Sustainability in news-the platform may be there but the money isn't

I am reading with great interest the New Knight Foundation report on the viability of news and in particular how the study reports some of the ways, beyond quality journalism, that nonprofits in particular are striving for financial stability.

In particular the authors say that high-quality reporting alone will not create an organization that can sustain its ability to produce news in the public interest.

Instead they add, successful news organizations,have to act like digital businesses, making revenue experimentation, entrepreneurship and community engagement important pieces of the mix.

Such that understanding how to create social and economic value and how to adapt and innovate are just as important as good content.

It is a fair point.On the fact that quality journalism doesn't pay the bills,I can concur and what they suggest is the following

1.A business development strategy and capacity to execute it.

2.A high level of audience focus and innovative approaches to build community engagement.

3. Technological capacity to support and track engagement.

Whilst this ia all well and good,it seems rather ironic that none of the seven local sites that they focus on in the study,all in the US,are making a sustainable living.

We live in hope

The eventual destination of the printed newspaper, then, looks likely to be the equivalent of the artisanal cheese.

Far too much gets written about the future of the media,mostly by navel gazing journalists but Ian Jack's piece in this morning's Guardian is well worth a read.

At their best, newspapers became beautiful objects. I shall miss them reminds us that newspapers need revenue, and their income still comes overwhelmingly from their printed rather than digital editions but advertising has declined and will never return to print in anything like its previous volumes.

Lessons that have been known for sometime yet the industry has clung onto the flawed model.

As Jack writes

If you like newspapers, the future looks dark. Only a couple of the qualities – the Telegraph and the Financial Times – make any money. If you like national newspapers and live at a distance from London, the future looks even darker. The supply chain that takes newspapers from printing presses to newsagents is fragile.

But to me his last paragraph sums up all that is wrong with the industry

This week I went to a glamorous event in the Banqueting House in Whitehall where a panel of the great and good, led by Sir Harold Evans, debated regulation of the press. Someone from the floor said the phrase "dying industry" and produced a small stir in the chamber, as though some truths were better parked outside in the cloakroom.