So it\u2019s a business model of a type that I think we need to explore, but I think there are a number of these kinds of business models around the work that we\u2019re doing that we haven\u2019t quite surfaced so we can see them yet.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So we\u2019re going to do John, then Vincent, then Rose, but before we do, we haven\u2019t really talked about events at all. Has anybody around the table making significant revenue from events? Emily?<\/p>\n\n<p>[at]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes. It\u2019s a little bizarre because the audience is so much smaller, and yet often the dollars are bigger. Anybody else want to say anything about events before we go? Emily, did you want to get in on that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f4f3f1\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f4f3f1;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37707 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/emilybell.jpg\" alt=\"emilybell\" width=\"260\" height=\"297\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[was with the]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So you think there\u2019s an opportunity that has not been fully tapped by the folks in this room?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong> You know, I really do. I think that as I say, if you were in the middle of New York City, it\u2019s always hard to get people to come to an event but actually everywhere else, that idea that you can convene and meet as you do more shopping online, as \u2026everything else becomes a frictionless experience.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I think Tina Brown just coined a new phrase for this sort of activity as she got booted out the door at the Daily Beast. She was going off to do \u2018theatrical journalism.\u2019 So maybe more theatrical journalism is what we need. John?<\/p>\n\n<p>[a]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Hard for the small guys, you think? No, Rose? You don\u2019t -? You disagree?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hoban:<\/strong> Impossible.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Oh, not hard, impossible?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Smith]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Susan, you have something to say on that?<\/p>\n\n<p>[of]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> But no revenue?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37652\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Susan-Mernit.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Mernit\" width=\"280\" height=\"256\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[on]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[comment]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hoban:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m trying to do a statewide media organization. So I\u2019m trying to build readership all over the state, so where do I do it? My state\u2019s 450 miles in one direction. So no one place to do it. I have big readerships in two of the major markets, but I\u2026.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I\u2019d pick the mountains or the beach.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hoban:<\/strong> Yes. Exactly.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> John?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> So how do we do that? How do we raise the consciousness of\u2026?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know but it\u2019s really on my mind, because in \u201908-\u201909 there was this sort of blip of conversation about informing communities or nonprofit journalism, or whatever you want to call it, as a category of philanthropy. That sort of fizzled when people realized that newspapers weren\u2019t just going to go away entirely, and so I don\u2019t know the answer. But it\u2019s damned important, and I just want to make sure everybody understands. I think bringing donors into this ecosystem is more important today, not less important, even though we\u2019re pedaling like hell trying not to be dependent upon them<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to come back to you, Joel, but I want to focus on the people we haven\u2019t heard from yet, which is Vincent, Tom, Steve.<\/p>\n\n<p>[of]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes. Tom?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Steve?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So can you put a little meat on those bones? What are some of the – because I think it would be useful particularly for the foundations here – what are some of the kind of shared services that you think could be outsourced\u2026?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> Well, I bet others will have more specifics, but for instance, everyone\u2019s talked about development capacity, the ability to develop membership models. That\u2019s an actual expertise. It\u2019s not just a matter of labor. There\u2019s some knowledge to that. If there were people that small groups could tap into, there may be software that they could tap into. There may be technology aspects that others have probably have specific ideas.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Joel and then Amy.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Yes. I\u2019m going to follow up on that, but first, I want to say I think the insight that there are many different kinds of organizations in this ecosystem with many inherently different business models because they have different missions \u2013 like the difference between an investigative site that writes maybe eight stories a year and relies on other media to distribute it versus sites like MinnPost that are trying to build their own audience through volume and then sell that audience through sponsorship and advertising \u2013 and they\u2019re radically different. One of the challenges is you bring together groups of people like this, and I know Kevin has this challenge in the variety he has in INN and I think you got this problem in this room. You bring all these people together and they are not in the same business and they don\u2019t have the same models and they don\u2019t have the same needs. Then, if you do have advice for certain subsets, they don\u2019t have the resources to carry them out. So the suggestion that I would make – we haven\u2019t really\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> No, no. No, that\u2019s not it. You haven\u2019t asked for solutions, but one thing that could be done I believe is to divide this ecosystem into subgroups that actually have a common pattern and interest and treat them as separate groups and then have the – whether it\u2019s the foundation world or they\u2019re wealthy donors or whoever, I think the foundations that care about journalism could be the leaders in doing this – invest in two things: One is the centralized services that Steve is talking about but then secondly, invest enough in the organizations that they will have the capacity on their end to make use of the services they provide to us.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to go to Amy first, but let\u2019s use Joel, your comments, and Steve, your comments, as a kind of a pivot to use the 15 minutes or so that we have before the break to talk about, \u201cOkay, what are the solutions that can come out of this conversation we\u2019re having here today?\u201d Amy?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mitchell:<\/strong> Yes. I think what I was going to add – well, actually lead into that conversation too, which is spinning off what Steve said, but going back to what we heard very early on in this conversation which was at least a number of the funders in the room saying they might be in it for 20 years or more, and then Eric saying, \u201cYou got to show us that you\u2019ve got some reach impact.\u201d But we also know from our research that the majority of these nonprofits, even if they\u2019re all very different, have a staff of less than five. So how do you show that you\u2019re reaching audience and how do you become able to think about actually where you could go for revenue in your community versus somebody else\u2019s community? Which then leads to the question of whether there are some non-monetary ways that these foundations can really offer support in a long term that would have even more lasting impact or help for your organization, whether it\u2019s consulting on business strategy or developing technology platforms or whatever the case may be that could really be something that would bring help beyond just some dollars in the bank.<\/p>\n\n<p>[add]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[For]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Murray:<\/strong> Molly?