Foundation-funded Journalism

There's a piece in the New Yorker that suggests that private foundations or rich patrons could be used to keep newspapers afloat.

This is an interesting idea. However, with the profit motive gone, the question becomes what exactly these foundations should try to preserve.

I doubt it would be worth preserving the print newspaper itself. The real goal should be to preserve independent, objective, local journalism. I think that's what people are really concerned about: accountability and independent local news vanishing along with the newspaper.

Bloggers could try to fill in the void, but good journalism requires both time and money. I could see a foundation or wealthy individual providing those resources. If it becomes widely known that advertising can no longer fund journalism, you might even see people becoming full-time reporters/bloggers if they have the resources to support themselves. If people really thought there would be no local news if they didn't do it, there might be an increase in the feeling of a moral obligation to report.

Some university research depends on privately donated funding; there's no reason some journalism can't be supported the same way.

There are some ethical issues with this funding model because journalism sites could lose the financial obligation to maintain high traffic (and therefore to write what readers want to read). Depending on your point of view, this might be a good thing since it would reduce the incentive for sensationalism. But if preserving accountability to the public is the goal, giving readers the opportunity to force change in a publication by not reading it is critical.

If a foundation wanted to keep this incentive around, it could just not fully fund a publication. Then, the publication would still be dependent on ad revenue to meet a portion of its expenses, and the incentive to seek high traffic would remain.