Ensuring public service news provision in the era of networked communications

Introduction

In the first decade of the 21st century, media systems in Western societies reached a tipping point as audiences became fragmented due to platform plus channel proliferation, and as revenue stability for legacy media correspondingly declined. Most consumers continue to use and value parts of the legacy media system, but media systems are increasingly complicated and complex. News consumption is increasingly individualized, social, and diverse, and provision is correspondingly more opinionated, uneven, and polarized.

This article addresses concerns about an apparent decline in commitments to a public service orientation in news provision. This concern is not restricted to journalistic practice in public service broadcasting (PSB) institutions, although they are an important component of a comprehensive news media system and by no means excluded. But PSB is most characteristic in northwest Europe, and to an important but more limited extent in British Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, etc.). There is growing interest in developing PSB (or public service media (PSM), i.e., not only broadcasting but also online) in parts of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East (Lowe and Yamamoto, forthcoming), but the institutional form remains a comparatively unique social and cultural phenomenon that was developed for handling communication as mass media in the early 20th century (Ala-Fossi, forthcoming; John and Silberstein-Loeb, 2015). We believe the deterioration in commitment to the public service ethos merits action to ensure the development of a comprehensive and sustainable news media system in the context of networked communications.

The economic precondition for online news provision is sometimes treated as an either/or proposition. Some suggest online news must be commercially profitable to be secure, while others suggest it can only be secured on a nonprofit basis – funded either by charitable foundations and donors, or by taxes as in European PSB. Reviewing the literature, it is clear that ensuring the sustainability of a comprehensive system requires an integrated approach in policy, funding, organizations, and practices to nurture both for-profit and nonprofit sectors, in both legacy media and digital native media, and in both institutional and noninstitutional contexts. At issue, then, is news provision that is dedicated to a public service mission and our argument is, in a nutshell, that the problems are systemic and thus also the potential solutions.

We therefore conclude with consideration of three dimensions that are essential for cultivating a comprehensive news system: (1) policy foundation, (2) collaborative networks, and (3) professional values. Discussion is premised on business and management issues because this is an essential requirement for sustainability in the provision of news of all kinds on any basis. Our primary concern is not economic, however, but rather with ensuring the on-going development of the public service ethos and related journalistic values. This focus encourages consideration, as well, of implications for contemporary journalistic education.

Double toil and trouble

The transition from an era when mass media were dominant to a networked communications environment is highly disruptive for legacy operators. That matters because:

Legacy media are characteristically mass media and to date the only instruments for constructing audiences of sufficient size to facilitate the robust democratic discourse that is essential for political self-determination by society as a whole (OECD, 2010).

In the USA, the newspaper industry has suffered steep decline in the number of employed journalists, falling from 56,400 in 2000 to 32,900 in 2014, the most recent data available (ASNE, 2015). According to a recent study published by the Pew Research Center (2015), newspaper companies in the USA suffered a decline in advertising revenue of 60% in the period between 2006 and 2014. The characteristic response has been cost cutting – tallied at 18,000 editorial jobs in this period.

Those still employed are working at lower pay with significantly less job security (McChesney, 2012). A 2013 report found that of 172 nonprofit news sites in the native digital media news market, 78% have five or fewer full-time paid employees and that figure includes business and administrative roles, i.e., not only journalists (Mitchell et al., 2013).

Despite recent growth, on average online revenue accounts at most for about 15% of total revenue for commercial sites, and for many legacy media news operators as little as 3–5% (NAP, 2013; Taylor, 2014). Print advertising revenue decreased by 6% worldwide in 2013 while digital advertising increased 11%, but nonetheless ‘remains a relatively small part of overall internet advertising [because]…most of it goes to Google’ (WAN-IFRA, 2014). Legacy business models have been ‘irrevocably disrupted’ and contemporary models will have to be ‘fundamentally different’ (Grueskin et al., 2011: 8). Key findings in a recent report from the Reuter’s Institute for the Study of Journalism are pertinent (Newman and Levy, 2014):

The number of people paying for digital news has not grown much and remains at just above 10% across case countries (USA, UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, urban Brazil, and Japan).