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"cbc4b7\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #cbc4b7;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37647 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Molly-de-Aguiar.jpg\" alt=\"Molly de Aguiar\" width=\"280\" height=\"272\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[other]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[and]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Technology is a big issue that we haven\u2019t talked about much. I know we\u2019ll probably talk about it some when we get to the engagement point. Our research shows one of the most fascinating things going on in the new space these days is the fact that people are actually reading more than they used to because they have these smartphones in their pocket and they walk around and can dip in on a regular basis. And yet I think the Knight study showed there were only three of the 18 that had actually developed mobile apps, and it\u2019s a huge expense. I spent the last five\/six years of my life running digital operations for The Wall Street Journal. The amount of money we were spending on technology was frightening because you\u2019re developing for the iPhone, you\u2019re developing for the Android, you\u2019re developing for the tablets and that\u2019s for the external-facing technology. There\u2019s also the internal technology. Brian. What can we do to help you?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> Give me some programmers. On the technology front, on my wish list is mobile applications. We\u2019ve started building our database and geo-tagging all of our content, but the dream of developing a mobile app that will present that attractively is a reach for us. With four staff focused on getting the product out, we can\u2019t do that kind of development on our own or even manage a team or pay for a team that could do it. Now, we jumped on the Armstrong CMS platform and we\u2019re probably one of the smaller shops that\u2019s using Armstrong. But this idea of having a toolkit and blending in CRM so that we can keep track of subscribers and donors in a sophisticated system \u2013 we\u2019re thrilled with Armstrong, but I want to be able to take it to the next level, follow what the Texas Tribute is doing, but I need somebody that can come in to our shop or be available to us and make that happen. I\u2019ve got a local technology team working with the Armstrong platform, but we don\u2019t have time to go back and sort of figure out: Are we branching too far away in our customizations? What has Texas Tribune done that we can just grab and implement? That takes a warm body with a lot of smarts figuring out those platforms.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Did you want to say something? Did you want to add to that, Susan?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Elspeth then Elizabeth then Steve.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Revere:<\/strong> Yes. The comment about needing programmers really resonated with me because I\u2019m hearing it from everybody in every field that I work in. The nonprofit sector just is not competitive for programmers. That said, I think what you just said about using technology smartly is important, and I would hope that not every group would need their own programmer, but – so that\u2019s really kind of a challenge, I think, for my colleagues and me in the foundation world to figure out, how we can get some of these needs met. Because I do hear it everywhere I go.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Chris, did you want to-?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Daggett:<\/strong> Absolutely. We\u2019ll take it anywhere, I think, in the end, because the whole idea here is to enable the entire ecosystem, not just in New Jersey, but elsewhere.\nMurray: Okay. Elizabeth?<\/p>\n\n<p>[an]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Steve?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So we have three very sage observers of the newspaper industry who\u2019ve been sitting quietly for the last hour and I think we should now make them talk and then we\u2019ll take our break. Rem, Jane, Rick, in that order.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[in]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> This conversation sounds very similar to what you hear from the for-profits?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McDonnell:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I see. Absolutely. Rick. You get the final word before we go off to caffeine so make the most of it.<\/p>\n\n<p>[see a]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> How many of those organizations are represented around the table syndicate? Well, I was going to ask that question next. How many of you make money from syndication?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong> You can do it either way. You can do it and make some money or you can do it basically to extend the reach of the good work you do.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Okay. Audiences, what we\u2019re going to come back to – we\u2019re going to leave business behind having solved all of those issues\u2026\nEdmonds: One more if I could\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Oh yes, go ahead.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Edmonds:<\/strong> I was interested in reading the Knight report that this particular report was not going to address quantity and quality said \u2013 or tried to measure that and that\u2019s understandable, but I still think that\u2019s a huge lingering issue here; is exactly how much important resources gone away from newspapers, magazines, and to some extent television? Are there ways to go from 170 organizations to \u2013 somebody said 1,500? That might be a next step.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> It is. I mean, if you look at the gap, Amy, what\u2019s the drop off over the last three decades?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> No, I\u2019m talking about the drop off in newsroom employment.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[those]<\/p>\n\n\n<h3 data-is-section=\"true\" data-wp-context=\"{"id":"part-ii-innovations-in-engaging-the-audience"}\" data-wp-interactive=\"{"namespace":"prc-block\\\/table-of-contents"}\" id=\"part-ii-innovations-in-engaging-the-audience\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Part II: Innovations in Engaging the Audience<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> Alan Murray, Pew Research Center:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f3f2f3\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f3f2f3;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37637 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/event-photo.jpg\" alt=\"event photo\" width=\"280\" height=\"185\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the good part. We\u2019re going to talk about the journalism. We\u2019re going to talk about how to build audiences. I don\u2019t think any of you really got in this for the money and if you did get in for the money, you made a big, big mistake. So let\u2019s talk about the journalism, how to engage audiences, how to grow audiences. We talked some in the last session about syndication and I know there are some people who want to talk about syndication but we\u2019re at this interesting moment in terms of technology where you have to decide how much of your resources are going to be spent trying to go through \u2013 trying to partner up or go through traditional media outlets, how much of it would be taking advantage of the ability that digital gives you to go directly to your consumers and I think we should try and get into that and talk about it a little bit, but let\u2019s stick with syndication first for just a minute because, Brian, I know you had something you wanted to say about it.<\/p>\n\n<p>[alt]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Brian, those stories that are in the paper this morning, are those exclusively to the paper?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> Yes. Well, they\u2019re exclusive to them as a media partner. They\u2019re on our website\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> They are on your website? So you can distribute them digitally any way you want to?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So it\u2019s not holding back your digital development?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wheeler: No. In fact, we feed directly to the newspaper\u2019s website via RSS, all the headlines that are partner stories so the headline goes on their site automatically. The link back is to us so all the eyeballs come to our website if you\u2019re looking at it online but we get in the print product which gets us to thousands more people than whatever come to our website.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Jeff?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f0efec\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f0efec;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37640 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Jeff-Jarvis-3.