Abstract
Magda Konieczna, journalism professor at Temple University, saw her former newspaper Guelph Mercury, one of the oldest in Ontario Canada, dwindle in size and staff until its closure a few years ago. The sinking of this newspaper was significant to its local community and came out of similar circumstances that have closed so many other news organizations in the United States and abroad. Journalism Without Profit acknowledges, but does not dwell in the loss of such news organizations. It looks for the emerging opportunities for “field repair” in the evolving field of journalism. Field repair “involves working to fix journalism from within, both by giving away quality content to other organizations to publish (which I call news sharing), and by encouraging other organizations to do better work” (p. 87).
Journalism Without Profit analyzes the rise of public service journalism, so essential for democracy, brought by nonprofit news organizations that are innovating in very specific ways. Konieczna contextualizes these news organizations, bringing the history, business models, funding processes, distribution model, and collaborating and sharing strategies that are part of the process of this field repair. She argues that the traditional for-profit journalism was poorly adept at presenting quality public service journalism, with in-depth investigative pieces that did not fit the pressures of commercial media. She then explains how this is an opportunity to rethink how journalism is done and reinvest in its democratic purpose. Konieczna reveals why the innovations brought by nonprofit journalism can work, and why some won’t, all through the story of three successful news organizations: The Center for Public Integrity, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and the MinnPost.
This book would make an excellent reading material for an entrepreneurial journalism course, for an upper-division undergraduate or a graduate course, and as supplemental reading material for media management and business of journalism courses. Konieczna identifies what makes public service nonprofit news so uniquely adept to repair journalism and, in doing so, gives us a model for how to comparatively analyze emerging digital news organizations and predict under what conditions certain innovations would work or not. I can see that as a class assignment, or ongoing discussions. But, just as importantly, this book provides excellent tips and resources for those who are in the process of creating or joining the growing group of nonprofit news organizations and those who want to act as prepared “captains” (p. VIII) of news initiatives.
The author brings us a well-researched book with rich insights from the newsroom ethnography conducted with the three nonprofit news organizations. These three news organizations give us a good idea of the different choices, as related to their scope. Chapter 6 provides some excellent comparative tables, clearly summarizing these variables. These insights, along with the context of the news industry in general, nonprofit news, and public service journalism, more specifically, are the foundation of the book. The book is full of historical data, and some good anecdotes along the way.
Chapter 5, focused on news sharing and different collaborative strategies, starts with a wonderful tale of how journalists from ProPublica and The Marshall Project were able to work against their competitive nature, get over a scoop, and collaborate on a story that won both of them a Pulitzer Prize. This story very clearly presents the challenge of innovation, which takes rethinking the norms and behaviors for the sake of bringing better stories for the public good. The exchanges and the thought process behind the story are vivid examples of field repair. If you were to choose a chapter to get students interested in these changes, chapter 5 would get them to read the whole book.
Collaboration and news sharing are some of the innovations being brought in this new journalism environment. By sharing news and investigations with mainstream news organizations, these nonprofit organizations broaden their reach while, at the same time, engage in filed repair. Collaborating in the investigations provides the readers with a richer news story or, as the author states, the “network becomes larger than the sum of its part” (p. 149) but it also requires new skill sets, such as trust building.
The book provides a hopeful, but not rosy, view of the news in this current challenging environment. It is a chance to rethink the purpose of news and, with that, to allow for innovation to emerge. How these news organizations will fare a few decades from now is hard to know but, as she states, “the organizations I’ve examined here are sure to contribute to the future, if not by their existence in it, then at least through the path they’ve forged” (p. 216).