The transition from a media system dominated by legacy mass media to a system increasingly characterized by networked communications, both native digital and legacy types, is characterized by disruption. That creates instability, which causes unpredictability. This is the least desirable situation for any business due to heightened risks in volatile markets. Media industries enjoyed stability between roughly 1880 and 1970 because media scarcity guaranteed predictable and high margins. A respected former Nevada publisher and academic who worked as a senior manager for many years in the Gannett chain said profit margins were as high as 49% in the 1970s. ¹ In recent years the US average has been about 11%, with many nearer to 5%. In 2014 print losses for US newspapers outpaced digital gains by a margin of 10–1 (Pew Research Center, 2015).

Since 2008 when the global economic recession took hold, numerous research projects have produced databases and related reports about online journalism with particular interest in economic sustainability (e.g., Bruno and Nielsen, 2012; Cook and Sirkkunen, 2012; Knight Foundation, 2013, 2015; Newman et al., 2015; Pew Research Center, 2013; WAN-IFRA, 2015; Williams et al., 2014). As a whole, the reports indicate a pressing need for management skills and business knowledge, as well as journalistic training. A 2013 analysis of 93 online news websites conducted by Pew Research Center found that half reported problems in fundraising, management, and marketing.

Most start-ups rely heavily on content contributed by users/members/subscribers and on curation (linking to stories published by other outlets). Although profits are beginning to accrue, few operators are realizing enough to sustain an enterprise without significant personal expense and most of the so far successful depend on charitable donations and grants. Many of those launched by professional journalists manifest a legacy media mindset that isn’t sufficiently aware of, or at least concerned enough about, integrating with social and mobile media.

Typical recommendations feature a range of factors that are business oriented and management related:

Limiting employees to contain costs;

As Clare Cook and Esa Sikkunen (2012: 23) observed in their study of 69 native digital online operations, journalistic accountability and the role of journalism in serving the public interest in civil affairs is unclear but of equal importance, at least, with concerns about economic sustainability. The combination of accountability and sustainability is our essential interest, which encourages a systemic perspective on news provision and journalistic development in the emerging ecosystem of digital networked communications.

Legacy media firms are struggling to cope with the surging abundance of platforms, channels, and competitors in the context of rapid, on-going development in both technological infrastructure and changing socio-cultural behaviors. Media abundance is linked with the rise of menu-driven consumption that is markedly different from consumption patterns in the mass media era.

The rise of ‘menu-driven media consumption’

The logic of linear flow explains how legacy media work and the position of consumers in their use (Webster, 2014). Traditional content production and distribution demonstrates ‘the power of schedule’ (Hujanen, 2002). In contrast, on-demand logic is characteristic in networked communications. The line-up remains linear when understood as a series of selected content options, but both the elements and the order are not determined by content providers. Users individually construct the line-up each prefers. The flow experience is idiosyncratic and personalized rather than synchronic and prescribed as users select what they want via interactive menus. Menu-driven news consumption is increasingly preferred by consumers, but is not yet sufficiently profitable for most news companies when compared with historic margins and investor expectations (Briggs, 2011).

We are dealing with two categories of media that have distinctive properties and different dynamics: (1) legacy and (2) native digital. This is not to imply any lack of nuance. ‘The Media’ comprise a range of industries that don’t work the same way and aren’t all in the same situation (Faustino and Ribeiro, 2015; Stavitsky, 2012). Conditions vary across regions. Newspapers are blooming in some parts of Asia and Africa, but in sharp decline in the West. Nor do we suggest that legacy firms aren’t investing in new approaches, products, and markets in efforts to develop their online offers. Far from dying out, legacy media still own the bulk of respected media brands (Rosenstiel, 2011; Siegert et al., 2015). But Jarvis (2014) has usefully observed a range of fundamental contrasts that include the importance of engagement over transmission, of service as much as content, of process as much as product, and of curation as much as origination of news stories. For media today, economic complication is characteristic (Doyle, 2013; Picard, 2011).

Yochai Benkler’s work (2007) is especially helpful for understanding the underlying dynamic. In The Wealth of Networks he provides a firm scholarly footing for understanding the transition from an industrial information economy to a networked information economy. Two essential characteristics are relevant here: (1) enhanced autonomy for the individual and (2) the networked public sphere.

