Newspapers have always been vanity projects
With their business model apparently broken, newspapers are struggling to find new ways of working. The San Francisco Chronicle is talking about a Scott Trust style foundation to remove the need to chase profit.
It sounds like a good idea, but it won’t work. As recent days have shown, the Scott Trust is not so cuddly if you work on local newspapers in Manchester or Reading.
Going not-for-profit is unlikely to be enough. Newspapers appear to require owners who can offer significant subsidies too; benefactors like Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev who has saved London’s Evening Standard.
But hasn’t this always been the case?
The Guardian was founded by a group of businessmen with a political agenda; the Times gave a prosperous coal merchant a voice; the Daily Telegraph was created so its founder could air a personal grievance; and the Sun (launched as the Daily Herald) was created to support striking print workers, which is most ironic.
Comments (One comment)
Stephen,
The Guardian Media Group has been making sizable profits and even now is still making profits.
The model is to keep unreasonably high profit margins by making cuts that are unsustainable to the quality of the local media.
I am not sure a co-operative model is the answer but it should be considered.
Have a look at my blog and my impression of the NUJ meeting on the subject, I think you might be surprised
Rob
RobArtisan / March 30th, 2009, 8:42 pm / #
Post a comment