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Jarvis 3\" width=\"280\" height=\"241\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[I totally respect]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jarvis:<\/strong> Funny you should ask.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> \u2026if the revenue is going to Brian?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> And revenue sharing?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jarvis:<\/strong> Right now, it\u2019s just your ad appears there. Obviously, that\u2019s \u2013 a Baristanet post that appears in the South Jersey blog 200 miles away \u2013 that\u2019s not such a viable ad if it\u2019s for a hairdresser so that\u2019s where an ad network needs to come in but it\u2019s a first important step that you have all these big and small profit or not-for-profit media entities now sharing content, sharing audience. It\u2019s also the basis then for doing collaborative projects and more. It\u2019s a kumbaya moment.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Anybody else have interesting syndication content sharing arrangement? So that\u2019s Susan?<\/p>\n\n<p>[a public television station in San Francisco]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Rose?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Wheeler]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[unclear]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"5b5654\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #5b5654;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37657 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Alan-Murray.jpg\" alt=\"Alan Murray\" width=\"280\" height=\"423\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[to spot Steve]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Investigative News Network]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Because any revenue they can squeeze out of these nonprofit\/for-profits is hardly worth it.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> They were spending more time trying to collect the money than they were actually getting it. I\u2019m not suggesting that\u2019s good. I\u2019m just saying that a lot of people have given up on trying to monetize syndication at least on a traditional one-to-one or one-to-many type project.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dick Tofel, how much money do you make off of syndication?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dick Tofel, ProPublica:<\/strong>\nNot an enormous amount. I mean mostly we do use a Creative Commons license. We\u2019re in a little bit of a different spot. The most successful thing that we syndicate in the censure \u2013 you\u2019re probably talking about it, Alan \u2013 are our national data projects where we then encourage other people to pick them up in a way that they can localize them. So for instance, the prescribing \u2013 the prescription drug payments to physicians and then the Medicare system payments out for drugs themselves, both of those have been picked up by lots of news organizations and those applications, we have a couple of arrangements to give people a first look for which they pay but I would say that everybody I think \u2013 I certainly know we are \u2013 is trying to do two things at once, right? You\u2019re trying to get the most exposure for and the most impact for the work you\u2019re doing today and you\u2019re trying to build a platform for tomorrow. I don\u2019t see how you give up on either of those objectives.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> The platform to tomorrow being direct digital\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[shrinking]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Why is that? Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tofel:<\/strong> Yes. The in-print part is easy. There\u2019s no newshole. There\u2019s just no newshole and newspaper after newspaper after newspaper has got 500-word limits. That restricts the number of partners for all of us at all times. The websites I think are simply flying at 100 miles an hour and they don\u2019t have the staff. So here\u2019s this perfectly good thing and they could\u2019ve cut and pasted it. It\u2019s not\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tofel:<\/strong> Right. Well, I mean if you don\u2019t have the staff to cut and paste an 1800-word feature you already paid for\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> But that\u2019s just one more reason why the content sharing syndication model is eventually going to break down, right?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Wall Street]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Joel?<\/p>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes, please because that\u2019s where I want to go too. I mean why\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> So just a few things about our social media work which I think people might find interesting. When we launched our site six years ago, our main way of reaching out to people and telling them what we have done was in email. We had 6,000 people who signed up to get a daily email and they would then link \u2013 in the email, we would send links to all the stories we publish the last 24 hours and much of our traffic came from people linking from that email. Six years later, we still have 6,000 people on that email even though our business has otherwise like quadrupled and what has happened instead is now most of the traffic comes from Facebook and Twitter so we get\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> When you say \u201cmost,\u201d percentage of traffic from social media?<\/p>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> What percentage of the total traffic is social media?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Well, in the past month, for example, 10% of all our traffic, all our pages came from Facebook. So we now have 30,000 Twitter followers, about 10,000 likes on Facebook, and here is an interesting side effect, when we launched, the median age of our reader was 50 and now the median age of our reader is about 41 or 42.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You happy about that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Oh, yes<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Okay.<\/p>\n\n<p>[model]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You have something against old people?<\/p>\n\n<p>[laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> How high can that go? You\u2019re talking about 10% of your traffic now. How high do you \u2013 what\u2019s the upside on social media, anybody? Margaret, did you want to talk about that?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Okay. We\u2019ll come back to you. Yes, Ruth?<\/p>\n\n<p>[full]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You\u2019re talking about a vertical approach?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Female]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> She\u2019s \u2013 yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> Okay. I can give you an example. If we do an article on \u2013 say, we do an article on the diversity of boards in the nonprofit sector, that clearly can go out to any number of audiences that aren\u2019t news sites. It can go out to an organization called Board Source. It can go out through an organization \u2013 it can go out through GuideStar. Those people all have huge lists that respond to them. So we don\u2019t syndicate through another news source but we syndicate through communities of interest and that actually has done more to build our community of readers than anything else that we\u2019ve done because that will bring in literally hundreds, thousands of people on a particular story.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> There are lots of examples of that and social media reinforces that but I\u2019m curious in this room, how many people feel or are working within a defined community of interest? It\u2019s really a vertical approach and how many of you are working more horizontally? How many of you are verticals? I know we got \u2013 and the rest of you are trying to reach a broader audience?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Female]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> Yes. If I could jump in here, we started this discussion about audience really talking about syndication, about how to reach more people but I think when you begin to \u2013 there are a couple of points that are emerging that are really important when you\u2019re thinking about this, all numbers aren\u2019t equal. You can have a little bit of contact with a lot of people. You can have very deep contact with people that is equally important and it\u2019s two \u2013 maybe two different kinds of outreach to build both those things and also increasingly, I think you just have to reach people where they are so the idea that they\u2019re going to come to your website eventually to get everything, I just don\u2019t see that happening.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So you do that through social media?