Mass media dominated the industrial information economy. The paradigm was highly beneficial for democratic development, but structurally flawed by inability to incorporate the widest range of public opinion and interests. Media were scarce, so owners had considerable power to shape public opinion and decide what kinds of information the public received, and how it was presented. Media concentration is characteristic due to the scale of required investment and, for commercial media, a corresponding requirement for satisfactory profit margins. In consequence, many topics are not treated and there are systematic biases that reflect the interests of a popular majority and ruling social elite. In commercial practice the goal of maximizing advertising revenue discourages content that could potentially offend coveted audience segments. As a result, individual participation is severely limited and media systems are hierarchical. This could be interpreted to mean that in the mass media paradigm the media manage democracy (see Curran, 2011; Herman and Chomsky, 1988; McChesney, 2015; Prat and Strömberg, 2013).

As Benkler observes, despite limitations mass media were the dominant form of public communication in the 20th century and comprised the normative foundation for media policy and industrial practice. And the most serious problem with mass media was an inherent incapacity for ‘universal intake.’ Although mass media satisfy the need for universal access, they are inadequate for ensuring that the concerns of all the governed are respected and, to the extent possible, represented.

Nonlinear media are splendidly suited for overcoming these problems. But as the system matures there is an increasingly pointed, complicated, and high-stakes ‘clash between incumbent institutions and emerging social practices’ (Benkler, 2007: 56), i.e., between legacy media and native digital media. This clash is primarily over income. We differ with Benkler in underscoring that conflict is equally between legacy operators on the two most significant mass media platforms: newspapers and broadcasters, although in fairness this dynamic has only become pointed since his book was published. Rivalry is increasingly sharp as competition becomes head-to-head online. This is a core reason for Benkler’s advocacy of nonmarket players.

There are two differences he considers decisive about networked communication: (1) the system architecture is open and (2) the cost of being a speaker is cheap. This second distinction is debatable. It applies when setting up a blog or posting self-made videos on YouTube, but there are significant costs for producing and distributing quality contents online. The first distinction is most important for our interests. It implies significant differences in how public sphere(s) are structured. This could be interpreted to mean that in the networked communications paradigm there is a higher probability of democratic practice managing media.

Given characteristic dynamics in the commercial drive for profits, Benkler considers nonprofit news operators necessary to ensure consistent, comprehensive, and diverse news provision in systems that are increasingly characterized by networked communications. He is encouraged by the ‘much greater significance of non-market, individual and cooperative peer-production efforts to produce universal intake of observations and opinions about the state of the world and what might and ought to be done about it’ (Benkler, 2007: 261).

The battle over the future of media systems is mainly fought in legal proceedings and over policy direction. Although the outcomes are uncertain, Benkler is undoubtedly right that legacy media cannot achieve what would be necessary to re-establish the 20th-century consensus, i.e., a return to scarcity conditions. At base, the socio-political question comes down to normative judgments that are translated into, and reflected in, media policies. The outcomes depend greatly on the answer to an underlying question that frames debate.

Can commercial news still be a profitable business?

Perhaps the more important question yet is why we think it should be? Recent scholarship on the political economy of media (John and Silberstein-Loeb, 2015) makes clear how much the health and development of news media has always depended on many and varied forms of subsidy and cross-subsidy in the history of the newspaper industry between 1688 and 1995. State intervention has been a continual success factor, and advertising has been the most important means for subsidizing news production for three centuries.

The answer is unsatisfactory if confined to a simplistic either/or choice between for-profit and nonprofit news provision. And it is difficult to field without comparing assets that are inherent to broadcasting with networked communications. However, the tenor of media policy in recent years has prioritized networked communications over traditional mass media (Hujanen, forthcoming) to a degree that is becoming problematic. This prioritization is evident in Europe’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, issued by the European Commission in 2010, and in the 2015 decision of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block the merger of the two largest cable and internet providers in order to protect the ‘net neutrality’ principle, which suggests that all internet traffic should be treated on an equal and competitive basis (Wall Street Journal, 2015). Networked communications is the focus of media policy today (e.g., broadband, mobile and social media, net neutrality, spectrum management, digital divides, etc.).

Policy instruments often portray today’s disruptive context as fraught with risk but offering tremendous opportunity. A 2010 OECD report provides a good example:

While it is clear that newspapers and other more formalized news outlets are experiencing threats and challenges to their more traditional business models from the Internet, it is also true that we are experiencing a period of great opportunity that must be seized by industry to ensure the success of news outlets with the corresponding benefits to society and democracy that they offer. (7)

The degrees to which disruptions are actually opportunities for commercial operators are questionable given the fundamental problem in realizing sufficient profits. As John Lancaster (2010: 7) observed, ‘The internet is the most effective means of giving stuff away for free that humanity has ever devised. Actually making money from it is not just hard, it may be fundamentally opposed to the character and momentum of the net’. News is especially vulnerable because it is expensive to produce, highly perishable, widely available (at variable quality), and of uncertain relevance to the individual. This creates enormous complication for assuring a profitable enterprise in an environment where competition proliferates, much of the product is available without charge, and advertising money is increasingly diffused.

A Pew study found that in 2011 only 4% of consumers paid for news online, and that those willing to pay set the maximum at $5–10 per month for news in total (Rosenstiel and Mitchell, 2011). A recent study is more encouraging (Newman and Levy, 2014). The researchers found the percentage willing to pay has increased to about 11% in the USA and to at least 7% in the countries at the bottom end of the scale (Germany, UK, and Japan). But there was not as much evidence of growth in profits. Attitudes might be changing, but so far consumer behavior is lagging.

Legacy media news companies have high fixed costs. As a result, according to OECD findings (2010: 8), on average only 25% of total expenditure by commercial newspapers is for editorial and content work. Most of the spending is on production and maintenance (ink, paper, machinery, presses), administration, marketing and promotion, and distribution. Such firms are highly vulnerable to downturns in the economy, as obvious since 2008.

While proliferation of options and especially free-to-use access is a boon for consumers, it courts disaster for commercial news companies. The business situation amounts to ‘trading dollars for dimes’ (OECD, 2010: 96). The imperative for improved margins in both legacy and native digital news media encourages declining commitment to public service principles in news practice. This is especially evident in the growth of ‘contextual advertising’ (also called native advertising and advertorial content). News brands spent at least $3.2 billion on this in 2014, a +46.7% increase over 2013. Expenditure is forecast to reach $4.2 billion by the end of 2015 (Sebastian, 2014). Clearly, ‘the economic foundations of journalism have to be rethought’ (OECD, 2010: 12).

One decisively important problem, as Robert G. Picard (2010) observed, is that most people have never been willing to pay very much for news. Surveying news provision over the centuries, he concludes: ‘News has always been funded with income based on its value for other things’. The earliest newspapers (as such) were ‘subsidized by commercial printing activities’. Advertising funded news at the height of the industrial era, a persistent approach he calls the Mass Media Finance Model. Even so, most people have never been as interested in ‘hard news’ as one might prefer to think. This is evident in expansive content about sports, entertainment, gossip, the comics, crossword puzzles, etc.

Picard argues that,

focusing on news as a commercial product appears futile and commercial news providers would do well to put their efforts into creating other commercial activities that can subsidize news provision, such as events, education and training, bookstores, travel agencies, and a variety of merchandising activities.

Jeff Jarvis (2012, 2014) doesn’t believe either philanthropy or public funding is a viable foundation for long-term sustainability. He argues that news production and distribution must be a profitable commercial business. To achieve renewed economic development he advises ‘higher discipline,’ ‘greater rigor,’ and ‘better journalistic products.’ He is undoubtedly right about the lack of public support for funding by taxation, certainly in the amounts necessary to ensure the viability of the system as a whole. He is also right that charitable foundations are not reliable because priorities change and their capital stock depends on the general economic situation, which isn’t great for news media foundations today. But given the depth and severity of cumulative cuts in recent years, it is doubtful that most news media firms are as wasteful of resources as he implies, or that sufficiently higher efficiencies and greater productivity can be realized with a dwindling work force that is already overstretched. It is clearly true, however, that better journalistic products are essential. On this point Jarvis and Picard (2006) agree, as does Mitchell Stephens, who proposes a new standard for quality: ‘wisdom journalism,’ an amalgam of enterprise and investigative reporting blended with interpretive, explanatory, opinionated commentary (2014: xxvi).

Because the economic situation for legacy media news firms remains comparatively dire despite encouraging signs of growth in digital-based online revenues for commercial news providers (Edmonds, 2015), an essential question, as stipulated in the 2010 OECD (68) report, remains highly relevant: ‘The question is…whether and how the production of high-quality and pluralistic news content can be left to the market alone.’ As Rosenstiel (2011) observed, ‘journalism thrived in decades past because news media were the primary means by which industry reached customers. In the new media landscape, there are many ways to reach the audience and news represents only a small share.’