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>McCambridge:<\/strong> Through social media, through networks, through email, through in-person events, through occasional printed publications, through whatever it is that gets to the right group of people that really cares about that and we\u2019re thinking about this challenge in two ways now. One is how do we develop deeper engagement with the people who already know us and love us and also how do we break out of that circle and have much broader impact than we currently have.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Female]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Emily?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e9e4d6\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e9e4d6;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37635 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Emily-Ramshaw.jpg\" alt=\"Emily Ramshaw\" width=\"280\" height=\"301\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Emily Ramshaw, Texas Tribune:\nI want to say that I feel like when we think about expanding audience, for us, I feel like the trend really is about moving into insiders even more than we have been and we are pretty insider shop already but we\u2019re getting ready to launch a user-generated content site that\u2019s sort of an opinion site that\u2019s really going to \u2013 I\u2019m describing it as like the sexy younger sister of the Texas Tribune. We are moving into\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ramshaw:<\/strong> It works. We\u2019re moving into the newsletter business for the people who really want to be let in on the secret, for those of you who sort of watched the Wendy Davis filibuster this summer where we had a zillion people watching our livestream. We\u2019re getting ready to launch and kick start our campaign. That\u2019s going to be all around buying the equipment to be able to livestream from anywhere at any time basically satellite backpacks. So I think for us to drive\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ramshaw:<\/strong> Yes, exactly. For us to drive around \u2013 when we talk about engaging your audience and who that audience is, I think for us and what I\u2019ve heard of from a lot of you is that it\u2019s finding those super users and really moving into that realm.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So it\u2019s less about expanding users and more about mining the ones \u2013 I mean one of the interesting things and Mayur, you should probably speak to this but I felt one of the most interesting things about your research was how little time people were spending on these sites on average. It was two minutes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mayur Patel, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:<\/strong>\nYes, on average, between one and two minutes. Yes. I mean in general, time on site is decreasing across the board for the news industry but this was much lower. The other thing that was important to keep in mind, it wasn\u2019t just time on site but it was also heavy bounce rates and so it was just the combination of the two that was worth flagging.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Did you want to add to that, John?<\/p>\n\n<p>[I\u2019ve said]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[lifeline]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Thornton:<\/strong> I\u2019ve noticed. Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Newton:<\/strong> It\u2019s just what we do.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Although it\u2019s hopeless. That\u2019s hopeless.<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dan Green, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:<\/strong>\nIt depends. I mean it depends on obviously \u2013 it isn\u2019t just like did we get more 19-year-olds? I mean I think part of it is and part of what we\u2019ve been talking about doing and we\u2019ve been partnering with the Knight Foundation on is exactly what Eric said which is at least getting \u2013 it isn\u2019t just metrics for the sake of the foundation and the funder. Hopefully, these are metrics and this is information that the organization can use to actually better reach the audiences that they\u2019re trying to reach and to better actually have impact on the audiences that they want to have impact on and so that\u2019s \u2013 what we\u2019ve realized fairly quickly is we can try to force grantees to measure but the reality is that we have to actually convince them that this is \u2013 getting this information is valuable to their own business.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I was talking to somebody the other day about this very issue and they said to me that if the metrics go to a funder, they will immediately be corrupted and that the only value of the metrics are the ones that you never show to the funder but you use internally for improving\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I think\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e4decd\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e4decd;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37639 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Jeff-Jarvis-2.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Jarvis 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"368\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Emily?<\/p>\n\n<p>[we\u2019ll let you know]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> I\u2019m really tempted to call on Steve here because he was talking earlier about how reporters are allergic to business. They\u2019re also allergic to metrics and they\u2019re also allergic to terms like audience engagement.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong> But they\u2019re not allergic to feedback on their work.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> No. That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n\n<p>[agree standards]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Steve Waldman?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> Well, I guess what I\u2019m saying, I\u2019m being the stodgy business guy in saying you have \u2013 your engagement discussion can\u2019t be in a vacuum outside of the discussion of what your best business model is and there\u2019s not a right way or a wrong way but they should be aligned. Your approach to engagement should be aligned with your approach to your business model.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Steve then Kevin.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Beatty:<\/strong> Yes. I don\u2019t have a problem keeping my reporters away from their metrics. It\u2019s more like Steve said, are they looking at the ones that matter? I don\u2019t need my reporter saying, \u201cWell, I got four people in New Zealand who read my story and I can see that through this.\u201d It\u2019s to keep them from going down that rabbit hole and figuring out, \u201cWell, yes but how many people in New Orleans read it and had an impact and what\u2019s the target audience for what we wrote?\u201d<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So how do you measure impact because page uses a lousy measure of impact? We know that.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Beatty:<\/strong> Well, unfortunately, it\u2019s not empirical. Did that city council member wave our story in front of a city official at the next meeting and say what are you doing about this? That\u2019s how I measure our impact is how often is our work cited, not just how often does it get picked up by our publication partners which is always nice but how often does somebody see it and do something about it? We\u2019ve identified a problem and someone\u2019s taken some action whether that someone is a community organization that wants results or it\u2019s a public official that\u2019s made something happen.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Kevin?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> Yes. I mean before I got into the journalism game, I worked for movie studios and worked with them and there have always been buy side metrics, sell side metrics and internal metrics and you use them for different things. One of the things that I recently wrote in the piece in NetNewsCheck is we spend a lot of time writing grants and reports and things like that so this is a small thing but if people would start to agree on some standards, we wouldn\u2019t have to redo them every single time. We\u2019d write a grant request and report, right? If we consider foundations to be on the buy side, it would be a huge asset to have at least start to approximate. My second point is this which is\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> To have the foundations agree on a set of\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> \u2026measures that they want to monitor?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> And allow them to be imperfect. I don\u2019t know of a single perfect metric on any of the media on the buy side or the sell side. They\u2019re all approximations. I mean Emily\u2019s point was well-taken. So box office is a lousy indicator of how successful a film is so is Arbitron ratings but the fact is that it\u2019s \u2013 there\u2019s a reason why these markets move the way they do and that\u2019s a real opportunity there that can really cut out a lot of inefficiency.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Joel and then Vincent.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"dedfd2\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #dedfd2;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37642 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Joel-Kramer.jpg\" alt=\"Joel Kramer\" width=\"280\" height=\"248\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kramer: Yes. I want to echo that. I think on the subject of measuring what we do, obviously, the Holy Grail is real impact on people and society. I happen to personally not be interested in spending an enormous amount of time on trying to measure that in a quantitative way because I personally think it\u2019s so difficult. The second level though is there are metrics out there \u2013 and let\u2019s start with Google Analytics which everybody uses \u2013 but which are \u2013 and this is echoing Kevin\u2019s point. They\u2019re terribly misused and they\u2019re used differently by everybody and it would be of great value if we could agree on which metrics in the world of say Google Analytics, which web metrics actually matter and why and let me just give one example, okay? Uniques which keep getting talked about in my opinion in our business \u2013 I can\u2019t speak for others are worth zero. They have no relationship to the success of our business. The issue of bounce rate, bounce rate is high because of the number of people who come to your site who aren\u2019t interested in your site so they are functionable as uniques. If you run a website and you run content on it, you are going to get an enormous number of visitors mainly through search and secondarily through various other kinds of linking who are not interested in your site. They will visit for 10 seconds and then after they\u2019re gone, they won\u2019t remember if you asked them where they were and they come from all over the world and maybe even all over the nation but if you\u2019re a local site, they are absolutely irrelevant to your business unless you\u2019re selling national advertising at $0.80 cost per thousand which I recommend you not do, okay? So what we need at least within that web world is some agreement for the foundations, for donors which are the measures that can count. I can tell you for us, we\u2019re interested in people who come back more than once a month. That may not sound like a lot, twice a month, but the reason we think it\u2019s so important is the behavior of people who come twice a month is radically different from the behavior of people who come once a month.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Do you have that metric?<\/p>\n\n<p>[crosstalk]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Just before we leave this, what in your experience is the correlation between uniques and the number of people who come to your site once a month or the number of people who come to your site more than four times?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Well, that\u2019s the problem. That\u2019s why you can\u2019t use Google to measure this because they don\u2019t \u2013 they only answer it by them operating \u2013 whatever they call it the operating system or \u2013 so what I\u2019d say matters is people who come back more than once and also local people if you\u2019re in the local business and then \u2013 and also time on site only among those people who come back.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Who come back?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kramer:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Vincent?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37653\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Vincent-Stehle.jpg\" alt=\"Vincent Stehle\" width=\"280\" height=\"293\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vincent Stehle, Media Impact Funders:\nJournalists might be allergic to metrics but actually, you could take something for your allergies. I take \u2013 I\u2019m allergic to my cats so I take a pill every day<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Tom?<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So can we go back a little bit to social media because if the goal is to get people who are repeat visitors to your site, is social media a good way to do that? Who\u2019s having success using social media to build audience of the sort Joel\u2019s talking about? Steve?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> Yes. In the draft Knight report, we came out closer to the top end on \u2013 we\u2019ve got about 25% of our traffic come from Facebook and Twitter and we\u2019re aggressive about every story that we post, sending it out on the different day parts to make sure it goes out once in the morning, afternoon, nighttime. We rotate whose duty it is to tweet out the stories on the weekend when people have a little bit more free time to read the longer stories that we do and we found our weekend traffic went up remarkably just on retweeting our stories, maybe picking up on a quote or doing something other than the headline but we\u2019ve\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Does that build committed audience?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> I think it does.<\/p>\n\n<p>[stories]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> I think we have a lot of repeat visitors who come for that. I will definitely seize on the idea that uniques aren\u2019t that big a deal. I like that idea.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Elizabeth?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f3f2f2\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f3f2f2;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37666 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Elizabeth-Green-2.jpg\" alt=\"Elizabeth Green 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"205\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Elizabeth Green, Education News Network:\nSorry, I was going to comment on measurement rather than social media. Is that permissible?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You\u2019re permitted. Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>E. Green:<\/strong> Okay. So we created an internal dashboard just for reporters so not business focused impact but just for editorial impact and we created that organically out of our own desire to know what we had done in the past week, month, year but an interesting development as we\u2019ve been building this, it\u2019s taken us longer than we thought partially because there is a gap emerging between the goals that we were setting internally for our reporters and the goals that we were imagining that maybe funders would like to know about and then goals that are more of external and to do with sort of imaginary ideas about what impact means and so I think that\u2019s just an interesting anecdote to throw out is that trying to fill that gap. So I think a lot of the difference has to do with adding in a look at the practices that are most likely to lead to results because the acknowledgment that \u2013 we just \u2013 we will never really be able to measure this perfectly. I think we have to start there and then say okay, well, if we can look at what are the highly likely practices that will highly likely lead to the following outputs or outcomes then those are the things that newsrooms can actually restructure themselves around and reporters can really think about much more than something very abstract like a year out if that makes sense.