Legacy media news operators, especially the newspaper industry, are stuck between enduring and emerging imperatives. The dilemma was succinctly summarized by Newman and Levy (2014: 18):

Although money must be found to invest in new products, older [consumer] groups still want news delivered in traditional ways. Embracing digital is clearly the future, but news brands can’t afford to leave behind groups who still carry huge influence and drive most of the revenue.

Commercial news companies in Europe want to roll back PSB corporations (Martin and Lowe, 2014) in the hope that limiting their provision of news online will strengthen paywalls and thereby make the digital platform commercially more profitable. They argue that PSB is giving away news for free, which isn’t true. Compulsory license fees and taxation finance PSB products and services, especially news. The publics that have already paid should be able to access those services on any commonly used device. Commercial associations suggest the PSB presence hinders opportunities for business development. That might be true, but there is not yet evidence to confirm this and their hope that rolling back PSB provision of news would stimulate higher willingness to pay for news online is also unproven.

Legacy and native digital news firms alike hope that news consumers will eventually pay directly for news online, and pay much more than at present, either because they value the service enough to pay (earned) or because little is available without subscription (enforced). But to date only a handful of news media firms have succeeded with hard paywalls – mainly financial newspapers that enjoy ‘captive audiences’ given profession dependency on the information they exclusively provide (at least on a time-sensitive basis). Clay Shirky doubts the paywall strategy will work for most operators, however, and characterizes this as a rearguard, defensive strategy. ‘Paywalls have been presented as a castle keep, inside which the existing model doesn’t have to change. It’s about defending the old model’ (Economist, 2011).

Robert McChesney (2012) profoundly disagrees with Jeff Jarvis. He finds no convincing evidence that for-profit news can realize sufficient profits to satisfy stockholders without sacrificing the standards and ethic that make it useful for a democracy in the first place:

After a good decade of experimentation, it is clear that as traditional journalism disintegrates, no models for making Web journalism – even bad journalism – profitable at anywhere near the level necessary for a credible popular news media have been developed, and there is no reason to expect any in the future. (686)

As earlier remarked, however laudable this seems unlikely given public sentiment in a period when austerity has been characteristic and support for higher taxes is weak at best. Although massive subsidies aren’t in the cards, the only obviously viable sponsor for news provision that is solely in the public interest is the nonprofit sector for both legacy and digital native news media. Grant support has been as important for American online news startups. The J-Lab (2013) assessed grant support for online news projects between 2005 and 2012 and put the total at $248.5 million USD. This funding was distributed to 300+ projects across 25 states by 279 foundations. A few grants are in the range of half a million dollars and more, but the vast majority received significantly less – ranging from a few thousand to several tens of thousands. That signals trouble if grant funding gets tighter, which seems likely (Edmonds, 2015). The only ‘business model’ that has so far worked fairly well for financing online news with a distinctly public service profile is philanthropic charity supplemented with user donations (Benton, 2011).

The priority: Public service values in news provision

Preserving and developing public service values in news provision requires a vibrant system that can support both nonprofit and for-profit news providers, in both legacy media and digital native media categories. This is a tall order, but a worthy pursuit for the health of political democracy and the quality of social relations in the emerging ecology of networked communications.

Securing public service values in news will require a designed, deliberate, and dedicated effort in policy support, economic incentives, and strategic development within and across news companies and organizations of all types. In the USA, Hanscom (2014) sketched the current situation with a colorful allegory: ‘American journalists have patched together a ragtag fleet of lifeboats and makeshift rafts.’ This describes a media ecology comprised of legacy firms that are struggling to find traction in the networked environment, and native digital entities of various orientations, sizes, and economic conditions. As earlier noted, our purpose is not to defend commercial legacy media companies and institutions, nor is it to argue for the preservation of traditional public service media organizations. But in the evolving system we are discussing established providers are crucial for many reasons – including the scale of typical operations, the scope of coverage, the strength of brands, and their established value. Of greatest important, however, is the orientation of news service provision across the board rather than the vested interests of particular news organizations (see Lowe, 2010).