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dan, did you want to say something or do you just have your\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>D. Green:<\/strong> Yes. Well, one was as long as Emily and others have made a point about the measurement work. So one is to at least note \u2013 for those of you who don\u2019t know that Knight and Gates have funded the Annenberg School at USC to launch the Media Impact Project with a specific goal of better defining engagement, ways of measuring engagement and better understanding when does that engagement actually lead to the kind of outcomes that funders talk about which is raising awareness off and building knowledge, measuring attitudes, perceptions and even behavior change. So really getting a better understanding of when does engagement as you define them and we had an initial meeting even that The New York Times came to and NPR and The Guardian and participant and they even already started to come up with five buckets of engagement and so hopefully, that will all \u2013 as we start talking about it, just keep an eye out for that because I think that will be helpful in the end because really, a lot of this has to do with what funders really care about as an overgeneralization is back to what even what Elspeth said is the outcomes that we\u2019re talking about and how do we get a better understanding of how do we get to those outcomes. I mean to some extent, take Steve \u2013 Steve, your point about the business model but the business model also as it relates to what are the goals or the outcomes that you\u2019re trying to get to and my hope is \u2013 our hope is that funders get good at articulating that. The media organization can agree that those are mutually-desired outcomes that we should figure out how to measure. The last thing I\u2019d say is that part of the Media Impact Project work too is also building a technical assistance team that would then work with media organizations to specifically help them on their own metrics as a separate little bucket of money and support that would allow organizations to get teams of people to come in and do a look at what are the metrics that you\u2019re currently getting depending on the outcomes. Are you taking in the right information or are you \u2013 as a point made as uniques actually make sense for what your goals are. Probably not and so trying to figure out ways of what we want to do is better support media organizations to be able to do it because it\u2019s not helpful to say you need metrics but we all don\u2019t help you figure out what are the right ones to get.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Dick?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tofel:<\/strong> We started I thought earlier by saying that we thought that our businesses were very different from each other and I think there\u2019s a lot of truth to that, different markets, different missions, different kinds of journalism and then somehow, we got around to what I thought was almost an emerging consensus that we wanted the foundations to tell us what the agreed upon set of metrics are. These two things do not connect, right? So I just want to spot that for people. I thought what Steve Waldman said about business models is critical. You need to know what yours is. There is not one. You need to know what yours is and then the last point is I believe \u2013 the more I think about this, the more strongly I believe that transparency is critical to this. Accountability is very difficult in the nonprofit world. When we talk about running these places as businesses \u2013 for-profit business, it\u2019s easy. There is top-line growth at the beginning and bottom-line growth ever after and there you are. Nonprofit is much more difficult and one of the things is I think it\u2019s difficult for us and I think transparency, if you are willing to decide what you think is important and then to tell the whole world quite publicly and on a regular schedule, how you\u2019re doing on it, by the nature \u2013 by human nature, you will drive to that. Now, you may have the wrong direction. Maybe you\u2019re not going to the right place then you\u2019re going to lose but if you are going to the right place and you are posting how far and how fast you\u2019re getting there, it\u2019s going to help a lot.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37655\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Alan-Murray-3.jpg\" alt=\"Alan Murray 3\" width=\"280\" height=\"345\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Murray: Yes. Chuck Lewis, you\u2019ve been sitting there very quietly and taking great notes and I can see it\u2019s sort of all coming together on the page and I think the time has come for you to share the synthesis with us.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Chuck Lewis, Investigative Reporting Workshop:<\/strong>\nIt\u2019s a pretty tall order there. Well, I have just follow off what I\u2019ve just heard here. I do think and have recently written and we\u2019ve talked to a few folks here, I do think that the grantees, these various organizations do need to have a sense of shared values about the so-called metrics. I do think there is a sense initially that most of the interest in this was frankly from the foundations and there is reminiscence here of what happened to other forms of commercial media with metrics over the last 10 or 20 years with story counts and headcounts and folks heading for the door. So I think INN, the Investigative News Network with \u2013 it\u2019s an 86-member organization as an example and we\u2019ve talked should take \u2013 there\u2019s a couple of groups inside INN, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism that Andy runs and I think Investigate West, I think there\u2019s been some conversations of actually finding some sort of common ground to what the journalists in the trenches think is relevant. That doesn\u2019t mean that all the things that we\u2019re hearing are not valuable and very extremely useful including some of the studies that are going on now. I\u2019m not saying that we shouldn\u2019t have those studies but I think this is a new space. Yes, let\u2019s just be really blunt. Local scientists studied participation for half a century and it\u2019s gotten so much better and I think there needs to be a little bit of humility here about this. I\u2019m an old-fashioned guy. To some extent, I think it would be wonderful the more if foundations could also occasionally support the journalism.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Lewis:<\/strong> The actual content. I happen to think that\u2019s really important. We just lost 30% of our reporters in America since 2000 and it\u2019s wonderful that we\u2019re getting better and better with all the metrics but it would be great if \u2013 reporting takes time and it costs money. The commercial realm in many ways can\u2019t do it anymore and in many ways was not doing that much investigative reporting even in the last 10 or 20 years as must be direct. So I think we have an issue here also qualitatively about the best reporting that\u2019s out there and I think foundations do support other sectors and they\u2019ve been doing it for a century and I think they\u2019re going to continue and I think it\u2019s necessary to continue this kind of work. I\u2019ve watched all the accountability. I\u2019ve been in this space 24 years and the most interest in metrics has been the last couple of years.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> No. It is interesting. We did start out the session talking about great journalism and somehow we drifted into metrics which as you point was not \u2013 for most journalists, a completely foreign topic. I mean I spent decades of my career in news meetings with editors who said, \u201cOur readers like this and our readers don\u2019t like that and our readers want more of this and they want less of that\u201d and the truth is they didn\u2019t have a clue. They had nothing, didn\u2019t have a shred of evidence what our readers liked and didn\u2019t like. It was just a good thing to say in news meetings. It is a pretty dramatic change but it\u2019s also a reality, right? I mean that\u2019s what the funders are looking for and the metrics do exist so it\u2019s hard to ignore them. Mark, we haven\u2019t heard from you.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Investigative Reporters and Editors]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Can you just go a little further with that? Specifically, what sorts of things are you talking about?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Horvit:<\/strong> Well, just one simple example is that there are different ways to do \u2013 and so we work with for-profit legacy, whatever you want to call it, media and nonprofit and everyone\u2019s dealing with a lot of the same issues but \u2013 so the traditional method of doing an investigative project is to work, work, work, work, work, gestate, gestate, gestate, give birth to this big thing when it comes out and then go take a nap, right? So that\u2019s fine but what you\u2019re seeing more and more of and partly out of the same necessity is the rolling investigation kind of thing, the idea that you break this into \u2013 the work is not less important and you don\u2019t do less \u2013 the impact isn\u2019t different in the end but you\u2019re breaking this into pieces as you go along and there\u2019s a sustained constant hit. We\u2019re talking about doing the\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e3decd\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e3decd;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37654 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Alan-Murray-2.jpg\" alt=\"Alan Murray 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"392\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Murray: You build audience by doing that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Horvit:<\/strong> Yes. Right, exactly. I mean it\u2019s anybody \u2013 and just from forgetting about the business part of it, when we go and talk about this and we\u2019re talking news organizations, anybody can withstand one hit if you\u2019ve done something wrong. If there\u2019s one big hit and it disappears, the odds of having any impact are very slim but if you beat that drum continually and if it comes out in pieces and you keep it going for a while, you see all sorts of impact happen that might not have happened otherwise but that can also play into the way you bring traffic to your site, into the way people respond to it and the kind of audience that you build. So I just think that the way you think about doing your content has to factor into this whole discussion, not simply how you get word out about it once you\u2019ve done it.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Anybody want to respond to that \u2013 to that point in particular, the campaign, the repeated hit? Emily?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong> No, I mean that\u2019s absolutely said much better than I could say but that\u2019s why we teach in reporting classes because it is absolutely tied to the format, the way that you report something out and that is tied to the platforms and social behavior of people in the wider world. It is tied to the fact that continual partial attention is now completely different for publishers than the packaged media world where you\u2019d send something out. You knew that you had a very predictable reception and response to it and when you look at the work that ProPublica does in this \u2013 it\u2019s had a great story out today but just as important is the format of that and that, we were talking about earlier and saying this is about process. It\u2019s about understanding process.<\/p>\n\n<p>[around]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Bell:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not once and done. It\u2019s about understanding the entire lifecycle of that and understanding how the reporter and the editing and the presentation fits into that but where that gets us too on impact metrics, I\u2019m not quite sure. I think it gets us to a point where we \u2013 where actually it\u2019s a professional craft. We understand just much more about what we\u2019re trying to do, who\u2019s reading us, how we can make them understand or read a bit more in an intelligent way rather than the way that\u2019s necessarily dictated by different business model which is the pure advertising or subscription business model and that\u2019s the big thing for nonprofits which is the measurement of impact is inevitably going to be different.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Brian?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f0eeef\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f0eeef;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37658 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Brian-Wheeler-2.jpg\" alt=\"Brian Wheeler 2\" width=\"280\" height=\"295\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wheeler: The metric I\u2019m worried about right now is our fall fund drive, right? So we\u2019re going to be doing fundraising and going back to social media, we didn\u2019t experiment. We matched home addresses to as many of our Facebook followers as possible and we sent them a targeted annual fund drive campaign letter with an envelope and very few of those came back. So what we found was that that audience, while its 14% of the traffic driver to our site, it\u2019s not a rich resource as far as our fund drive. So the people that send us money are those that get our weekly emails so that list is about 11,000.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Where do they come from?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> Well, we recruit them over time, build up that list but those are people getting a weekly dose and they\u2019re clicking through and those are our annual givers. They\u2019re giving under $1,000 but that is a much better channel for us to try to raise money.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Margaret?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"e0e0ce\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #e0e0ce;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37646 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Margaret-Freivogel.jpg\" alt=\"Margaret Freivogel\" width=\"280\" height=\"327\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Freivogel: We tried a quick experiment a couple of weeks ago in different kinds of coverage related to a veto session of the legislature and instead of just doing the standard preview story, we broke it down in a lot of different ways, cast of characters, Veto Session 101, scorecard, live tweets, stream and some of these we thought might be more sharable in Facebook and some of them work better on Twitter and some of them work better on our website and so we\u2019ve \u2013 then we can go back and look at who \u2013 looked at what but all in all like created a lot more involvement than simply the standard coverage.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Okay. So let me turn the conversation here just a little bit because we\u2019re going to run out of time very quickly and this is a pretty unique opportunity to have all these people sitting in one room for even a brief period of time and I don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to get you all together again. So I\u2019d like us to walk out of here with some suggestions on what can come of this that will actually help to get us to the goal we\u2019re talking about. I mean what are the next steps that can grow out of this discussion we\u2019ve been having for the last couple of hours. The tags, the nametags all go down. Susan, do you have an idea? Yes?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mernit:<\/strong> I find this discussion very energizing and I appreciate the chance to hear from so many groups that are so different than Oakland Local in terms of their size or their location. I think that actually putting some resources toward a smaller group that was a best practices task force, that would be fantastic because there are many people here like Brian who I\u2019ve talked with quite a bit and some people, I never talk with and some of the ideas here like John Thornton\u2019s equity, I would love to actually pursue that in my own area. So I think looking at maybe doing a follow-up survey, looking at what some of the greatest needs are, I mean how could you fuel some small working groups that could do some very specific toolkits just the way Knight has funded community toolkits that people actually use. Maybe some of us could help create toolkits that this field could use.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Is that a shared view? I mean in general, among the practitioners here, let\u2019s leave the funders out for a second and the thought leaders out for a second and we\u2019ll leave Jeff out for a second. Among the practitioners, do you have a lack of contact with each other, a lack of ability to understand best practices or do you feel like you\u2019re getting all that you need? Steve?<\/p>\n\n<p>[Local Independent Online News Publishers]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Anything additional you feel you need? I mean what\u2019s your view of what should come out of this discussion today?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> Well, one very specific thing that we\u2019ve touched on a few different places and like John, I\u2019m also envious of Joel, is that the demographic research of our own audience. I have a chance I think with a partnership with a local university to do a little bit more audience study but I hope they have the expertise at it because I certainly don\u2019t, but to be able to say to both funders and advertisers and just to their fellow readers, here\u2019s what our readership looks like.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Kevin?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"c8c2b5\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #c8c2b5;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37645 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Kevin-Davis.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Davis\" width=\"280\" height=\"246\"><\/figure>\n\n<p>[Center for Public Integrity]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You\u2019re really asking for patience?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Davis:<\/strong> I\u2019m asking for patience but also let\u2019s \u2013 for example, I think it\u2019s exciting the grant that Texas Tribune and John Thornton is doing and some of that stuff too. We need to reward best practices but we have to also recognize that not everything fits and we have to take a look at it that way so yes.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Steve?<\/p>\n\n<p>[zoom up]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> I think Pew and Knight are \u2013 I sing Pew and Knight\u2019s praises all the time and not only because my last two paychecks came from Pew and Knight.