Thus, digital native media are extremely important. They are ‘at home’ in the networked communications environment and can play an increasingly vital role in securing news provision with a distinctly public service orientation. The Pew Research Center (2014) identified 468 native digital entities, which together accounted for nearly 5,000 full-time editorial jobs. That is keenly important given continuing decline in employment at legacy media news companies. The study categorized 30 of these entities as large. These are the widely known operators that include Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and Vice Media. The comparatively few large entities accounted for more than 3,000 jobs. The majority of native digital media news providers are commercial operations and the largest are in profit. The Huffington Post, for example, reportedly had a net turnover of at least $200 million in 2014 (Rostoff, 2014). But seven of the biggest digital native news operators are nonprofits, as well as most of the small operators. This suggests considerable diversity and bodes well for innovation successes. It underscores, as well, the need for nuanced media policies, diverse approaches in funding, and taking a systemic perspective – which entails appreciating differentiation as well as comprehensiveness.

It is encouraging to observe that the public service ethos is evident in many native digital news organizations. They often focus their work and resources on vulnerable content areas, such as local and state government accountability reporting, environmental news, and international coverage – all of which are being neglected by commercial legacy media due to cutbacks (Enda et al., 2014). And some of the most influential digital natives are partnered with major legacy firms. This is evident in collaborations among larger players such as ProPublica, the New York Times, and the Public Broadcasting Service (the USA’s public television system). Even tiny operators such as Jersey Shore Hurricane News, a one-person digital entity that covers weather-related issues in the Eastern USA, have partnered with public radio stations in the region to extend their reach. Significantly, there is considerable parallel in operational values, as well. Native digital news sites are typically committed to localism, want to engage citizen voices and involvement, and believe in the fundamental role of journalism for vigorous democratic discourse.

Although the big native digital news operators are important, the scope of their operations tends to be quite broad. As earlier argued, that remains essential for robust public discourse. But it is equally important to nurture small operators, often entrepreneurial in nature, to ensure diversity across the many levels of social life. Of the 438 entities identified in the 2014 Pew study, about half are registered nonprofits and therefore eligible under the U.S. tax code to accept tax-exempt contributions, similar to the model that finances U.S. public broadcasters (Jurkowitz, 2014). News system diversity matters for pluralism, inclusion, democracy, and innovation. Becoming fixated on one sector, one type of operator, one industry, or one approach is potentially disastrous.

Implications for policy, practice, and education

We close with three observations that have actionable implications. First, the substance of this discussion calls into question the consuming focus on networked communications as the normative basis for all media policy today. Networked communications are valuable for resolving thorny issues that were characteristic of mass media. However, print and broadcast news remain essential for coverage and provision. The development of native digital media doesn’t mean the end of legacy media. This is evident in the popularity of legacy sites online and the preference of many for legacy company products. While the concept of ‘mass’ in media is less useful, providing news and information on a broad basis that prioritizes the public interest is as important today as ever (Webster, 2014). Legacy media do much more of this than native digital media, especially as comprehensive services. Policy makers and academics alike would be wise to think more carefully about assumptions that ground their visions for a future media system without mass media.

Second and tightly related, our discussion underscores the persistent importance of traditional public service values in journalistic practice and news production – in short, of a public service ethos. We are not implying an institutional label. Supports are necessary to ensure that commercial operations can realize a reasonable profit. In fact, there are benefits that can only be gained by organizing journalism as a news business. Some of the most important include accountability to customers, the potential for keeping a healthy distance from government interference (both direct and indirect) that can result from dependence on tax-based funding, and a strategic orientation that prioritizes investment and development.

A caution is in order, however. Legacy firms are unlikely to regain the hefty profit margins of past times and the drive to approximate that is encouraging problematic journalistic practices. This is evident in the rise of contextual advertising. The fundamental professional ethic that has been of such determinant importance in establishing journalism as the Fourth Estate is no longer as strong, as clear or as true. This is why we emphasize a reasonable profit. It is certainly within the purview of every legacy media news provider to be vigilant in preserving the public service ethos in news provision and to develop this as the characteristic professional code for journalistic practice in the native digital environment.

Third, our discussion encourages renewed effort to reinvent public service news in the era of networked communications. To achieve that, effort will be required in at least four crucial aspects: (a) ensuring the sustainability of nonprofit news operations; (b) ensuring the viability of for-profit news companies; (c) building a diverse, energetic, and balanced news media system that can fairly accommodate the benefits of both institutional and noninstitutional provision, in both commercial and nonprofit operations; and (d) incorporating a larger role for journalism education in developing new models for professionalism and media entrepreneurship.

To the latter aspect, journalism education may thus be seen as a bridge across the divides that have separated commercial and nonprofit sectors, and institutional and noninstitutional models. This implies purposefully going beyond the so-called teaching hospital model of industry/academy relations, in which – akin to medical education – journalism students learn by observing and following media professionals. While the ‘teaching hospital’ approach may be valuable in terms of internships and practicums, it may serve to reinforce traditional legacy methods of practice. As Mensing and Ryfe contend (2013: 27):

Our argument is that this model, if practiced by many journalism schools, could actually slow the response to change. The metaphor implies that journalism is a settled profession with clear boundaries that needs only to be practiced more rigorously, instead of a field with its most fundamental premises unraveling. Rather than creating conditions for students to help re-think journalistic practices, the teaching hospital model reinforces the conviction that content delivery is the primary purpose of journalism. Put simply, it makes it hard for students to think differently.

This would serve to develop much-needed new conceptions of journalistic ‘professionalism’ in the networked communications ecology. Waisbord argues that ‘professional journalism remains an ambiguous and contested notion’ (2013: 15). The concept has been described in different manners: among them, in terms of a normative ideal for public service; as a way to claim boundaries from other sectors and deter external influence; and as a way to organize labor roles and define operational practice (see, for example, Jarvis, 2014; Rosen, 1999; Singer, 2007; Stavitsky, 1995; Stephens, 2014; Zelizer, 2005). Hallin and Mancini’s oft-cited model (2004: 34–37) emphasizes the centrality of autonomy (i.e., control of work process), distinct professional norms, and an ethic of public service. Clearly each of these aspects is under stress in the emerging ecology. Therefore, explication and acceptance of a ‘New Professionalism’ will be important going forward and is certainly worthy of academic and industrial attention.

In closing, we suggest the objective of building a vibrant and comprehensive news system that is suited for the era of networked communications is unlikely to be achieved to a sufficient degree by industry, academe, and citizen producers working separately. We thereby call for a new era of ‘co-opetitive’ relationships – a fairly recent concept to describe relations that are in some ways and sometimes cooperative but in other ways and at other times competitive. This is reflected in shifting forms of partnership, collaboration, networks, and co-production.

It is clear that the key problems are systemic rather than particular to one operation or a group of operations, and are typical in the pursuit of innovative development and in entrepreneurial enterprises: economic straits, managerial incompetence, legacy perspectives, high market volatility, considerable variation in conditions and opportunities, etc. At the same time, the key findings indicate a generally shared set of recommendations, as reported earlier. Because the key problems are systemic, the solutions will also necessarily be systemic. This is not to imply that the same set of solutions will apply everywhere (i.e., uniformity). It is to encourage a comprehensive approach in supporting the development of online journalism that prioritizes news as public service and not as a commodity primarily.

Each element will have distinctive properties in particular societal contexts. Funding will involve variable proportions of revenue from subscriptions, donations, grants, sponsorship, advertising, and services that can include events, reports, consulting, and hosting. It is likely that for most online news operations a mixture of streams will be required to achieve profitability, which is crucial not only for sustainability but also for investment in the pursuit of further development in an evolving operational environment. Training is crucial to ensure the quality of contents, operations, and management. Journalistic education in most universities is evolving to accommodate the contextual characteristics of professional employment that is both more entrepreneurial than earlier and requires a far higher degree of multiskilling. Management and business training are no longer luxuries for journalistic operations, but key success factors and should be prioritized in this connection.

Although each element will have distinctive properties, operational success requires integration because these are interdependent factors. Systemic development is a crucial requirement. This suggests the keen importance of building support among a wide range of societal agents that will include corporations, governments, and institutions. The kind and proportions of contributions and aspects of leadership will vary, but this tripartite configuration is necessary to ensure the economic viability of public service provision in tomorrow’s news media ecology, which matters greatly for the development of contemporary democracy as a system process and set of civic practices. Our interest, as emphasized repeatedly, is keyed to continually developing one media legacy of supreme importance to the character and quality of social life: the public service orientation in news provision and journalistic practice.

All of this said, it is essential to understand that this matters only to the extent that it matters to the public. Much more effort is needed to understand how people think and feel about news, about journalism, and about their expectations. More effort is also needed to communicate effectively about what is happening and what is at stake in the symbiosis among journalism as a practice, media as an industry, and democracy as a system. It won’t be enough to communicate with policy makers. In the networked ecology the stakeholders are far broader and more numerous. And most important by far are the people who are paying the bills and using the services – or not.