<\/p>\n\n<p>[Laughter]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> That\u2019s great but when you think about where the support \u2013 putting Gates aside for a second \u2013 where the support comes from, Carnegie, Ford, Knight, Pew and yet when you look at the winners of the new economy, Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T, which in \u2013 just taking those four companies and again, I\u2019ll occupy Pew on you but the amount of money that \u2013 or profit that those four made in a quarter is $24 billion. Just one quarter \u2013 not revenue but profit from those four companies and all this by way of saying that if the winners of the new economy put even a tiny bit of their wealth into this as an issue, we \u2013 this whole space would be transformed. With all of this \u2013 all of the conversation that we\u2019ve been having about how to get more bang for the buck and how to be more effective is absolutely true. You have to do that but there\u2019s a bigger\u2026<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> It\u2019s worth pointing out the winners of the new economy were winners of the new economy on other people\u2019s content.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waldman:<\/strong> Well, that\u2019s \u2013 okay, once again. Putting aside whether or not anything \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter whether good things or bad things were done, it\u2019s just positive that it was all good stuff but it still matters that there are huge entities that are on the sideline for the most part in this debate who have the ability to have a massive impact.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> It\u2019s an interesting point. Chris, you wanted to say something about that?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"f0efef\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #f0efef;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37660 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Chris-Daggett.jpg\" alt=\"Chris Daggett\" width=\"280\" height=\"317\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chris Daggett, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation:\nI do. So I mean speaking from a funder standpoint, in my view, a couple of things, one, we don\u2019t say it enough. I think this is all about democracy for me and we \u2013 it\u2019s the undercurrent here but it\u2019s all about getting people engaged and in my mind among other things from a funder perspective picking up on what you said, Steve, we as funders that are in media now or supporting media need to help you get other funders involved and we need to do it by going to other foundations. We need to go \u2013 Knight has done an incredibly good job of doing a lot of your funding through community foundations but what hasn\u2019t happened is the up sell. The people that are in community foundations, the donors or the people that are in donor-directed funds don\u2019t get \u2013 we need to mine them and get them interested other than just having community foundation use some its discretionary money which unfortunately is usually just a pittance relative to the overall community foundation and we need to mine those databases, if you will, and start to really aggressively pursue them. I see that as a \u2013 if I told you how much time I spend personally in trying to build collaboratives of funders in not just media but in education, other areas that we fund, I spend an enormous amount of my time because I deeply believe that if we have an interest and you have something in your guidelines that says you\u2019re interested too, I\u2019m going to go talk to you because I want to understand what in that area you\u2019re interested and can we collaborate because if we pool our money in a similar fashion you\u2019re talking about, we can have a much greater impact. So I think that \u2013 if the thing that we\u2019ve been starting to talk a little bit about this among funders, we\u2019ve got to do that and we\u2019ve got to do it sooner rather than later and we\u2019ve got to do it \u2013 casting as wide a net as possible.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> So we\u2019re going to do Margaret, Brian, Elizabeth, Vincent, and then Michael\u2019s going to wrap us up.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Freivogel:<\/strong> So what the people in this room collectively can do is articulate in a way that is visible nationally why this movement of news organizations is important. Why it\u2019s important to the future of communities that it\u2019s necessary for various kinds of funders to step up and support it and what\u2019s the realistic expectation at this point for the experiments and organizations that are existing and all that done in a very visible way would be very helpful to those of us on the ground going out and talking to people.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><img data-dominant-color=\"d0cab9\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #d0cab9;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-37656 not-transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2013\/10\/Alan-Murray-4.jpg\" alt=\"Alan Murray 4\" width=\"280\" height=\"423\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Murray: Brian?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Wheeler:<\/strong> I worked at the W. Alton Jones Foundation for seven years so I have a little bit of foundation experience and I think we were known as a collaborator with other funders, Dodge Foundation, Surdna, et cetera. Now, in this business running on nonprofit, what I want from funders is somebody to say, \u201cWe want to be your partner.\u201d I want them to come to us and say, \u201cHow can we help you innovate and take that initiative?\u201d That would help us a lot. We don\u2019t have the time to think about all of our needs and then put them into a proposal that would pass muster with a lot of the funders but we\u2019re doing good work. We\u2019re survivors. We\u2019re persistent. I mean this group right here I\u2019ve gotten to know really well and we\u2019re doing amazing work in our communities but to get a nudge in the right direction to take our tools and our platforms and our training and our expertise, we could be partners with you but some of the initiative I think needs to come from the funders back down to us.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Elizabeth?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>E. Green:<\/strong> That\u2019s an awesome point. I just want to repeat something I said earlier which is connect us to each other but also connect us to outside resources. So that trip that I made to Birchbox, tech companies like that that have already invested in the growth edges that we\u2019re working on, I would rather learn from them and to have all of us to do it together at the same time.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Vincent?<\/p>\n\n<p>[is]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> Michael, you get the final word.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Michael Maness, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:<\/strong>\nI have more than one. Is that all right?<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Murray:<\/strong> You get the final words.<\/p>\n\n<p>[unintelligible]<\/p>\n\n\n<p>[Male]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maness: Large money, yes. That has to go through our board approval process because of the size of it but I\u2019m just saying you know that what I\u2019m hearing and we\u2019ve heard that before and we\u2019re trying to figure out a way to do that to reward that iterative experimental spirit and to help you future proof but you have to have a plan to do that. You have to have some idea of demonstrating it and showing that it is a thing One of the things you point out with the Texas Tribune all the time is that if you break down what their organization in terms of payroll looks like, it\u2019s thirds and thirds and thirds. It\u2019s a third business step, a third tech, a third content and that\u2019s the kind of thing you really need to think about and what can you stop if you don\u2019t feel like you can \u2013 the beast that you created doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be fed every day. You can also raise another beast so if you really think about what those things are. A super big thank you to Pew for all the hard work and for Alan, amazing job. So thank you very much for hosting and being master of ceremonies. Again, we really appreciate that. You\u2019ll have more communications from us around this process in the next 60 to 90 days but we really appreciate coming this afternoon and safe travels everyone. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>END<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Future of Nonprofit Journalism Friday, September 20, 2013 Pew Research Center Transcript follows below the video. Part I: Future Prospects for Financial Sustainability Dick Tofel, ProPublica: For us, I think the answer is yes. The Sandlers started out at probably close to 95% of the funding. 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